Thresher Group engaged the services of First Friday following a major investment by the Group in a new Merchandising System. The investment represents part of a major drive by Thresher Group to move away from existing legacy systems to a new system providing improved stock management and control through greater visibility, implementation of new processes and greater management information across the organisation.

A dedicated First Friday team has been put in place, drawing on extensive experience within the retail sector to support the implementation across all parts of the business.

The system’s two core functions – stock accounting and central replenishment are being delivered in two phases.

The implementation of the stock accounting system has been the first phase to be introduced and is now coming close to completion. As Thresher Group’s Business Change Programme Manager Jackie Condon explains, this critical phase impacts on all parts of the business and forms the core of the merchandising system.

“The introduction of the stock accounting function has resulted in a fundamental change in processes and is integral to the whole system. It was therefore critical that the implementation of this stage of the project went as smoothly as possible and it was for this reason that we sought specialist help in training our users.

“We initially used our IT partners to assist in this process, but found this to be ineffective. What we needed was someone who could understand our business culture and the impact of the implementation of the system on the numerous processes that are involved.

“It was First Friday’s retail experience that appealed to us most rather than the training aspect. They clearly had an excellent understanding of the retail industry end to end and this played a major factor in our selection process.”

The training programme was designed together with support materials including a training manual and exercises and was actually delivered by the users under the supervision of First Friday over a three week period and involved a total of 40 people receiving training.

The second stage of the training programme now involves First Friday reviewing the processes and identifying any further areas where training is required.

First Friday is also working on store briefings and defining how the stores should follow the processes in-store. Unlike the head office training, the First Friday team will directly conduct the briefing sessions to all 2,200 Thresher Group stores.

Jackie Condon continued: “The implementation of the new JDA merchandising system is a major step for us but a necessary one in order to achieve the financial and operational benefits of a more centralised system.

“The First Friday team have greatly assisted in the implementation of this and we are delighted with the initial results.

“We have developed an excellent relationship with First Friday and will be utilising their services to support us in implementation of the Central Replenishment function which is the second phase”