Paper No:
STRATEGIC PLANNING AND CHANGE
END OF PROJECT REPORT
Project Title: Forum
From: September 2010
Author: Debbie Collins
Creation Date: 08/05/2012
Last Updated: 20/07/2012
Version: 0.2
To: May 2012
Change Record
Date
Author
Version Change Reference
16/05/2012
20/07/2012
Debbie Collins
Debbie Collins
0.1
0.2
Initial draft
2nd draft
Distribution
Copy No
1
2
3
Name
Location
Gill Preston
Jilly Court
Phil Rees-Jones
Change Team
Campus Services
Campus Services
1
Contents
1.
2.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................................................................................................................. 3
PROJECT OVERVIEW..................................................................................................................................................................... 4
2.1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................... 4
2.2. Project Objectives ........................................................................................................................................................... 5
2.3. PROJECT IN DETAIL ................................................................................................................................................................... 6
2.3.1.
Project scope .............................................................................................................................................................. 6
2.3.2.
Changes to scope ........................................................................................................................................................ 7
2.4. PROJECT RESOURCES ................................................................................................................................................................ 8
a) Staff .................................................................................................................................................................................... 8
a) Finance ............................................................................................................................................................................... 8
b) Support & Training ............................................................................................................................................................. 8
3. ASSESSMENT OF PROJECT DELIVERY ................................................................................................................................................ 9
3.1. Did the project meet its objectives? ............................................................................................................................... 9
3.2. Benefits ......................................................................................................................................................................... 10
3.3. LESSONS LEARNT ................................................................................................................................................................... 12
a) Positive lesson learnt ........................................................................................................................................................ 12
b) Constructive lessons learnt ............................................................................................................................................... 12
c) Opportunity log ................................................................................................................................................................ 13
4. OUTSTANDING ISSUES ................................................................................................................................................................ 14
5. CONCLUSIONS........................................................................................................................................................................... 15
a) Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................................................................... 15
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1. Executive Summary
The Market Place was a £500,000 project to create Campus Services a retail shop within the Forum for the University.
The retail store, the “Market Place” opened in line with the Queen’s official opening of the Forum in May 2012.
The brief was to create a new and innovative retail store to complement the Forum development and the University’s
top 10 aspirations.
Objectives
The 3 main project objectives were as follows:
1) To open the “Market Place” retail shop in January 2012
2) To achieve target turnover and gross profit
3) To offer a quality experience for customers that matches the aspirations of a “Top 10” University
The scope of this project included the following elements:
Shop design specification, Stock, Sales targets, managing a 3rd party provider tender, market research, staffing ,
marketing, communications, transition planning.
Project resources
The EDS project manager was the only resource expense borne by this project.
Campus Services have agreed to make a contribution towards the refrigeration of £20,000 which will adequately cover
the budget deficit of £16, 497.
Benefits
The first 4 weeks of trading saw a surplus of £16,710 above the budgeted turnover.
Main lesson learnt
Working on a site managed by a main contractor on a project of this scale meant that all delays were cascaded and
there were too many unresolved issue late into the project.
Opportunities
There are opportunities to develop the delicatessen range, improve the point of sale visibility for advertising special
offers and to generally expand the business further as it becomes increasingly embedded.
This project was delivered on time, on budget, the quality and design of the shop complements the Forum project as a
whole.
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2. Project Overview
2.1.
Introduction
The Forum building offered the opportunity to replace the existing shop with a new shop of a significant size, in a high
profile building, with a high footfall.
On 21st September 2010 the Campus Services management team presented a business case and a formal presentation
to VCEG. The presentation was to bid for the opportunity to manage the 403 sqm retail space.
The business case included a thorough comparision between an in house operation and a 3rd party provider; it was
decided to use an in-house provider because the operation would offer the University increased financial return, it
would be a more flexible retail model; able to respond to the changing needs of customer more effectively. An RFA for
£483,000 was authorised to fund the project.
The brief was to create a new and innovative retail store to complement the Forum development and the University’s
top 10 aspirations.
The concept for the new store was based on the following criteria:

A mini department store knows that customers’ needs vary from students, staff and visitors to different tastes,
religions and cultures

Customers can pop in for a meal deal for lunch or treat themselves to something special from the delicatessen

A strong focus on green miles and local foods, keeping the carbon footprint to a minimum

A modern approach to shopping, this new store will set itself as a template for other university retailers who
want to set themselves apart from the crowd

