COMPANY PROFILE
Taking Stock of Stocktaking
Jack Wills Put the Union Jack on the Map and Then Raised the Total Loss Flag
By John Wilson, Executive Editor
The Oxford Dictionary defines the word 'preppy' as 'a pupil or graduate of an expensive preparatory school or a person resembling such a pupil in clothing or appearance.' To embrace this word is to say hello to the world of Jack Wills, the dress-down tailored look and international signature for quintessentially English clothing targeting stylishly upmarket youths or those aspiring to look every bit preppy.
A late twentieth century and early noughties British success story, Jack Wills (JW) was created in 1996 in the upmarket sailing town of Salcombe in South Devon, the essential second home of the 'haves and have yachts', where it rapidly reinvented itself as a university apparel brand to acquire the threads of an aspirational English wardrobe.
The pheasant-crested garments, a playful homage to the game hunting and shooting image of upper-class England, rapidly and cleverly filled a gap in the market for younger upwardly mobile youngsters whose clothes presented an instantly recognisable understated British confidence. This was supported by the locations of its stores in the affluent university towns and cities of the UK rather than the mass-market shopping centres. Even here, in locations such as Winchester, Brighton, Kingston, and Tonbridge Wells, Jack Wills went that extra mile and was to be found only in the most prestigious historic Grade II listed frontages to support its brand values of quirky, eccentric, and individual styling.
Consequently, the brand has been highly desirable in the US, but only thus far opening in the same types of locations, Nantucket, Boston, and Martha's Vineyard, for example. There it maintains JW's Union flag enigma by also exporting English managers in continuous professional development (CPD) training to help push the must-have British 'preppiness' across to the Ivy League campuses of the east coast.
Such has been the success of the brand that the store is also now to be found in other town centres in more-vanilla boxed shopping centres, although the preppy idiosyncratic concept is still at the centre of its growth strategy.
Stocktaking
Preppy is also a derivation of the word 'prep' as in prep school, the private feeder schools to the cream of British education. Prep is also the shortened version of the verb 'to prepare,' and it is in this latter context that Jack Wills has turned its focus as it plays catch up with the collateral damage of its runaway success on both sides of the Atlantic.
In short, the game bird was a highly colourful target because the quality tailored clothing makes the JW brand highly desirable to store thieves. Capturing levels of malicious versus non-malicious shrink has proved challenging for this entrepreneurial brand that is all about ensuring the best customer experience. Occupying Grade I and II listed buildings with lots of nooks and crannies and non-CCTV-friendly corners has further challenged the loss prevention team, so head of LP Gary Tattersall has taken a 'back to basics, belt, and braces' approach to capturing the accuracy of stock counts so that he can identify the brand's total loss and deploy solutions accordingly.
Tattersall, who previously worked at mass merchandise brand Wilko, is an advocate of total loss, a school of thought developed by Professor Adrian Beck from the University of Leicester and the academic advisor to the ECR (Efficient Consumer Response) Europe Shrinkage & On-shelf Availability Group. This in turn is a version of total inventory integrity brought into popular currency by Phil Wrigley, the previous chief executive of New Look, who in an interview with LP Magazine EU in December 2014 said, "There is no board of any merit that is not focused on stock availability and file accuracy in a moving and mobile world. If they get those figures wrong, you have lost your stock and lost your customer."
Accurate stock files are the Holy Grail for all retailers. An accurate inventory not only means that losses, both malicious and non-malicious, are effectively managed, but also in a digital omni-channel world, retailers can guarantee availability in line with the customer's heightened expectations. In short, lose less and sell more.
Stocktaking used to be the preserve of legions of counters of either store staff after hours or stocktaking teams from external companies, but growth in mobile technology has rendered this labour-intensive task redundant. It is now as simple as downloading an app and sweeping a smart phone scanner to bring real-time results rather than waiting weeks for a full report. The new approach is proactive allowing action to be taken in hours rather than twice yearly and revisited on a regular basis to iron out any issues.
So it was little wonder that taking stock of stocktaking was the first priority for Tattersall and his small team. Previously, Jack Wills had outsourced the count for fear of data contamination, potential collusion, and perceived time saving because internal stock counts take store staff away from the all-important customer journey.
However, long and involved third-party counts proved expensive and were not always accurate. So 2016 saw Jack Wills look to new technology to come up with a solution.
Tattersall rolled-out a solution that effectively democratised the stock count process allowing staff, from senior managers to part-time Saturday workers, to capture accurate data in a fraction of the time taken by the third-party provider.
"I did the maths, and overnight we created a 40 per cent saving on time and greatly improved efficiency," said Tattersall.
"Not only that, but also all of our staff can count stock in real-time, and it drives sales and a sense of ownership among the store's senior team."
Along with Roger Clark, JW's stock audit and compliance manager, and Sham Ahmed, the manager from the Richmond store who is on a six-month secondment with the loss prevention team, Tattersall conducted the April count at the Kingston-upon-Thames store, a four-floor listed building that grandly overlooks the market square.
The store staff completed the stock count, which historically would have taken a full day, before lunchtime using hand-held scanners that take a photograph of the barcode rather than a scan, which provides greater accuracy.
