Retail Basics: Managing Key Indicators
By Wendy Fanigan
Who’s Watching Member Labor in Retail Food Cooperatives?
By Thane Joyal 158 January - February - 2012 When many retail food cooperatives were formed in the 1970s, the distinctions among worker cooperatives, consumer cooperatives and not-for-profit corporations were not considered to be barriers to doing business in a culture of cooperation. Regardless of the legal form used to organize the business, in retail food co-ops across the country, members commonly worked, carrying [...]
Daily Operations: Fostering Staff Empowerment and Accountability
As we continue our year-long examination of the empowerment and accountability stream in food co-ops, the point in the sequence where the rubber really hits the road is in the day-to-day functioning of the co-op’s operations. This is the stage in the cycle where the vision gets implemented in myriad ways: through customer interactions, workplace culture and operational systems development. It’s the intersection between [...]
Commonly used CoCoFiSt terms
CoCoFiSt Common Cooperative Financial Statements, a CDS program for improving cooperative performance. CoCoBud A budgeting feature that, based on historical data, projects sales, margins, and payroll by department, as well as income statements, balance sheets, cash flows, ratios, capital budgets and loans for the next four quarters. A manager can then change assumptions to change the projections. CoCoGap This illustrates how much more profit [...]
Retail Basics: Merchandising and Store Conditioning
Welcome to Retail Basics: Merchandising and Store Conditioning, created by the National Cooperative Grocers Association (NCGA). NCGA specifically designed this workbook to support effective merchandising in your food co-op and to enhance the customer experience using tools and practices that support retail excellence. Through this handbook, you will gain professional knowledge on: How shoppers see your co-op Components of effective merchandising Specific tactics in [...]
Managing Key Indicators: Guidelines for department managers
By Mel Braverman 137 July - August - 2008 When you drive your automobile, a number of gauges enable you to read critical factors in your auto’s performance. The dashboard presents “key indicators” of your auto’s health: fuel level, engine temperature, RPMs, oil level and battery charge. If you ignore these indicators, it may cost you much more than it would had you paid [...]
Closing the ‘Gap’ – Using co-op data to achieve improved store performance
By Mel Braverman 126 September - October - 2006 Many cooperatives struggle to find appropriate operational benchmarks and to set challenging yet attainable goals. Without the use of external data to help them understand how the industry may be changing, they are left with their own historical performance data (if available) as the sole source from which to base their benchmarks and goals. While [...]
Your New Store: Meeting First Year Challenges
By Bill Gessner 099 March - April - 2002 You have successfully navigated the stormy waters of a relocation/expansion project. Your co-op has proudly opened the new store amidst celebration, praise, relief, adrenaline and exhaustion. At this common juncture, I have had the privilege of being able to offer a number of co-ops a bit of needed but unwelcome advice: Now the real work [...]