Cus­tomer Ob­ses­sion & Re­tail Ex­cel­lence

In his role as Global Retail Operations Director, Fernando Nadal is behind the coordination and standardization of the way in which Dufry operates each of its 2,400 stores. With a clear customer obsession, the focus is to deliver retail excellence while ensuring operational consistency across the group. In the last few months however, Fernando and his team – in very close coordination with the country General Managers - have had to face the unprecedented challenge of adapting our operations to the new environment and planning for recovery, while also prioritizing employee and consumer health and safety above everything else.

Let´s start from the beginning. What is the role of Retail Operations?

Re­tail Op­er­a­tions es­sen­tial­ly cov­ers the ac­tiv­i­ties that keep our op­er­a­tions work­ing in a stan­dard­ized man­ner, en­sur­ing that we are de­liv­er­ing on our sales tar­gets and that our process­es and pro­ce­dures are im­ple­ment­ed as pre­scribed. This cov­ers a wide scope across our op­er­a­tions in­clud­ing; peo­ple, sup­ply chain, mer­chan­dis­ing, pro­mo­tion­al ex­e­cu­tion, phys­i­cal in­ven­to­ries and of course pric­ing which also falls un­der my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Es­sen­tial­ly, our job is about co­or­di­nat­ing all func­tions to en­sure that our ex­e­cu­tion on the shop floor gives each cus­tomer the best im­pres­sion of our com­pa­ny and a pos­i­tive place to shop.

Re­tail Op­er­a­tions en­com­pass­es:

• Modus – This is the setting of the standard process and procedures for all operations. This helps us to ensure the company works in a consistent manner. I think it’s important to note; that the processes are not static and that we are continually looking to evolve them to deliver an efficient and effective retail model.
  
  
• Operational Performance – this is where we set operational KPIs and monitor the performance, as well as the implementation of follow-up and action plans. Together, we must ensure that we are focused on operational execution and the delivery of retail excellence for our customers.

How do you balance Global and Local?

We have a wealth of knowl­edge that has been ac­cu­mu­lat­ed over the years across the busi­ness and it is im­por­tant that we lever­age this. We al­ways try to en­sure we are ex­tract­ing best prac­tice to in­cor­po­rate into our ways of work­ing. This know-how mixed with the lo­cal fla­vor our teams pro­vide in each shop is what en­sures our cus­tomers en­joy the “Dufry Shop­ping Ex­pe­ri­ence” re­gard­less of the coun­try or lo­ca­tion they are shop­ping in.

We ob­vi­ous­ly have adap­ta­tions to suit lo­cal re­quire­ments and ways of do­ing busi­ness in each coun­try. Part of what we have to do, is to un­der­stand these nu­ances and make the ap­pro­pri­ate adap­ta­tions to man­age each busi­ness in the most ef­fec­tive man­ner. This is what makes our busi­ness ex­cit­ing and keeps us con­stant­ly striv­ing to do bet­ter.

So, if I understand correctly, an important part of the job includes a continuous assessment of what we do…

Of course, we need to keep evolv­ing in the same way as our cus­tomers evolve their shop­ping habits. Re­tail and Duty Free is a fast-paced in­dus­try with many chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties that re­quire us to be con­stant­ly look­ing at how we can im­prove.

And what do you and your team do to stay ahead of the curve?

The key to suc­cess in our role is to stay close to where the sale hap­pens – the store. And the only way we can achieve that is by en­sur­ing close co­or­di­na­tion and align­ment with coun­try gen­er­al man­agers. There are many peo­ple in­volved in the op­er­a­tion of a store, and the way they be­have changes from one op­er­a­tion to an­oth­er – even in the same coun­try! For this rea­son, first-hand un­der­stand­ing of the store op­er­a­tion is key for us, and the role of gen­er­al man­agers in trans­mit­ting this in­for­ma­tion to our team is crit­i­cal for the suc­cess of our job. Their in­put helps us un­der­stand what is work­ing, what´s not and what needs to be im­proved. They are a great source of knowl­edge, bold ideas and so­lu­tions, which we have in some cas­es suc­cess­ful­ly ex­tend­ed to oth­er coun­try lo­ca­tions.

What has been the biggest challenge when it comes to implementing the new protocol in the stores?

At this time, the main pri­or­i­ty is to make shop­ping safe, both for our staff and for cus­tomers (you can see more de­tails of the pro­to­col in issue 35 of Dufry World), en­sur­ing that it re­mains an en­joy­able ex­pe­ri­ence.

There are ob­vi­ous chal­lenges with so­cial dis­tanc­ing, change of flight sched­ules etc. that we need to man­age to­geth­er. The pan­dem­ic is forc­ing all of us to do things dif­fer­ent­ly. How­ev­er, what we can still try to main­tain is the con­nec­tion with our cus­tomers. Our shop floor staff can re­al­ly make the dif­fer­ence and give cus­tomers a pos­i­tive ex­pe­ri­ence, even in this chal­leng­ing time.

How has Covid-19 changed the Retail Operations job?

As pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned, adap­ta­tion to a chang­ing en­vi­ron­ment is key to Re­tail Op­er­a­tions. How­ev­er, this is un­prece­dent­ed; we must stretch our­selves fur­ther, and look at - for ex­am­ple - how we ef­fi­cient­ly match re­sources to the re­duced op­er­a­tion of the stores, while max­i­miz­ing sales. As we grad­u­al­ly re-open, adapt­ing open­ing times and em­ploy­ees to each store’s re­al­i­ty on an air­port-by-air­port bases is crit­i­cal to the re­cov­ery. For us, go­ing from plan­ning to ex­e­cu­tion how­ev­er is the most chal­leng­ing part as things evolve quick­ly, but this is be­ing made pos­si­ble thanks to our great col­leagues in the op­er­a­tions and their flex­i­bil­i­ty to adapt to the new cir­cum­stances.

This flex­i­bil­i­ty and close col­lab­o­ra­tion has al­lowed us to im­prove the de­ci­sion mak­ing process and re­act faster to change. This ap­proach will also sup­port the new­ly im­ple­ment­ed or­ga­ni­za­tion struc­ture and en­able Dufry to nav­i­gate through what is a chal­leng­ing pe­ri­od for all of us, and to come out of it stronger.