Ownership at Store Level
Accompanied by Kingston store manager Sam Gurney, the team completed a full store count and verification by 11 a.m., having only commenced at 8 a.m.
"Because it is my store and the system is so easy to use, it gives me total accountability and ownership for the count," said Gurney. "This suits me more than having an external count because as store manger I know the context of any discrepancies, if deliveries have not been made, for example. There is instant real-time reporting on the website, which is a significant benefit.
"Having full ownership and accountability is so important because it ensures that all the discrepancies and thefts are reported and investigated as you take discrepancies personally, you are never going to say that loss is not my problem.
"The system allows me to understand the context of discrepancies and pinpoint issues, so I know the difference between malicious and non-malicious losses. From that I can identify the hot spots in the store, and I can take remedial action including walking the shop floor more regularly or identifying areas for tagging so that we sell more and lose less.
"I have always found as a store manager that it is preferable to do stocktakes yourself because you are not doubling the workload. Gone are the days when stocktakes would send a shiver down my spine. This new system makes it a much easier process."
Visibility
The Hart System is the first stage in what Tattersall sees as the nirvana of RFID technology, which JW will embrace over the next few years so that the brand takes total control of its stock inventory.
"For me this is all about visibility, and yes, the next stage is RFID to fix the issues that this system has begun to identify," said Tattersall. "For now we are happy with this technology. It is a huge step forward from where we were three years ago, and the 40 per cent saving is probably conservative, it is money back that goes onto the business bottom line.
"I am delighted with the accuracy of the hand-held scanners because it takes a picture and converts it into a barcode. It is unique to anything else we have ever seen, and it is so easy to use. It does not feel cumbersome, and users are not confused. You could give it to any member of staff, even those who only work a few hours per week, and conduct a total count in no time at all.
"Inventory control is so important, and this allows us to pull reports based on accuracy and speed of scanning, which we have built KPIs around."
Clark added, "We single scan every item, so it captures every size even though they look identical. An external count would not necessarily pick that out, and apart from the length of time a stocktake used to take to complete, we could not previously have confidence in the integrity of the count."
For Ahmed, who has seen the system as a store manager in Richmond and now as an LP professional, the results speak for themselves.
"It was not only the speed of the count, but also the fact that we no longer have to man-mark the previous counters, which is a huge saving in time and efficiency. Previously we never finished before 4 p.m. after starting at seven in the morning.
"It is now completed in three hours compared to nine, which means a huge all-round saving. Because staff are not stock counters but customer assistants, we are seeing the best of both worlds and the democratisation of the process. In addition to this, we are not tied to the annual count - we can carry out another count in a month to make sure that we are staying on track."
Tattersall added, "This is world-class reporting that we are pushing out to the stores, and it gives me an action plan to go to the board with.
"It is also a cheaper system because we rent the scanners. This means that if they send me ten scanners and I only use two, we are only charged for what we use. It is in that way very bespoke.
"Hart has understood the Jack Wills journey and has customised the product to our business needs, which allows us to take it to the next level - a true collaboration.
"After the count it becomes a live report. Hart has made this report specific to us by taking a lot of data and simplifying it, which means taking a complex set of figures and making it relevant to the store."
Ahmed added, "By the end of the day, they will have a preliminary plan. And after five days, we will have a more complex strategy. This means we have gone from no information to having a full and accurate report - it is part of the Jack Wills journey."
Big Bang Disruptors
This technology simply did not exist before, and rather like the smart phone itself, it has become a game changer for the way companies do business. Every phone sold today has a higher-resolution camera, which means everyone is now a photographer in the digital age. The images are shared in their millions every day on social media.
Likewise store staff have been empowered to carry out their own counts and share the data with the business, and all before opening hours.
Mike Finch of Hart Systems, which is now Zebra Retail Solutions in the US, said, "Today's store counting technology needs to be simple. We have been able to provide self inventory since 1964, so we can follow the emerging trends, talk to the customers, and adapt solutions to their requirements to work with today's dominant technologies and ways of doing business. It is working with the best available technologies and the most knowledgeable associates in the market."
Now solutions are bringing RFID into the equation as we are all now looking at the next stage of development and the so-called Internet of Things to facilitate greater efficiency for retailers and benefit other areas of the business outside of LP. It is all cloud-based and real-time, and the intelligence provides a great reporting tool that gives retailers more commercially granular information to take to their buyers and merchandisers, for example.
If you want to build a business case on losses to identify the biggest risk in order to build a case for rebate or improving availability, the existing technology can design reports accordingly. It is truly and simply as cross-functional as that.
Such advances in technology have long been predicted as ubiquitous broadband communication brought faster, cheaper services in what is called the Big Bang Disruption Theory. This means stocktaking companies of today will increasingly have to diversify to offer their own versions of the solutions or go out of business.
No doubt in the future there will simply be smart phone apps that allow instant stocktakes through RFID that guarantee 100 per cent accuracy. This means not only losing less stock, but also ensuring greater availability and the ability to sell more and keep customers loyal and happy.
In the meantime, the quirky pheasant motif of Jack Wills is not only able to change from game to gamekeeper but also to game changer so much so in fact that when it comes to maintaining its stock accuracy the much-loved preppy brand is totally prepared for the future and is no longer out for the count.