Offering University of Exeter a point of difference with a unique and forward thinking concept, whilst many
Universities are choosing to welcome high street retailers
The business objectives for the new store concept were based on the principles set out below which tie into the
university’s values:
Experience
Drawing on the knowledge and expertise of the experienced retail team at the University
Continuous Improvement
Better products, great service and innovative store design
Proactive
To meet the challenges of retailing today, by keeping ahead of the competition and listening to the customers
Innovative
Flexible and forward thinking in design, approach and technology
Quality
Freshness and value for money
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Service
Professional, friendly, prompt and efficient
Feedback about the appearance of the shop and of the product range has been very positive; many customers have
compared the Market Place with Waitrose.
2.2.
Project Objectives
The 3 main project objectives were as follows:
1) To open the “Market Place” retail shop in January 2012
2) To achieve target turnover and gross profit
3) To offer a quality experience for customers that matches the aspirations of a “Top 10” University
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2.3.
Project in detail
2.3.1. Project scope
This project covered the following elements:
1. Specification – Shop fitting design and requirements
2. Stock - reviewing existing stock lines and suppliers

Sourcing new suppliers

Set up new supplier accounts

Create merchandising plan
3. Sales target – creating realistic sales target based on:

Historic sales information

Increased shop floor size and footfall
4. 3rd party provider - Book service

Tender for book service provider – online and “pop up shop” provision

Contract negotiations

Service levels agreements

Customer service facility in the Market Place

MCR Systems

The install of Epos tills in line with the Epos Project roll out

The creation of the products on the supplier’s database

The installation and set up of scales
5. Market research – capturing customers’ needs

Forum Retail Show – Supplier trade show – customers were able to try samples of food and vote
on products they would like to see in the Market Place

Big Wave Media carried out a survey that check the planned product range was correct and
asked questions about the usage of the existing Bookshop

The Guild ran a survey on Campus Services’ behalf to ascertain students’ views on the 2 colour
schemes – the favoured scheme was implemented
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6. People

Policies, procedures and roles

Staffing establishment

Recruitment and training
7. Marketing

Internal signage

External signage

Launch plan

Point of sale template (Pos)
8. Communications

Market Place Website

Book service communications to all stakeholders
9. Transition planning

Closing the portacabin

Stripping the portacabin

Transferring stock
2.3.2. Changes to scope
The decision not to provide a traditional bookshop as part of the Forum initiated a tender process that sought an
online service licence as opposed to a lease.
The online service will be supported by: Jilly Court, on behalf of Campus Services, Jess Gardener, to chair the Book
Retail Review Group and Alison Ramsden, to manage communications.
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2.4. Project Resources
The EDS project manager was the only resource expense borne by this project.
a) Staff
Project Role
Name
Days required or % of time
Project Board
Jilly Court (Project Sponsor), Phil Rees-Jones, Mat
Blee and Gill Winsor, Bernard Ireson
Fortnightly meetings (1hr)
Bernard Ireson (20 minutes)
Project Manager
Debbie Collins
50% fte
Project Manager - EDS
Bernard Ireson
10%fte
Retail Services Manager
Mat Blee
October 2010 – May 2012
12%
April 2012 100% fte
Market Place Manager
Gill Winsor
October 2010 – May 2012
12%
April 2012 100% fte
a) Finance
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Item
Shop fitters
Electrical
Mechanical
Refrigeration contribution
Refrigeration connections
Network
Signage
Project fees
Other costs
Total
Budget
£182,533
£70,734
£88,328
£40,739
£16,000
£2,698
£10,000
£71,968
£0
£483.000
Actual
£448,514
Included in No. 1
Included in No. 1
Included in No. 1
Included in No. 1
Included in No. 1
Included in No. 1
£50,559
£424
£499,497
Variance
- £37,482
£21,409
£424
£16,497
The variance in the Shop fitters costs (No.1) were due to additional costs for specialised configuration of the
refrigeration. Campus Services have agreed to make a contribution towards the refrigeration of £20,000 which will
adequately cover the variance.
b) Support & Training

All new staff have undertaken their mandatory training

Red door customer service training had to be postponed because of bereavement in the team. Discussions are
underway to reschedule.

