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Building ABetter WorkforceMobile Solutions Enhance Store Execution
And Uncover Better Store Data
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Building A Better Workforce • 1
Mobile has changed everyday life for most consumers.
Now it is having a similar impact at work, driving
new opportunities for retailers and consumer brands
to create a more agile workforce, use labor more
efficiently and gain new insights into store operations.
Embracing mobile can change the game for retailers
and consumer goods companies in two key areas:
• Assigning and communicating dynamically with
front-line employees to drive efficiency, immediacy
and employee satisfaction.
• Using the internal workforce and/or crowdsourcing
to gain visibility into store environments and
individual brands.
The most exciting thing about mobile is its ability to
connect with frontline workers in a way that was not
possible before. That one-to-one capability means
retailers and brands gain unprecedented insight into
store activities and conditions and, most importantly,
the ability to direct actions to immediately resolve
issues and drive incremental sales.
“The most exciting thing
about mobile is its ability
to connect with frontline
workers in a way that was
not possible before.”
— David Hale, CEO, Gigwalk
Introduction
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Using Mobile To Connect To The Workforce In New Ways
Retail stores are big, open, brightly lit places bustling
with activity. But from the perspective of a retail
headquarters or the offices of a consumer products
company, a store is a big black box. HQ has plenty
of information about what goes into stores: inventory,
promotional displays, labor schedules, planograms and
so on, as well as the data that comes out. However,
these executives have no visibility into what is actually
happening; they can only use data to infer what has
happened, creating a picture that is crude at best.
To gain this insight, retailers and consumer products
companies need to ask questions such as the following:
Was the display correctly set up and stocked in
time for the promotion?
Did associates stock the shelves neatly and
accurately?
Do store associates demonstrate effective product
knowledge?
Are products priced competitively?
Right now, the answer to many of those questions is
“no.” Billions are lost each year due to planogram non-
compliance, with estimates that up to 50% of POS,
display, demo and planogram promotions do not follow
guidelines. Those programs could deliver two to as
much as five times the sales lift if executed correctly.
Mobile devices in the store can change all that.
Building A Better Workforce • 2
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Building A Better Workforce • 3
It has been decades since personal computers
and networks revolutionized white collar jobs with
fingertip access to information. But until now, most
store-level jobs — both retail associates and the field
salesforces of consumer products companies — have
been largely unchanged.
In this new age of mobile technology, retailers and
consumer goods companies can take advantage
of tablets and smartphones that enable a mobile
workforce to gain much more granular visibility into
store activities. They can tap staff already in the
store to capture much-needed data, and manage
these employees more efficiently than was possible
before. With 75% of U.S. mobile users now carrying
smartphones — and an even higher concentration
among millennials, according to comScore’s 2015
U.S. Digital Future In Focus — mobile devices
are becoming ubiquitous, and with them, new
opportunities arise.
“Retail Winners are more optimistic about the
marketing and operational benefits that mobile can
create for them,” according to the 2014 Retail Systems
Research (RSR) report Mobile In Retail: Reality Sets In.
Half of these “winners” are using mobile technologies
for in-store merchandise management, compared
with 44% of others. Just less than half of winners
(48%) also use mobile for both store management and
internal corporate communications, compared with
31% of others.
NOTE: RSR defines “Retail Winners” as retailers with higher-than-
average year-over-year comparative store/channel sales growth.
"Retail Winners are more optimistic about
the marketing and operational benefits
that mobile can create for them."
— Retail Systems Research
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Building A Better Workforce • 4
What A Difference Mobile Makes
Coordinating the work of a distributed workforce —
matching workers to tasks, validating task completion
and reporting on those activities — has been a
challenge that retailers and consumer goods companies
have attempted to manage in a myriad of ways.
Strategies have included forming internal teams that
work across stores and outsourcing to third parties, as
well as developing applications to try to manage their
activities. But these systems often used pen and paper
or remote PCs, considerably limiting their accuracy
and efficiency. Their biggest flaw is the time delay in
reporting this information back to those who can use it
to correct problems quickly and spot trends.
Mobile removes those barriers. A mobile workforce
management solution can help optimize the store’s
workforce and a consumer brand’s field team by
improving management tasks from scheduling,
messaging and reporting to scorecarding, benefiting
both the employer and employee.
A large global staffing company needed to dispatch 1,000 people to 200
locations for a two-day task starting four days later. The only way to accomplish
this in time was to apply robust software algorithms to match available
employees to task locations and rapidly alert staff to their assignments, a goal
the company attained using Gigwalk.
