Alliance Pharmacy (Formerly Moss Pharmacy) called upon retail training and consulting company First Friday to deliver training to its 8,000 staff in 850 stores nationwide. The training programme, which began in September 2004 and completed in July 2005, supported the roll out of a new in-store system. First Friday supported the creation of a bespoke programme for store staff which included training around till operation, stock management, shelf edge labelling, cash management and management reporting. The new system gives Alliance Pharmacy greater visibility of sales and stock and will increase efficiency in stores.

The project involved a team of First Friday retail training consultants and included practical exercises, customer scenarios and practice time to encourage staff to feel confident in their roles. First Friday also supported the development of the training materials and user manuals, and operated a Help Desk for the go-live period.

Hossein Parvin was the Programme Director for Alliance Pharmacy: ‘First Friday worked in partnership with us to deliver an efficient solution for the business. We liked their practical approach to training the staff with a focus on the actual role, as opposed to just the functions they need to perform’.

Simon Liebling, Director of Information Technology at Alliance Pharmacy and a joint sponsor of the Programme added: ‘First Friday worked well with us to meet our objectives and their practical retail experience meant that they understood our priorities and the pressures we were facing. This was a major project and First Friday’s support ensured we met our targets and deadlines.’

Tony Wright, Training Director at First Friday commented on the programme: ‘The introduction of the new system has brought significant changes to the way in which the team at Alliance Pharmacy works. It has been important for us to be sensitive to this fact as many of the staff were unfamiliar with EPoS and back office systems – our aim was to ensure store teams felt confident in what they were doing, as well as ensuring the benefits of the programme were realised.’