First Friday has completed the communications for the first phase of a strategic change project at Dixons Stores Group (DSG). Europe’s biggest electrical retailer is upgrading its store systems and processes over a period of three years in an initiative called the Branch Programme. First Friday have been engaged to help build a strategy, working with the programme team, to communicate the changes to staff. First Friday have extensive experience advising businesses on the best channels of communication and the best messages dependent on the audience and the complexity and speed of change involved.

First Friday began work in July 2002 and by the end of August they helped deliver a communications strategy that branded the project, giving it a name and a logo. The training and change management specialist also helped identify opportunities to develop the understanding and buy in of the Group’s head office and store staff by way of both verbal and written communications. Briefings, posters and intranet communications were all employed to ensure that the transition was as seamless as possible. Communications materials will continue to be reviewed and developed throughout the roll out period to ensure that it meets the ongoing requirements of each individual brand.

It was Branch Programme Director Kath Roach who was responsible for engaging the services of First Friday She commented: “First Friday’s contribution to the development of our communications programme was invaluable. Any sort of change programme requires communications to support it and they are inseparable. It is something however that is often undervalued.

“The communications programme they helped develop addressed these issues and helped the workforce to adapt to the new ways of working across all levels in stores. Tony Wright and his team are highly professional and their flexibility and positive attitude to the issues in hand made them the ideal business partner.” Roach concludes.

The Branch Programme commenced in June 2002 and first delivered eclipse in The Link, Dunstable in June 2003. 26 stores took part in the pilot and by November 2003 all 288 of The Link stores were trading on eclipse. It is one of the biggest change programmes undertaken by Dixons Stores Group in over ten years and will impact almost every part of the Group, its 30,000 staff and 1,400 stores.

eclipse improves and enhances the level of service provided to customers whilst at the same time ensuring that the Dixons Stores Group keeps ahead of the marketplace. eclipse is a state of the art system that delivers store processes across all Dixons’ chains.

In order to support the roll out a comprehensive communications programme is being delivered to the branches and relevant head office functions. This provides information on the launch, the pilot and the main roll out, planned for completion by 2005.