THE CHALLENGE:

Retailing giant Sainsbury’s wanted to dramatically improve the shopping experience for time-pressured families and those of their customers who had a passion for food, so they asked Synecticsworld to help it generate new store concepts for its supermarket business.

THE PROCESS:

Synecticsworld’s first step was to bring together 30 Sainsbury’s people from marketing, human resources, information technology, operations, procurement, and layout–all the departments and functions necessary to not only generate innovative ideas but also to create, implement and launch the new stores. Synecticsworld knew that if they put together the team and gave them the consumer insight tools for interpreting consumers’ shopping needs, the empowered, internally aligned group would easily take the concept to reality in record time.

THE RESULTS:

The outcome of the Synecticsworld-led project was the creation of two award-winning pilot stores.

The first was the ‘Ultimate Service’ store, which was aimed at today’s time-pressured family shoppers. Innovative and well-received, the ‘Ultimate Service’ store features employees who do the shopping while the customers enjoy a quiet coffee or watch their children as they play in the Kid’s Zone amusement area. There is even a ‘Quick Shop’, which has its own entrance and convenience items readily at hand, for customers who want to get in and out quickly. An internet café and priority parking spaces for mothers are other innovative features of the store.

The second store, named ‘Sainsbury’s Market’ is smaller and decidedly more ‘up-market’. ‘Sainsbury’s Market’ serves the needs of today’s enthusiastic food-lover who seeks imaginative variety and values the high knowledge and attentiveness of store staff. Both Synecticsworld and Sainsbury’s were amazed at how little time it took to launch the two stores.

Says Diana Hunter of the Synecticsworld’s approach, “Compared to some of their competitors, Synecticsworld is much more focussed on achieving a positive, tangible outcome rather than leaving a range of options in the air. This means clearer value from the client’s perspective, such as getting Future Stores off to a much quicker and sustainable start.”