Earlier this week I got to go on a behind the scenes tour of a new Target that opened in our community to learn about their business practices - hiring, training, supply chain, safety, branding, customer segmenting, yada, yada.
By all accounts, they are a smokin' financial success. Here were some observations I found interesting:
* They have a handful of tentants/values they teach - one is a clutter free environment. Their break room, back offices, store managers offices and warehouse (which by the way is tiny relative to the size of the store - they are so effeciient they keep very little inventory in the store) are just as neat, clean and well lit as the inside of the store. The store managers desks were all clean - its an expectation of management - they swore up and down that it is like that pretty much all the time -not just because a tour was coming through.
* They apply the 80-20 rule to everything - it came up several times
* They don't allow themselves to go numb to information...even the employee bulletin boards are mapped out just like store merchandise - a bulletin board in LA looks the same as a bulletin board in Minneapolis and they change it out periodically to keep people looking at it.
Just interesting.
By all accounts, they are a smokin' financial success. Here were some observations I found interesting:
* They have a handful of tentants/values they teach - one is a clutter free environment. Their break room, back offices, store managers offices and warehouse (which by the way is tiny relative to the size of the store - they are so effeciient they keep very little inventory in the store) are just as neat, clean and well lit as the inside of the store. The store managers desks were all clean - its an expectation of management - they swore up and down that it is like that pretty much all the time -not just because a tour was coming through.
* They apply the 80-20 rule to everything - it came up several times
* They don't allow themselves to go numb to information...even the employee bulletin boards are mapped out just like store merchandise - a bulletin board in LA looks the same as a bulletin board in Minneapolis and they change it out periodically to keep people looking at it.
Just interesting.