Axstores, Sweden

Axstores is one of the leading retail groups in Europe,  with well-known brands such as Åhléns, Kicks, Esthetique and Lagerhaus.  The group brought First Friday in to provide specialist external change management support for the implementation of a new merchandise management system from Oracle.

To facilitate the implementation of this new system and by default the processes and organisational design changes, a change team was appointed internally and First Friday were brought in to provide the necessary training. The First Friday change management methodology was used in order to ensure they understood the objectives, activities and deliverables of change management and how change management integrates in to the overall project process. The team were then supported and coached by First Friday to deliver all change activities during the initial months of the project, before gradually handing full responsibility over to the team.

Through First Friday’s clear and effective work, Axstores could now see that change management is a necessity rather than a ‘nice to have’. They also recognised the value of early engagement of their people, which indeed lead to enhanced business and project team decisions.
The Axstores team then assumed all responsibility for change activities for the remainder of the project including developing and delivering training, communication, stakeholder management and business engagement workshops. The business now has transferable internal change management skills which can be applied to future projects.