Guest Column
Managing Your Action Plan Guest Series Part 3
By Eric White, director of retail strategy, Wren Solutions
This article, the third in a three-part series, discusses the importance of acting on information collected in the audit. The first article in this series, "Retail Fusion — The Benefits Of Organizational Visibility", can be seen here and the second in the series, "Achieving Visibility", can be seen here.
In the previous two parts of this article series, we discussed the importance of identifying risks to the organization by leveraging existing information in the retail organization, such as data from the POS, video, audits, and accounting systems. Part two dealt with strategies for centralizing and lending context to information collected. The third, perhaps most important part of achieving operational visibility, deals with managing and tracking the actionable information so that timely, tangible improvements are seen in the store, and operational efficiency and risk mitigation are achieved.
Before starting this step, retailers should avoid potential pitfalls in managing an action plan across the organization: Inconsistent follow-up; no mechanisms in place to ensure completion; or the inability to track resolutions that require longer-term planning. The result can be that the valuable information is collected and consolidated, but not used to full advantage.
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