Future training needs will be met via the Market Place’s management team and the Staff Learning and
Development Team

Epos training for new staff will be provided by the Market Place’s management team and/or the Epos
Administrator
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3. Assessment of Project Delivery
The project objectives were as follows:
1) To open the “Market Place” retail shop in January 2012
2) To achieve target turnover and gross profit
3) To offer a quality experience for customers that matches the aspirations of a “Top 10” University
3.1. Did the project meet its objectives?
1) The Market Place opened on the 2nd May following the Queen’s official opening of the Forum
2) The first 3 full weeks of trading saw sales in excess of 25% ahead of budget. The following 2 weeks noted a
deficit against budget due to the end of exams and the related decline of sales; however, a surplus of £16,710
above the budgeted turnover is still apparent.
It is early days but the Market Place is expected to meet financial expectations. (For further information
about the budget please refer to 3.2)
3) The Market Place feedback is being captured by a touch screen in store, the criteria being used to measure
success is as follows below and is being scored on a scale of “strong agree” to “strongly disagree”:

The store was clean and tidy

The store layout was clear

Staff were easy to find

Staff were friendly and helpful

Displays were well stocked

There was plenty of choice

Everything I wanted was in stock

Everything was clearly priced

The deli counter looked appealing

Bakery products looked fresh

Special offers were easy to find

Checkout was quick and easy
And finally, are there any other products that you would like to see in-store?
To date, the Market Place has been scoring highly in the “strongly agree” and “agree” ranges, although
customers feel that special offers were not easy to find. This has been flagged to the team by the Business
Support Quality Coordinator.
There has been some constructive feedback via the Forum Administration Team which related to the following:
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
The 30 minute early closure of the market Place on Saturday 5th May due to staff exhaustion and lack of
fresh food for sale. The lack of staff resource has now been dealt with and increased stocks of fresh food
have been maintained since

The shop not opening on weekends out of term time. The demand for the shop to be opened on weekends
outside of term was not considered great enough to warrant the associated operational costs. The service
being provided by Costa was considered adequate to cater for the demand. Further feedback will be
acquired on this matter and the opening hours will be given further consideration by the management
team

The feedback offered via an Exepose article was in favour of the Market Place although they found the
range too varied. The sales reports to date have found the ranges on sale to be well received. For those
items that do not prove so popular the management information provided by the Epos till system will
highlight this and those items will be replaced. Also regular feedback is gained from the customers to find
out what is missing
3.2.
Benefits
The Market Place is expected to deliver increased turnover of 30% and targeted g.p of 35% (an increase of 2%)
The turnover assumptions were prepared working on the previous store’s turnover (before the temporary
shop), with the following considerations:
1. 10% increase on turnover per year between the store being demolished and the new store opening (in
line with previous years turnover patterns)
2. Followed by an additional 20% increase due to:
a.
b.
c.
d.
Increased shop floor space of 248 sqm
Longer opening hours
Rising student/staff numbers
Increased footfall due to location and services in the vicinity
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The turnover for the remainder of this year has been pro rated
Updated Budget
Wednesday 2nd May-Friday 15th June
Monday 18th June - Friday 29th July
Term
6.5
Vacation
T/O p/w
31,500.00 204,750.00
6 15,000.00 90,000.00
294,750.00
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3.3.
Lessons Learnt
a) Positive lesson learnt

EDS support on a project of this scale with a main contractor and multiple subcontractors was invaluable
because they understood how to manage a site within a building site and the related issues and regulations

The shopfitters PDS were second to none. Any issues were dealt with efficiently and effectively. They also
supported the team with many deliveries that were outside of their remit. Would recommend PDS in future

The key suppliers merchandised their areas in the shop which took a lot of pressure off the retail team

The Epos information was added to the system on site which made it far easier to gather required data
because all of the products and the related information was at hand

Holding retail shows and service trials were really invaluable to make sure we got things right, for example:
Hawkridge Farm was one of the suppliers that offered samples of cheeses and meats; they now supply the
delicatessen counter and farmshop fridge. Also, the service trial highlighted that the shopping baskets with
wheels were too heavy for customers to lift to the counter top and also damaged the counter surface
b) Constructive lessons learnt
Working on a site managed by a main contractor on a project of this scale had the following implications:

All delays were cascaded, therefore there was a need to be aware that dates are fluid and have a flexible
project plan

It was not made clear at the start the implications of the University’s aim to achieve BREEAM excellence rating
for the Forum. (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method)
This meant there was the requirement for the remote refrigeration to be connected to the Forum-wide heat
exchange system; requiring specialised configuration and unbudgeted costs. There is a need to fully
understand the expectations and implications at the outset to enable the creation of a more detailed design
and build specification