Case In Point: Finding And Tasking Available Employees With Speed
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Building A Better Workforce • 5
Red Bull, the world’s highest-selling energy
drink, has an annual tradition called “Back Office
Goes Front Office” in which more than 700
office employees visit stores to interact with
retail personnel, distributors and customers. But
these employees recorded their activities in
spreadsheets, so executives had delayed visibility
into the event’s impact. Now employees use
Gigwalk’s mobile app to view, select and then
report on activities in real time. For the first time,
Red Bull can measure an event’s impact, quantify
results and take action where needed in real time.
Case In Point: Acting Upon Instant Insights
Companies that leveraged mobile software
experienced more than twice as much improvement
in their ability to access business-critical information
within the required time frame, compared to those
without a mobile software initiative, according to
Aberdeen’s research brief Enterprise-Grade Mobile
Apps: Powering Organizational Transformation. These
companies doubled the improvement in employee
satisfaction and the percentage of their workload
completed on mobile devices. They also delivered
almost twice the improvement in operational efficiency
and employee productivity. “These results should put
at ease those executives who question the business
value of a Best-in-Class mobile app investment,” said
the report.
Companies that leveraged mobile software
experienced more than twice as much improvement
in their ability to access business-critical information
within the required time frame, compared to those
without a mobile software initiative.
— Aberdeen
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Building A Better Workforce • 6
Whirlpool and joint venture partner Procter &
Gamble spent millions on promotional materials
to prepare for the launch of their brand-new
Swash Express Clothing Care System. Therefore,
it was critical to verify that displays and materials
were in place for the July 2014 unveiling. That is
a big undertaking for a campaign that involves so
many retailers and individual stores.
“It’s one thing to know the direction from the
corporate office, but what happens on floors
varies quite a bit,” said David Provost, national
sales manager for Whirlpool. “We spend a lot
of money educating people on the product and
getting it deployed, but some channels are less
disciplined in ensuring the information gets on
the floor the day the promotion starts.”
Whirlpool’s national sales team knew from
experience that using their customer relationship
management software to audit compliance on
thousands of showroom floors would not provide
the timely feedback they needed. In previous
launches, technical hurdles meant delays in
inputting data, impacting accuracy, timeliness and
ultimately the promotion’s potential.
So they turned to Gigwalk Enterprise for
help. Sales representatives supplemented
by Gigwalkers — independent workers who
sign up for assignments through the Gigwalk
app — fanned out across thousands of store
floors. They used the Gigwalk app to take time-
and geo-stamped photos and answer simple
questions about execution and performance of
demos via an intuitive mobile interface. Whirlpool
executives received these insights instantly via
dashboard. This allowed them to identify issues
and alert retail partners in real time, optimizing
the promotion.
When execution falters, “clearly knowing specific
issues with photos and locations is much more
actionable” than after-the-fact recollections,
according to Provost.
“What’s really of value to us is the simple, intuitive
interface, and the ability to set direction and
get confirmation of execution very quickly and
simply,” he said. “It’s valuable to have accurate
information when we’re making important
decisions with our brands.”
Whirlpool Puts A New Spin On Promotion Compliance
“We spend a lot of money educating people
on the product and getting it deployed,
but some channels are less disciplined in
ensuring the information gets on the floor
the day the promotion starts.”
— David Provost, Whirlpool
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Building A Better Workforce • 7
The Mobile Advantage
Mobile-enabled workforce management applications
address store-level tasks in ways PC- and paper-based
systems never could, because of their immediacy and
one-to-one status. Here are four ways mobile makes
it better:
Mobile-Enabled Scheduling – Scheduling applications
are based on anticipated needs, but stores are dynamic.
Immediate access means managers can easily reassign
employees. Employees also prefer interacting with
schedules via a familiar mobile interface for tasks such
as picking up extra shifts and blocking out dates.
Mobile-Enabled Messaging – Mobile significantly
improves team communication. Employees can
collaborate with managers to resolve questions and
issues on the spot.
Mobile-Enabled Reporting – Mobile enables real-
time reporting to a single dashboard so issues can be
identified and new task alerts generated quickly to
boost compliance and drive incremental sales. Photo
verification, location and time-stamping of reports
enhances accuracy.
Mobile-Enabled Scorecarding – Via mobile, it is easy to
share benchmarks and incentivize associates and third
parties such as distributors.
A well-crafted mobile workforce management solution
transforms the retail store floor from a black box to
an open forum where retailers and consumer goods
companies can manage geographically specific store
tasks at scale. With this newfound visibility and control,
executives can ensure that stores execute back-end
planning and merchandising activities properly and fully
deliver the brand experience they have envisioned.
A well-crafted mobile
workforce management
solution transforms the retail
store floor from a black box
to an open forum where
retailers and consumer goods
companies can manage
geographically specific store
tasks at scale.
