Marks & Spencer (M&S), a leading British retailer known for its diverse product offerings and innovative operations, faced significant challenges in managing labor across its complex and varied store formats. By partnering with Logile, M&S has successfully transitioned from a fragmented Excel-based labor model to an advanced labor modeling and staff planning solution, achieving precise scheduling curves at each individual store level, streamlined processes, enhanced data visibility, and scalable solutions tailored to its needs.
Key Business Challenges
M&S previously relied on a manual, Excel-based labor modeling tool, which involved managing approximately 600 shops, each with 15+/- unique departments, with multiple spreadsheets per department. Transforming the legacy Excel labor model output into a schedulable demand to be used by M&S’s workforce management solution was difficult given the high number of stores and each store’s unique, complex staffing requirements across multiple departments. This approach presented several obstacles:
- Complexity: Managing labor requirements for diverse departments such as bakery, clothing, café, and click-and-collect services was cumbersome and prone to errors.
- Inefficiency: The existing labor modeling tool was resource-intensive with limited functionality, leading to data inconsistencies and inefficiencies in converting demand into actionable shifts.
- Operational Diversity: The varied nature of M&S’s store formats, ranging from high street stores to department stores with overnight replenishment, often required a flexible, customizable solution.
Logile’s Solution
M&S implemented Logile Labor Planning Solutions to address these challenges, including enterprise labor standards, labor modeling and staff planning. The phased implementation involved close collaboration between Logile and M&S to tailor the solution to their unique operational requirements.
“We looked at three vendors to replace our legacy Excel labor modeling tool, and ultimately Logile was the only company that could deliver on our complex staffing requirements,” noted Jos Howell, M&S’s Store Resource Manager.
Key features of the solution included:
- Granular Labor Modeling: Logile’s platform calculates staffing needs using historical data and task-specific metrics, ensuring accurate labor allocation for diverse operations.
- Streamlined Processes: The intuitive user interface simplifies modeling and planning and allows for centralized data management, eliminating the need for multiple spreadsheets.
- Enhanced Data Control: The system tracks changes, records reasons for updates, and improves version control, ensuring transparency and accuracy.
“Before Logile, our team would use the Excel models to produce how many labor hours each store needed. Our scheduling solution would spread those hours into scheduling curves that colleagues could be scheduled against. However, since our scheduling system can’t configure to each individual store needs, it always ended up with differences in an allocation versus what the store saw,” Jos explained. “So we wanted a labor planning solution that could handle that granularity, and that’s what Logile gives us. The solution is so flexible and enables us to make bespoke scheduling curves for stores because it can configure every store individually.”
Delivering Impactful Results
The implementation of Logile’s solution has delivered measurable improvements for M&S:
- Simplified Staff Planning and Scheduling: The platform has significantly reduced the complexity of managing and scheduling labor across varied departments, including automated processes for labor model maintenance, increased productivity, and more precise, store-specific staffing allocation.
- Improved Visibility: M&S now has centralized control of labor data, making it easier to plan and schedule, and quicker to identify and address discrepancies.
- Scalability: Logile’s solution supports M&S’s diverse operational needs, showcasing its adaptability across varied retail segments.
“The Logile system is much more advanced than our old tool but still easier to work with, and our team really likes using it. Everything is in one place instead of 12 separate Excel models. Logile’s labor model configured store- and department-specific staffing rules across approximately 180 labor tasks and a 15-minute level staffing demand, which is fantastic for efficient labor planning and scheduling. We also have more up-to-date data – for example, customer shopping patterns that we would only update in the Excel labor model once a quarter are now updated on a six-week rolling basis to more effectively place staffing where we need it to serve our customers,” Jos commented.
“We look forward to using the mobile app so our field teams can review store characteristics and streamline new-store opening processes with the ability to add and automatically upload key labor modeling data directly from the app during their store visits. That is a huge upgrade from the manual paper and Excel process.”
The M&S team has praised Logile’s flexibility and customer-centric approach throughout the project. Jos highlighted the intuitive nature of the platform and Logile’s ability to address unique requirements such as overnight staffing and public holiday adjustments.
“Logile’s flexibility to adapt to our needs was instrumental in achieving this transformation,” Jos noted. “Throughout the rollout, the Logile team was extremely helpful with training, triage, custom configurations, and just super supportive throughout that whole journey.”
What is Next for M&S
The collaboration between M&S and Logile underscores the importance of configurable solutions that address the unique and often complex challenges of modern retail operations. By transitioning to Logile’s Labor Planning Platform, M&S has positioned itself for continued success in delivering exceptional customer experiences while optimizing operational efficiency.