The commissioning of the refrigerators was delayed by the main contractors and therefore operational issues
were not apparent until the last minute. The knock-on effect was that the Market Place had to open without
functioning freezers

Snagging issues were not remedied by the main contractor ahead of handover, therefore outstanding issues
had to be escalated to the Campus Services Helpdesk, this has resulted in further delays (see outstanding
issues p13) It would have been preferable for the main contractor to have dealt with the snagging issues ahead
of handover or for Campus Services Helpdesk to have created specific SLAs relating to types of jobs and their
related timescales for completion
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Other more specific project related lessons learnt were as follows:

The tender documentation for the shop fit out was very long winded and we had no bidders. Therefore the
documentation had to be reconfigured to make it more users friendly. EDS were then able to run a
competition between 2 preferred suppliers

Not all cost information had been added to the Epos (electronic point of sale) system and therefore there have
been assumptions made when calculating g.p (5% of items lacking product data remaining as at week ending
2nd
June)
This was due to lack of resource available to input the information and also due to the fact that additional
stock lines had to be introduced that hadn’t been accounted for. There is a need to ensure that future projects
make allowance for additional resource to input Epos data

Some requirements seemed to have been “value engineered” out without consent, as a result additional
power and network sockets have had to be installed since the store opened. Therefore it is essential to get
regular updates of what’s in and what’s out

There was a lack of services in place at the customer service desk in time for opening. Royal Mail had given the
impression that the parcel service was easier to manage than it transpired. The Dry Cleaning service was put on
hold so they could be launched together, this probably looked worse than launching them independently

Recruitment was staggered to ensure that there were not too many staff employed as the University headed
for the end of term, this had the adverse effect of overtired staff culminating with the store closing early on
the 1st Saturday as the staff were too exhausted. More forward planning is required in future to ensure the
availability of temporary support staff.
c) Opportunity log
The Market Place has development opportunities in the following areas:
Delicatessen

Product range - need to ensure the product range produces the sales and margins necessary to warrant the
member of staff managing it

Opening hours and product range – eg. if it is only open at lunchtime then the products should be “lunch”
specific, therefore products such as flapjacks should be in a grab and go fridge
Signage

Signage – the exterior shop sign as designed by Thomas Matthews needs further consideration because it
doesn’t offer the same level of quality as the rest of the Forum signage. The materials used are transparent and
therefore the lighting boxes they are mounted on are clearly defined. It would be advisable to find a material
for the signage that would not become transparent

Point of Sale – Feedback has highlighted the lack of point of sale in place to advertise special offers. It is
advisable for the team to use the templates created by Kate Concah to signpost special offers more effectively
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4. Outstanding Issues
There are no on going operational costs that have not already been reflected in the Campus Services’ operational
budgets.
The issues below were logged after the Market Place became operational and therefore all outstanding snagging issues
must be raised via the Campus Services Helpdesk. Therefore the list below is to serve as a checklist to ensure these
items have been completed.
Issue
EDS
Goods lift handle broken
Door between shop & stock room squeaking
Door before staff entrance slamming
Floor covering causing a trip hazard
Key lock to be added to the back door
Handles to be added to the doors and the
handle on keypads are being damaged
Fire doors adjacent to the back to have
openers on
Market Place
Opening times not advertised
Post office service not launched
Need to organize a prep table for the
kitchen
Red Door Training was delayed need to rebook
Proposed Action
Responsibility
Chase with CaS Helpdesk
Chase with CaS Helpdesk
Chase with CaS Helpdesk
Chase with CaS Helpdesk
Chase with CaS Helpdesk
Chase with CaS Helpdesk
Gill Winsor
Gill Winsor
Gill Winsor
Chase with CaS Helpdesk
Gill Winsor
Meet with Kate Concah
Launch service
Liaise with Jenny Houghton
Gill Winsor
Gill Winsor
Gill Winsor
Consult with Yvonne Pinto
Gill Winsor
Completed
Gill Winsor
Gill Winsor
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5. Conclusions
This project was delivered on time, on budget, the quality and design of the shop complements the Forum project as a
whole.
The Market Place’s performance has exceeded expectations since opening, demand outstripped supply initially and the
staffing levels required adjustment.
The next phase of staff recruitment is due to begin for the 1st term of 2012/2013 and the team now have 3 months to
finely tune the offer in preparation for the new intake of students.
a) Acknowledgements
i.
Project Board
ii. Others – Rob O’Connell: Epos Administrator
Author: Debbie Collins
Title: Project Manager
Date: 20/07/2012
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