Case Studies
1. Spur
Spur owns 600 company and franchised steak house restaurants worldwide. We operated six in the UK and Ireland from 2000–2012, with a turnover of £11 million. The Franchisor lacked a legal system for UK labour cost management and we successfully reduced the labour percentage from 34% at the outset, to 25%, using our unique TiPi™ labour management system. This cost reduction was achieved without sacrificing service quality, which routinely scored 4.6 on a five point scale and helped generate a 26 annual guest visit frequency.
2. Turner’s
I launched the first Turners – a make-to-order takeaway sandwich Deli in Portsmouth in 1987 and back then it turned over £500,000 PA. The company grew to 20 outlets in shopping centres with a team of 600. We created eight new concepts, including Traditions, The Chocolate Factory and Spiro’s Hardware Store & Taverna. We also inherited and ran a Rock Island Diner and a Mamma Amalfi at Meadowhall before selling to Out of Town Restaurants in 2002.
4. Land Securities
Following a 5-year contract to produce shopper surveys for their White Rose and Bridges Centres, Business Blueprints won the contract to extend their survey programme to all twenty Shopping Centres and fifteen Retail Parks.
As a result we were able to give Land Securities an estate comparison of Key Performance Indicators - Frequency, Conversion, Dwell-Time, Spend, Party Configuration and Shopper Satisfaction.
5. JD Wetherspoon
Business Blueprints devised their Mystery Visit programme and produced monthly reports for all 800 pubs from our national network of visitors, overseen by our Supervisors.
This programme was augmented by the use of spy cameras to ensure that pub management were adhering to JD Wetherspoon's ethics and fair play policies.
6. Meadowhall
Originally commissioned to create The Oasis - then the largest food court in Europe with 1,300 seats - our role was extended to planning all the F & B for the Centre which at that time made up a record 10% of the GLA.
It was further extended by Stephen's appointment as Marketing Director where he developed a marketing strategy for the Centre which led to industry plaudits culminating in the award of 'Top Customer Service Provider' by The Daily Telegraph.
Part of this was the result of the formation by Business Blueprints of 'The Meadowhall Retail Academy', a groundbreaking initiative designed to prepare inexperienced employees to deliver great service. (A further 8 academies were to follow in the UK, Germany and Ireland.)
It was also the result of his initiation of 'The Meadowhall Performers Company', which delivered a programme of highly professional events and mall performances, under the direction of Sandy Strallen.
The key to the success of our consultancy was the use of continuous market research to monitor shopper behaviour and satisfaction. The cornerstone of the research was our installation of automated shopper counts - the first time a UK shopping centre had access to hourly and daily footfall data. We performed similar roles at the owner's next development at CentrO Oberhausen, Germany.
FOOD COURTS
7. Legal & General
The initial contract was to conduct twice-yearly shopper surveys for all their Centres, which at that time pursued varying marketing strategies, often delivering wasteful outcomes, reflected in the research findings.
We were appointed to coordinate all Centres' marketing which led to the supplementation of 6 seasonal programmes in tandem with Centre retailers under the banner 'Loyalty & Goodwill'.
3. Food Courts
We planned and created 16 food courts in the UK, Spain, Germany and Ireland in shopping centres like Meadowhall, CentrO Oberhausen, Centro Commerciale Barcelona, Liffey Valley Dublin, Manchester Arndale, Merryhill, Bristol. We also operated three of these from their inception.