First Friday Building capability in retail

Spring 2010 Newsletter

June 07 2010 - 11:00

We thought it was time to digitally blossom...

This spring, First Friday launches its new website.

Why did we decide to blossom and spring into action with a new online experience? We’ve listened to our clients who wanted more information on our company, our people and our experience working with the strongest names in retail.

So we have put together a website that we hope you will find simple to navigate, rich in product overviews, case studies, opinion, news and events information. Additionally if you are interested, you can now follow First Friday on Twitter.

It’s been a brilliant start to our year with some significant customer wins and tremendous feedback from ongoing training, skills and change management projects. We hope that you enjoy reading about these industry leading initiatives on our website.

Communications Hit the Mark:

This month, the First Friday communications team has been delivering a wide variety of communications projects to our customers. Our role is to support retailers in making the smooth transition through a period of change, to “business as usual”. This is because we firmly believe that clear communications can help to successfully deliver all forms of change and so significantly improve business performance.

On any project, regular communication is vital to ensure employees know what’s happening around them, how it will affect them and the benefits it will deliver. First Friday can help with this by creating bespoke communications programmes which enable people’s understanding of company change.

Every client has different needs and so each strategy and every deliverable is unique. There’s no set formula for creating engaging communications, and every business needs a different approach… but we always enjoy a challenge! We pride ourselves on employing the most relevant message, media and channels to ensure our communications really hit the mark.

Recent projects include:

Training & Development - Stores:

  • Development and delivery of training to support a new stock and cash management system for a large hospitality business
  • EPoS and back office system rollout for mobile phone retailer - Development of a blended training solution involving both eLearning and training course solutions
  • Designing and delivering the workshop and assessment content for Level 2 Diploma in Retail skills
  • Developed the training strategy, needs analysis and plan for a 2,500 store EPoS programme

Training & Development - Buying & Merchandising / Trading / Commercial:

  • eLearning and classroom training for buying system rollout
  • Classroom training for a new MIS system to a fashion retailers buying and merchandising teams
  • Pilot implementation training for a Merchandise Planning system for a major retailer
  • Development & delivery of an introductory course on trading and forecasting to over 50 junior B&M staff
  • Development and delivery of training for a new Asset Management System across a large retail group
  • Development of two induction workshops for a commercial support office function
  • Developed training materials to support a Planning system implementation plus tailored sessions around job role and the new processes involved
  • A new round of skills training to capture new starters on a WSSI system

Training & Development – Management Development:

  • Design and delivery of a Train The Trainer programme for an internal business team to deliver training for a nationwide change project
  • Executive coaching support for the executive team of a niche retail business
    Communications:
  • Delivery of programme communications across 14 workstreams of large scale change programme for a UK retailer with 400+ stores
  • Creation of a promotional DVD to raise awareness of progress of an EPoS implementation to a top 900 senior management team
  • Managing and developing the communications for a maintenance & asset management system change programme
  • Supporting a group wide business change programme for a large retailer with an innovative internal communication programme using a wide range of media 

Business Change:

  • Delivering Change Management leadership for a systems replacement programme
  • Providing business change support to a number of workstreams as part of a programme to develop a Retailers future facing strategy
  • Managing the Business Change aspects, in particular for training and communications, of a systems implementation across 2 large retailers