WH Smith (High Street)
Optimising daily sales information to respond effectively to customers' changing needs
This well-known stores division of the WH Smith Group in the UK has 7.5 million customers visiting its branches every week. And constant pressure on margins makes it imperative that day-to-day sales information is exploited quickly to meet the changing needs of its customers.
Consequently PA was invited to work with WH Smith to help deploy its IT more effectively. Improvements were needed to reduce the cost of the IT function and change the way business users and the information systems (IS) department worked together. A team from PA, skilled in providing clear blueprints for new ways of working for IT departments, was brought in to transform performance at WH Smith.
The subsequent IS transformation focused on implementing a business-facing approach based on fewer staff and an IS team re-structured around account managers dedicated to specific business areas.
The result is an IS operation that now has a clear understanding of the information needs of the business and the capability to meet them. WH Smith is now enjoying cost reductions of around £3 million a year on a budget of £28 million.
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