High Street Projects

Instigated by Whitbread shortly after their acquisition of the Costa business, this twelve-month project arose following a campaign of new openings, the majority of which were failing.  The brief was to find out why.

A major analysis was conducted of the business, including the first detailed customer survey ever undertaken by the brand.  The core elements contributing to any successful high street sites were identified, and together with the outcomes of the highly successful customer survey, exposed the causes of the site failures.  Whitbread then commissioned a second brief requiring us to provide a site evaluation assessment procedure, to be used by their agents and the Costa management team.  This process was successfully adopted and Costa's site opening strategy was transformed, gaining market share, and profit growth.

The consultancy was appointed to assist Faith in a review of its acquisition processes and to evaluate the best opportunities for future growth.  This arose after the new business owners found that their store-opening programme was delivering loss-making outlets.  Their acquisition strategy was based on a flawed analysis of the business, completed at the time of the takeover of the business by new investors.  This analysis had recommended a specific range of town centres and target markets to attack.  The new management team adopted these recommendations with unfortunate results.

After detailed analysis of the entire outlet portfolio (shops and concessions) and other key datasets, we identified critical flaws in the advice given to them by their original advisors.  We provided Faith Directors with a clear vision for profitable outlet growth.  The brand corrected their opening strategy, enabling it to resume continued growth, despite the prevailing retail climate.

Working as a consultant to Historical Collections Group plc, Sy Grierson assisted  the Company to launch the Past Times brand on the 'high street' and then joined the company, managing the rapid growth from a handful of shops to a retail chain of 70 outlets.  Sy became expert in property management, retail design and project management.  Later, Past Times became part of a retail group, operating three additional retail brands, and Sy was appointed Group Property and Retail Development Manager of an estate of 150+ properties.  After returning to consultancy, Sy completed projects for Past Times, including the relocation of their head office, opening a large number of Christmas temporary stores, and working with design consultants Foster Gearing on a new store design.

Originally a small mail order & web based operation, we have worked extensively with Pia to launch a retail presence on the 'high street'.  As a result of Sy Grierson's transformation of the sales performance of the pilot store, Pia Directors then embarked on further openings with our full assistance.  We also provided retail general management, and assisted the company in establishing a full retail infrastructure including HR, H & S, and Retail POS & Marketing campaigns.  Training and development of all levels of the expanding retail team was a constant element of our support.  We project managed each new store opening, from site selection through to store opening.  Such has been the success of the retail growth, the brand has expanded its Head Office and field team to support further outlet growth this year.