Lenta Reduced Employee Labor with MD Audit

2023: MD Audit Implementation Results

More than a year ago, Lenta, a multi-format grocery and FMCG retailer in Russia, launched a project to implement MD Audit. One of the main reasons that prompted the company to implement this project was the tense situation in the labor market for retail, which requires the most efficient use of resources and optimization of labor costs. On December 21, 2023, MD Audit representatives spoke about the goals, details and results of the MD Audit implementation project.

MD Audit was tasked with two tasks:

• Save labor for office and store employees.
• Increase the level of compliance (compliance of facilities with the requirements of regulatory authorities).

More generally, with the help of MD Audit, Lenta hoped to automate business processes of operational activities using mobile technologies, to move from many heterogeneous systems to a single interface for managing all operational processes for inspections and tasks. In detail, a tool was required that would allow employees to:

• Perform operations on the trading floor
• assign corrective measures to those responsible as soon as non-conformities are identified;
• see end-to-end analysis of checks for all processes, observe the dynamics of elimination of violations.

All this was offered by the MD Audit system, but it was necessary to prove this in practice and assess the effectiveness of such an organization of work.

More than 13 departments were involved in the project, of which 5 were identified as key.

The technical side is also important. Thus, the introduction of the system was carried out according to the Agile method, through hypothesis testing and with the further introduction of only those that confirmed their relevance. This made it possible not to break down the implementation stage for various services, but to implement the solution as a whole. In other words, the MD Audit system was not implemented under the specific requirements of one division, but taking into account the future development and possible use of the system as a single application for all operating tasks of the store.

The total duration of the project was 12 months, which were divided into the following stages:

• holding a tender and choosing a solution - 3 months;
• system refinements and testing - 2 months;
• preparation and performance of PED (pilot operation) in one division - 2 months;
• collecting feedback, making a decision on circulation. The circulation for the entire company is 1 month;
• rework of the system based on the results of the PED - 4 months.

For the project to succeed, it was necessary to pay attention to the personnel involved in this project. Lenta approached this very responsibly:

In each of the departments involved in the project, a driver employee (supporter of changes) was selected to help quickly implement the product.

Regular feedback from end users was collected, including communication with store directors, supervisors, regional and divisional directors, ordinary employees.

Consultations and training were conducted by the system analyst (system consultant) on user requests.

The main indicator of the success of the project can be considered positive feedback from its participants.

HR Service: We are satisfied with the system, there are no complaints. Intuitive interface. There were comments on business processes, decided at the expense of settings.

Client Services Department: The tool is very convenient and allows you to reduce labor costs. It is also convenient to get the test results almost instantly. There are a number of wishes for improvements to the development application.

In addition, qualitative and quantitative results were obtained.

Quality results: Employees received a single list of tasks for the day in the mobile application, ensuring their prompt implementation.

Managers have free access to visual and reliable information about the status of tasks with the ability to push-notify in case of delay.

The management of the company received an up-to-date analytical on the entire trading network in the context of Division/Region/City, etc.

Quantitative results: The speed of reporting by employees has increased 10 times - 6 minutes instead of 60 minutes per day.

The speed of inspections of the CCR increased 2 times: 5 minutes on the TC 1 instead of 10 minutes.

Reduced the time for setting tasks based on the results of inspections from 1.5-2 hours to 1-1.5 hours due to the refusal to unload the daily start digest on WhatsApp.

The probability of completing the task by TK employees has been increased from 80% to 99%.

The possibility of forgery of the report is excluded, due to the fact that in the MD Audit application it is impossible to pass off the report of another TC as its own.

The system has been implemented throughout the network, throughout geography, which is more than 700 stores of various formats as of December 2023. As of September 2023, the number of Lenta employees actively using the system reached 4000 thousand people. Adding new units to the system will reach 10,000 people.