The Essex MBA students take on Sainsbury’s PLC’s flagship store

Sainsbury’s PLC's Colchester store manager Rob McCracken and deputy store manager Jason Boyton recently invited students from The Essex MBA to visit their store and support a focused consulting engagement project exploring and addressing live strategic and operational challenges at store level. The Sainsbury's store in Colchester is their biggest by turnover in the UK (£2m+ per week, 500+ staff) and is a flagship store for the company.

Teams comprised of current Essex MBA students who are experienced professionals with backgrounds across retail, operational finance, banking, technology and change management as well as consumer psychology, all of whom were able to engage credibility with complex business issues in a commercial environment.

Sainsbury's presented four distinct challenges to the Essex MBA cohort. Each challenge explored critical areas of concern currently facing the organisation and the effective resolution of which holds the key to sustained high performance.

Teams initially undertook a structured store immersion to develop first-hand an understanding of store operations, colleague roles, culture, customer flow and logistics. Building on this foundation, The Essex MBA consulting teams applied structured analysis and professional judgement to address this year’s priorities, working closely with the store leadership team and senior stakeholders to support effective decision-making and performance improvement recommendations.

The teams presented their findings back and faced some close questioning by the Sainsbury's managers.

This was The Essex MBA's second visit to the Sainsbury's flagship Colchester store of this nature following on from the first visit last year.  James Fowler, MBA Director said "We are confident we are building what we trust will be an enduring working relationship with the company that future MBAs will continue to benefit from."