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Strategic Labor Model™ Improvement Service Announced at NRF

NEW YORK, NY (January 16, 2006) – To help its retail clients achieve greater benefits from workforce management investments, Labor Solutions International, Inc. (LSI Consulting) is announcing a new service focused on improving the retail Strategic Labor Model™. “Over the past decade, the retail industry has made significant investments in workforce management technologies, infrastructure, labor standards, etc.” said Bob Haworth, LSI Consulting’s CEO. “However, we believe that the industry has failed to realize the full potential benefits and ROI possible from these investments, thus creating a “benefit gap”.. We estimate this benefit gap to be has high as 50% in many retailers, which must be addressed for them to stay competitive and profitable.”

Since 1997 LSI Consulting, a leading consulting and engineering firm specializing in retail workforce management, has created a successful track with some of the premier retail companies in the U.S. assisting them in implementation of workforce management and retail engineering solutions. “We have traditionally been a tactical consulting company, providing retail engineering solutions and labor management implementation services” stated Bob.

Over the last 7 years LSI has developed a portfolio of strategic modeling tools which it has tested and validated in its client base. With the recent acquisition of LSI by WorkPlace Systems, a UK based, workforce management software company, LSI now has access to some of WorkPlace’s unique technologies, and as a result has been able to complete its strategic offerings. “In 2006, LSI is now in a position to play a more strategic role with our clients, by focusing on the entire strategic labor model. This more holistic view of retail workforce management will help our clients achieve significant improvements in their levels of customer service and labor productivity, thus closing the benefit gap” stated Bob.

Retailers who have invested in workforce management technologies are typically looking for reductions in labor costs between 4% to 9% and significant improvements in customer service levels. Although each company has its own specific reasons for falling short of these potential benefits, LSI has identified several reasons for this benefit gap. First there is a lack of knowledge and understanding of the entire strategic labor model in the industry. Second, there is a failure to address all of the components of the strategic labor model with a comprehensive solution, and thirdly, companies typically begin to lose focus over time and so there is an erosion of usage of the deployed system. “With LSI’s new service offering the full benefits and savings will now be achievable and this should be very attractive to retailers” said Bob Haworth.

The new service presents a structured approach to assist LSI’s clients starting with a rigorous assessment of their current labor model and related metrics, which then provides a set of recommendations and methodology to achieve improvements in their business operations.

Key components of this new service approach include:

1. Establishing a clear baseline metrics for the retailer’s current labor model;
2. Identifying and recommending best practices across the Strategic Labor Model using internal LSI tools to demonstrate to the company’s potential improvements;
3. Establishing an effective project management environment to keep the project focused and on-track to deliver results within a specified time and budget;
4. Working with the client team to develop a change management environment that will be needed to successfully implement the final recommendations into the day-to-day workforce management solution.

“We believe this new service will have a significant impact on our industry” said Bob Haworth. “The industry is long overdue for realizing these improvements in both customer service levels and store labor productivity. We believe this Strategic Labor Model Improvement service will be very well received by the leading companies who are committed to improving their competitive position”.

Click here to see this press release as a downloadable PDF.

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