118: The Agile Stores Manifesto

Agile has been a key focus. But coming from a software development background, does it translate to the retail industry? And does Agile work in a retail store setting in particular? Julian Mills of Quorso joins Oliver Banks to lay out the “Agile Stores Manifesto” and demonstrate how this applies to retail shops and large store estates.

So, listen to this episode and discover:

• What do we mean by “agile stores.”
• The 4 values of the Agile Store Manifesto.
• Examples of how the Agile Store Manifesto has been brought to life.

 

 

Introducing Julian Mills of Quorso

Julian Mills is the Co-Founder and CEO of Quorso, an Agile Stores app for intelligently powering retail businesses and a globally recognised tech start-up.

Before Quorso, he was a Partner at McKinsey, where he led their Travel, Transport, and Infrastructure practices. He also founded the Global Infrastructure Initiative with Madeleine Albright, a gathering of the world’s most influential infrastructure leaders.

Julian grew up on a remote Scottish island surrounded by sheep, and has degrees from Oxford University and Stanford University.

Find Julian Mills on LinkedIn.

About Quorso

Quorso is an app that helps you manage your stores in an agile way. They are focused on making operations Agile, simple and human.

Essentially, it plugs into your POS and other data sources in just a few days. Then, it translates your data into 3-4 daily next-best-actions, tailored for each store. Next, the Quorso app measures and learns what works – and what doesn’t. And as a result within a few weeks, you have thousands of improvement actions going on across your store network. Plus, each one drives a targetted 19% improvement on average. In summary, Quorso enables large retailers to act as nimbly as smaller retailers.

Get in touch for a demo or to explore more at: contact@quorso.com.

And learn more at Quorso.com

The Agile Manifesto

The Agile Manifesto was created back in 2001. And it was originally created for software development but has since expanded to a wider scope. The manifesto is made of 4 key statements:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

The word “over” is important. It signifies that the statements on the right have value. But there is more value in the statements on the left.

Find out more about the original Agile Manifesto, created for software development at agilemanifesto.org.

The Agile Stores Manifesto

In the episode, Julian Mills explained the 4 values that make up the Agile Stores Manifesto. So, these 4 values are:

• #1: Engaged humans over compliant task-doers
• #2: Action over insight
• #3: Store networking over central instruction
• #4: Learning and adapting over following a plan

Find out more about each value in the podcast – or read more here: Agile Stores Manifesto by Quorso.

 

Further episodes of the Retail Transformation Show podcast to listen to

There were 3 recommended episodes to listen to.

Firstly, in episode 116: Understanding Agile, Laurens Bonnema helped explain Agile.

Next, take a listen to episode 117: Are Retail Operating Models Dead? It’s a solo show with Oliver Banks that explores if the classic retail operating model still has a place following the uncertainty and speed brought around by the pandemic.

And finally, check out episode 108: Agile Supply Chains In Retail with Gary Newbury. This episode is more about agility but is still great and very much in line with this episode.