WayCool - Retail Store Operations Manager

Experience: Retail / FMCG / Ecommerce Sector

Qualification: Engineering / MBA / PG from reputed institution.

The individual would be responsible for overall planning, budgeting, growth, delivery, process efficiency, and productivity for all bright stores.

- Effectively leading the day-to-day operation of the retail store and team through the operational store managers.

- Drive quality culture throughout the team. Understanding and application of quality principles (problem solving tools) such as 5S, PDCA, FMEA, Cause & Effect Analysis, Lean principles, 8 forms of waste, Check Sheet, Pareto Chart, Histogram, Control Chart, Scatter Diagram, Flow Chart etc. This will help manage KPIs.

- Achieve daily/monthly sales target by working closely with Merchandisers to roll out (execute) displays, offers, promotions, cross selling, upselling etc. And coordinate to resolve stock outs.

- Support the development of the operational team and to achieve sales target via coaching and mentoring. Attain sales benchmark metric Rs.100/sq.ft./day for all stores.

- Manage, motivate, hire & train and continually develop the store team. Implement PIP for below average performers.

- Extremely focused customer service attitude, train and institutionalize customer service to the operations team. Periodic training of Ops team with regards to customer service.

- Good product knowledge and understanding of FMCG, Imported, Gourmet, Organic, Artisanal food products & other Non-food items such as Cleaning, Personal Care etc. Understanding of fast-moving SKUs, ABC analysis of inventory, and merchandising mix based on each store performance.

- Ability to work with inventory & sales data to understand inventory turnover ratio, number of days cover, and sell through rate at product category & also SKU level.

- Responsible for the maintenance and security of all store assets and infrastructure. Chillers, Freezers, AC etc.

- Reduce & maintain online orders defect rate below 2%. Defects such as bad quality, missing quantity, damaged item, picking delay, packing delay, billing delay, price mismatch, non- scanning of products, expiry/near expiry, wrong item delivered, out of stock, etc.

- Manage the returns to the vendor/warehouse and ensure items are dealt with promptly and returned to stock/supplier.

- Maintain regular communication with dark store managers, assistant managers dark stores, merchandisers, warehouse managers, and floor staff to get updated on any supply and customer service challenges.

- Follow up with inventory controllers to ensure that stock movements and stock keeping standards are maintained in line with the SOP.

- Responsible for investigating stock discrepancies, including negatives, unfound and sold out, and reporting the information to relevant managers including the finance/audit team.

- Drive stock takes at regular frequency and report on results. Conduct cycle counting.

- Ensure the highest operational standards are always deployed on the floor. Includes hygiene, cleaning, housekeeping, grooming, parking etc.

- Responsible for maintaining the stock levels based on MBQ and re-ordering follow up of all products to ensure 100% in-stock at the stores.

- Responsible for maintaining and re-ordering of required consumables to enable smooth operations, includes all safety, cleaning, bags, chilled/frozen insulated bags, etc.

- Ensure the stores are compliant with current Health and Safety regulations, FSSAI, Trade, and Fire Licenses, and team is trained appropriately.

- Regularly appraise team members and carry annual performance review at the communicated time, coordinating with HR.

- Ability to manage a team size of 100 members.

- Good communication, presentation, and stakeholder management skills.

- Good understanding of MIS. Basic understanding of data/numbers/graphs.

- Good understanding of P&L/ EBITDA and strive to turn every store profitable.

- Proficiency in MS Excel, Word, PowerPoint

- Good problem solving, analytical skills, data-driven focused decision-making skills.