Case Study - Fortune 10 Company
Issue
A Fortune 10 Company planned to roll out 200 new retail stores per year. Because of a smaller footprint size, members of its real estate team were struggling with the market realities of trying to get quality brokers to pay attention to their growth plans. Further, trying to coordinate their network of more than 90 brokers, each from multiple firms, was inefficient and frustrating. Non-standardized maps, varying demographic data from different providers, and numerous reports each providing only a partial view as to the status of their pipeline, were just some of the problems which were demanding too much of the real estate department’s time, costing too much money and, ultimately, diminishing their store opening capacity.
Solution
Since 1999, NorthStar Advisory has been assisting this client with the rollout of more than 200 stores per year in over 50 markets across the U.S. We help them to understand how many stores they should open in which markets, how the markets should be prioritized, where in those markets their stores should be located, and how both the competition and their existing locations will impact their new stores. We continually help them to analyze their existing markets, rationalize their store portfolio, and optimize their store assets throughout their entire lifecycle.
NorthStar Advisory's focused approach for this client is simple, yet comprehensive:
1. Help determine real estate store placement strategy.
2. Deliver the optimum store.
3. Leverage store opening capacity.
4. Reduce the cycle time of bringing new stores to market.
5. Develop migration strategy for under-performing locations.
6. Improve the cost and quality of the retail real estate portfolio.
Results
Since partnering with NorthStar Advisory, our client has more than doubled its store opening capacity, reduced by almost half the time taken to locate, lease and open new stores, and experienced higher average sales productivity from their new stores. Most importantly, they are achieving their goals and beating the competition.
