I approach the office this morning questioning my sanity. The reason being, in a mad moment some time ago (and after some fairly compelling reasoning from various accounts), I decided we needed to completely re-engineer the space apportionment and flow in one of the categories. After much discussion between the various main stakeholders, countless recommendations as to what it should look and the fielding of several phone calls from slightly hysterical smaller suppliers who had caught wind that something was afoot we’re finally ready to do the hard part – agreeing the layout.
In principal, a simple enough task. The reality however is proving slightly different. The reason for this was, in my infinite wisdom, I decided that three heads were better then one in achieving an optimum layout. We would provide one of the heads and two of the more progressive account managers would provide the other two. That way everyone could have a say and hopefully, by combining the best of what each party could bring to the table we’ll end up with something fantastic for the category.
Well, we started off pretty well. Everyone was being very polite and accommodating and we were making some real progress. Great. I then make the first mistake of the day – I leave the meeting for a short period. When I return a short time later World War 3 has broken out, there’s blood on the walls, the planogram has gone up in flames and no one is speaking. A bit of investigation reveals it’s all over who gets an extra facing. The problem is instantly solved by allotting it to private label.
The rest of the meeting goes a bit more smoothly and everyone seems really pleased with the results although several have complained about sore mouths as a result of constantly having to bite their tongue. A small sacrifice in the pursuit of the perfect planogram!
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