New CAO Best Practices

Now that the pioneering retailers have shown the way, other companies will benefit from their experience

A wealth of wisdom has been collected from their successes and struggles covering such asreas as data preparation, store procedures, pre-requisites, and executive support. each compay that has been successful with CAO has had a different experience, yet all can benefit from their mistakes and their triumphs.

Retailers now embarking on their CAO journey can get input/advice on common CAO questions:

• How many stores/skus should be included in the initial deployment?
• Should we roll out by category or store?
• Should we start with high performing stores to ensure success or with low performing stores to maximize the benefits?
• What performance goals and measure should be established?
• What strategies are best for gaining and accelerating momentum during rollout?
• How many people are needed to support CAO at corporate and how should they be structured?
• What role should the store play in reviewing/approving orders? Does the answer differ in the short-run vs. long-run?
• What inventory exceptions should drive store level alerts to action?
• Do we need physical counts before starting and/or on an ongoing basis?

CAO is catching on, and with the economy being what it is, an investment in CAO has rich rewards to be reaped and right soon too. A typical grocery retailer with a CAO project on his/her plate in 2009 can expect to deploy to their top stores this year, and to roll-out to remaining stores over the course of the next 2 years. That means real ROI can be achieved in 2009!!!