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Building A Better Workforce • 8
A large retailer wanted to increase its revenue for a new product line, but
it had received negative feedback on product quality and appearance. By
assigning Gigwalkers to make independent assessments, the company gained
invaluable, impartial feedback to help drive quality improvements.
Case In Point: Crowdsourcing ProvidesQuality Reporting
“There is potential collaboration with almost everyone
who is connected to the Internet — regardless of
whether they are ‘our employee’ or not.”
— Accenture
Tapping Crowdsourcing To Supplement Staff
Even when they are leveraging existing frontline
workers to perform new tasks, most retail and
consumer goods brands do not have the bandwidth
to evaluate all activities in every store accurately.
Asking internal staff to evaluate their own activities
can be risky.
Crowdsourcing has emerged as an ideal alternative
to accomplish store-level tasks with a willing fleet
of independent workers, using the same mobile
workforce management application used internally.
This approach is part of a growing movement called
the Gig Economy or the Collaborative Economy.
Up to 40% of the adult population in U.S., the
UK and Canada now participates in the sharing
economy According to Harvard Business Review’s
story, Established Companies, Get Ready for the
Collaborative Economy.
Accenture urges companies to tap this expanded
workforce. “There is potential collaboration with
almost everyone who is connected to the Internet
— regardless of whether they are ‘our employee’ or
not,” according to the report, titled, From Digitally
Disrupted to Digital Disruptor, 2014. Accenture
advises companies to plan diligently, be clear on
objectives and break down the larger mission into
clear tasks.
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Building A Better Workforce • 9
A beer company wanted to incentivize its distributors to work with retailers
to set up displays of three different brands during Super Bowl week but
had no way of validating execution. Gigwalkers found that only 30% of
retailers had at least one brand product on display, enabling the company
to evaluate distributor self-reported metrics and pay only for performance
actually delivered.
Case In Point: Supplement Staff To Ensure Proper Execution
A pharmaceutical company needed to verify that displays were in place and
stocked for a massive launch of a new over-the-counter drug. Crowdsourced
Gigwalkers dispatched to stores followed up multiple times to check displays,
prices and voids – all documented via the Gigwalk app. Discrepancies were
identified and reported back to the pharmaceutical company in real time,
allowing it to alert retailers to correct the errors. Because of this sharply
increased compliance, the launch was one of the most successful in the
company’s history.
Case In Point: Verifying Merchandising Compliance
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Building A Better Workforce • 10
Mobile Is The Key To Better Visibility And Value
The new age of mobile creates unprecedented
opportunities for retailers and consumer goods
companies. They can leverage mobile devices to
foster a more agile and efficient workforce. This will
help them gain badly needed visibility into daily store
activities, driving real-time task management and
operations efficiency while enhancing employee job
satisfaction. Perhaps best of all, they can use mobile
to increase promotion compliance, optimizing their
marketing dollars while delivering a more satisfying
brand experience for their customers.
Mobile devices
help retailers and
consumer goods
companies gain
visibility into daily
store activities,
driving real-time task
management and
operations efficiency.
Increased adoption of mobile technologies has
placed the retail workforce at the dawn of a new
era of productivity. Mobile technologies deliver a
positive disruption in current workflows by boosting
the efficiency of temporary and part-time workers.
Here are five ways mobile will change the way
retailers and brands work:
• Greater access to temporary workers by
crowdsourcing simple tasks in the store;
• Higher scheduling flexibility and visibility for
store associates, managers and HQ;
• Better employee engagement through
increased communication and collaboration
opportunities;
• Stronger task management with tools that help
managers evaluate how associates complete
tasks; and
• Delivery of real-time insight for in-store issues
that include sales and marketing execution.
Five Ways Mobile Technology Will Disrupt The Way We Work
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Building A Better Workforce • 11
About Retail TouchPoints
Retail TouchPoints is an online publishing network for retail
executives, with content focused on optimizing the customer
experience across all channels. The Retail TouchPoints network is
comprised of a weekly newsletter, insightful editorial blog, special
reports, web seminars, exclusive benchmark research, and a
content-rich website featuring daily news updates and multimedia
interviews at www.retailtouchpoints.com. The Retail TouchPoints
team also interacts with social media communities via Facebook,
Twitter and LinkedIn.
411 State Route 17 S, Suite 410
Hasbrouck Heights, NJ 07604
P: 201.257.8528
F: 201.426.0181
About Gigwalk
Gigwalk is a distributed workforce management platform that
efficiently connects people with work. By harnessing the power of
mobile technology, Gigwalk helps businesses better manage their
workforce to achieve better business outcomes and maximizes
human potential to make work better. For more information,
visit www.gigwalk.com.
539 Bryant Street, Suite 401
San Francisco, CA 94107