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Charles and Keith

Charles & Keith is a successful women's fashion brand founded in Singapore in 1996 by brothers Charles and Keith Wong. It now has over 180 stores across 34 countries. The company's success is largely due to its rigorous and consistent operational processes that are replicated across all retail outlets. Key aspects of Charles & Keith's retail operations include a standardized store layout, well-organized inventory and stock rooms, well-trained sales associates, daily reporting to headquarters, and investing in employee training. Following consistent operational processes has helped Charles & Keith become a leading global fashion brand while maintaining quality and consistency across all stores.

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Erick Guillén
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891 views

Charles and Keith

Charles & Keith is a successful women's fashion brand founded in Singapore in 1996 by brothers Charles and Keith Wong. It now has over 180 stores across 34 countries. The company's success is largely due to its rigorous and consistent operational processes that are replicated across all retail outlets. Key aspects of Charles & Keith's retail operations include a standardized store layout, well-organized inventory and stock rooms, well-trained sales associates, daily reporting to headquarters, and investing in employee training. Following consistent operational processes has helped Charles & Keith become a leading global fashion brand while maintaining quality and consistency across all stores.

Uploaded by

Erick Guillén
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Guillen, 1

October 3rd 2013 Erick Josu Guilln Manzano MGMT221-Enterprise Development-G1 Dr. Khoo Hock Seng

CHARLES & KEITH


Operational Process
Charles & Keith is a womens footwear and accessories store founded in 1996 in Singapore, by brothers Charles and Keith Wong. Today the company has expanded to 34 countries having more than 180 stores worldwide and is also a parent company for the luxury brand Pedro. Is one of the most successful fashion brands in Singapore, counts with an S-Class certification (Singapore Service Class) and has received several awards, including the Excellent Service Award (2002) and The Enterprise Award at the Singapore Business Awards (2008). But what made this multinational company so successful at the retail level? Besides the good design and quality of the products, its rigorous and outstanding operational process that have been replicated in all of their retail outlets. Consistency is part of the success of the brand as Shee Beng Fong (International Executive Director) stated, "If you want to franchise but can't control your partner, what's going to happen? Branding has to be consistent and if you want to be consistent, you need to be in control." (Boon, 2011) During This essay will be analyzed the operational process of C&K at the retail level, in order to understand the functioning practices that make this a successful store. All the Charles and Keith Shops follow the same internal arrangement; a grey and white store, with table and wall displays that let the user have an experience inside the store; each store counts with different types of exhibits: At the front the new arrivals can be found; on the side walls, the shoes and bags; and as you go further on the store the accessories like glasses and belts; centered in the right its the cashier which is kept clean and without any product display; finally at the bottom wall you can see the reduced products. At Selling Floor all items are directly pointed with light and given enough space to be appreciated, the displays are prepared to show different designs, color variations, matching accessories and prices. The store regularly display 7 size shoes (Average Asian woman's foot size), its remarkable that the hand bags and some items dont have visible prices; thats why they have at least 3 salesmans in the store to help the costumer through the shopping. Every day inventory is checked, specially in Stock Room, the SR has an Inventory Manager who is in charge to keep in order with the items according article No, Color, and size; during peak hours, a backroom man is in charge of taking out sizes for front employees, who keep company to the customers. During off-peak hours, one to one system is implemented. The price of the products is determine by the head quarters, usually all products are below the $100 SGD, except for some of the special label ones; reduction on process are notified to the employees, so they can paste a sticker and re-placed the

Guillen, 2 products in the morning; other promotions and discounts can be make with the loyal customer discounts, using the membership card, which can be acquire by purchasing more than $250 SGD, the card gives a 10% discounts in all the purchase in Singapore and China. Each outlet has different targets, depending on the location and capability of the store, each month targets change according the operations department. One of the most import things to achieve all these processes is good personnel, thats why all Charles and Keith stores have: One manager, one manager assistant (usually both at the cashier), up to 5 employees on the floor (depending on the size of the outlet) which usually id divided between the floor, and the stock room depending on the context and pick hours. All employees are part of the clients experience thats why Costumer service is important, in C&K, if the product is out of stock the personnel find the product in other outlet, or event ask for it through the online store. At the end of each day all outlets have to respond with Documentation; daily reports are sent out to headquarters, which are then analyzed and used as basis for restocking and price valuation. In conclusion the success of a brand is strongly related with the operational process that happens inside a the outlet stores, but is important to assure that not only, the business has the best operations, if not that the personnel is capacitated to apply correctly all the processes; just as Charles Wong (founder of C&K) has stated: I value the good relationship and great support from my staff, suppliers and partners and I believe in building and maintaining mutual trust and understanding in all levels. (Hidajat, 2008) He looks for a team of strategic, acutely observant, disciplined and dependable employees, thats why he invests in the capacitation of the C&K and Pedro employees; just to be staff, the applicant need to go to a 3 day class, and then internship training. I was really impressed about that processes that C&K used, I think all of them can be used in any product retail store, the ones that attracted me the most, was the accommodations of products in the stores, giving importance all of them; the personnel is really nice and know all the prices of the products, finally the efficiency of the stock room which is something clients appreciate a lot, Those are the practices The I will consider replying in my own business from C&K.

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