RETAIL

MANAGEMENT

CASE STUDY

GROUP 1
PAMEER

LORETTA

ADHVAY

AHMED NAZIR
SUMMARY

Suvidha is an upcoming chain of retail outlets for spreading their network in major metro
cities. It has established a good name in quality home-made food products named Moms
Recipes. Their products range from ready to cook vegetables, chapattis, pickles, salads etc,
which have gained immense popularity among the working class. The company also assigns
great importance to customer service.

Prakash is a business school graduate who has recently joined one of the outlets of Suvidha as
an intern. The manager of the outlet has given him the task of optimizing the operations, with
specific focus on employee costs and waiting time at the billing counters. Over the 4 weeks
Prakash has made some observations regarding customer footfalls at the Mall, average billing
per customer and the average billing time. He also did a survey to understand the customer
expectations about the waiting time at the billing counters.

Q1. Is the current staffing plan optimal? Estimate the daily requirements of sales
persons (excluding billing staff at the counters)

The company believes that at least one sales person is required per 15 customers to
provide assistant during their visit to the mall.
We suggest that if the format is become more convenient to the customers, that is, the
products are assorted and allocated properly into their places, the customers will be
able to easily access the store.
The number of sales people could be reduced since customers are now able to easily
locate the products needed to purchase.
Especially during weekdays, the first shift, the sales representatives could be deducted
and instead placed on weekends when there are more customers visiting the store.
If we calculate the number of sales persons required on weekends it equals to 13
keeping in mind 1 representative for 15 customers, since the number of people
visiting the store on weekends id around 200.
Q2. Determine the number of billing counters required at different times during the
day in order to ensure that 95% of the customers will not have to wait for more than 5
minutes at the billing counter. Assume that the arrival time between the customers is
normally distributed around the mean for each time interval.

Firstly the billing area should be spacious. The format of the store should be in such a
manner that the billing area should be wide and clear enough so that customers can
wait patiently. If the area is congested, it will increase the waiting time per customer
at the billing counter since the customer will be standing along with the cart, the
customer will get bored and irritated if he is not attended to as soon as possible.
This will happen if the billing counters are arranged properly so that the customers
waiting time is reduced and they attended to as soon as possible.
The maximum billing staff is 6 as mentioned in the case, it means that the number of
billing counter and billing machines is limited if we increase the number of billing
counter from 6 to 10 then each counter in an average can handle 5 customers, hence
the time would be reduced.
To be sure that the billing machines are working properly and connected with the
concerned banks for debit and credit card purchase, trained billing staff are to be hired
for quick response

Q3. What average queue length is achieved in the above case? What is the average
waiting time for each customer?

The average queue length in the prime days achieved in the case 40 to 45 customer
per hour and an average waiting time for each customer is 3 minutes as mentioned in
the case.

Q6. Determine the optimal number of billing machines to be purchased.

As mentioned in the case that the maximum billing staff is 6 in the prime days, it
means that the number of billing counter and billing machines is limited if we
increase the number of billing counter from 6 to 10 then each counter in an average
can handle 5 customers, hence the time would be reduced.
Standing in a queue which not exceed than 5 customers are more convenient and
waiting time will be much lesser than large queue.
The cost of billing machine is Rs. 16700, if we purchase 4 more billing machines it
would cost 66800, it will benefit the store in long run and would have major impact
on customer waiting time reduction.