In a personnel move that was announced on Christmas

Transcription

1 DeCA Interview DeCA Sales Director Chris Burns: Setting His Sights On Sales Burns In a personnel move that was announced on Christmas Eve morning in 2009, and which became effective on Jan. 17, Chris Burns was named the sales director of the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA). In this exclusive interview, Burns reviews his philosophy on serving the agency s customers, as well as his areas of focus as the sales director of an agency that delivers the commissary benefit on a worldwide basis. E and C News: To recap your 26-year commissary career thus far, what would you say have been some of the projects or endeavors you ve been most proud to be a part of? Working with and mentoring DeCA team members; Overseeing and helping to open many stores, most recently, the new commissary at Peterson AFB, Colo., and the re-establishment of the store at NASJRB Fort Worth, Texas; Collaborating with industry partners to increase sales and patron transactions in DeCA West; Serving as a senior fellow in the Department of Defense (DoD) and helping to rewrite the Oct. 8, 2008, Armed Services Commissary Operations Instruction that hadn t seen any major updates since August 1990; Assisting the Tyndall AFB, Fla., commissary team as they won the Bill Nichols Best Large store award for 2002 while I was manager of the Florida Zone; and, Playing a role in the transition from Defense Supply Center Philadelphia (DSCP) procuring fresh fruits and vegetables (FF&V) for commissaries to DeCA procuring FF&V. As I have heard, and agree, this is probably one of the most successful initiatives since DeCA s inception. During a networking break at an industry conference, DeCA Sales Director Chris Burns chatted with DeCA West Director Keith Hagenbuch and Ginesa Madar, national account manager, Nestlé USA Military Sales. With the collaborative efforts of DeCA and our industry team, Burns says, I believe it s possible for us to reach 100 million transactions annually within the next couple of years. Chris Burns: First of all, I appreciate the confidence, and am thankful and very excited about the director of sales opportunity that Philip E. Sakowitz Jr., DeCA director and chief executive office (CEO), and the senior leaders have honored me with. It s hard to believe that 26 years have come and gone by so quickly. I ve always been proud of, and have very much enjoyed, working close to the field during much of my career, whether it was as a store director, zone manager, director of operations or deputy director. Part of my excitement of being the director of sales is that it allows me to continue to work closely with our hardworking field team, hopefully to help enable their operations in a positive manner. I am fortunate to have been involved in many projects and endeavors throughout my career. Some of the most rewarding have included: Being part of DeCA s strategic planning process during the past few years; E and C News: In general, how would you sum up your philosophy or your approach to serving the patron and running a resale operation? How will your experience inform your new role at DeCA? What will be your key areas of focus as DeCA director of sales? Burns: My grandparents owned a grocery store, and I remember, since I was 10 years old, helping them in the store when I visited during the summer. I know it s a cliché, but the grocery business has been in my blood ever since my grandfather taught me about it. Since then, I have been very passionate about selling groceries. In terms of the commissary, I am even more passionate about helping to deliver this benefit in the most efficient and effective manner because of the special patrons we serve on a daily basis. One of the most rewarding experiences is that I have been fortunate to have had many mentors during my commissary career. However, two gentlemen, former DeCA West Director Scott Simpson and former DeCA East Deputy Director Bob Vitikacs, stand out, because both were my mentors for most of my commissary career. Their insights into this benefit and their business acumen have helped season and provide me with many experiences. In addition, I have valued and learned a lot from each of my SKU OPTIMIZATION One of the initiatives I will use to take a strong look at SKUs within all categories is to have Michelle Frost, chief of the Semi-Perishable Division; Brad McMinn, chief of Perishable Division, and our category managers travel with a few zone managers for a week. I want them to see small, medium and large operations. They ll be walking the store with the zone managers and store management teams to see firsthand and listen to our field team on their thoughts on SKU optimization and how we re doing with managing categories and promotions. DeCA Director of Sales, Chris Burns 54 JUNE 2010 EXCHANGE and COMMISSARY NEWS

2

3 DeCA Interview past assignments. My extensive experience at field and above-field levels, to include my senior fellowship within DoD, will play a major role in helping me in my new role as director of sales. I have been on the job a little more than two months, and I can tell you my predecessor, former Sales Director and current DeCA East Deputy Director Randy Chandler, did a great job of moving the Sales Directorate in a positive direction. Our fundamental responsibility rests with category management and ensuring that we have the right products on our shelves at the right price and time for our customers, which will enable sales increases. To do this effectively, we are charged with properly executing our category management processes. It s critical that we know and properly manage the categories that are driving DeCA s sales. Part of driving sales means we keep doing what we do best, and I believe that DeCA s strength continues to be in our perishable departments. I want to ensure that our patrons are aware of the great products we have in our stores, especially in dairy, produce and meat, through a robust marketing plan and outstanding merchandising. Marketing is so vital to our continued success in connecting our customers with their benefit. I believe that patron awareness of this benefit is more important today than ever before because of the increased competition outside of the installation. This is another area where our relationship with industry is so valuable. Our industry partners spend a lot of time and money identifying customer shopping behaviors, and we can learn from that analysis. We had about 95 million patron transactions in fiscal With the collaborative efforts of DeCA and our industry team, I believe it s possible for us to reach 100 million transactions annually within the next couple of years. Another area of my focus will be on patron savings. Recently, DoD made it a mandate for this agency to save our customers an average of 30 percent. That underlined the importance of this benefit, and I will work very closely with our industry team to ensure we continue to meet that savings mandate. It is my job to ensure that our directorate functions are sound and that we have programs in place to support the stores, reports Burns, shown here with Marcus Lashley, director of DeCA s Equal Employment Opportunity office. E and C News: What will be the priority items in your first year as DeCA s director of sales? Burns: In addition to the areas of focus I mentioned in the previous question, I want to ensure that all divisions of the Sales Directorate continue operating at high levels. As a directorate, this means we measure what we do across the board to ensure we are meeting and surpassing our standards for performance. I also want to ensure that we are efficient in what we do. For example, our industry partners have appointments with various category managers and buyers, and I expect that our category management process is standardized, fair and consistent. We have a great team, and I have been fortunate in my career to have worked closely with the region leadership, zone managers and many of the store directors and their teams. It is my job to ensure that our directorate functions are sound and that we have programs in place to support the stores. I also look forward to the feedback from the region and the field on how the Sales Directorate is doing to help enable their operations. E and C News: Is there anything in particular from your time as a DeCA West deputy director that you d like to implement system wide at DeCA? Burns: The DeCA West team likes to test concepts, and I appreciated that Randy Chandler allowed us the latitude to do just that during my tenure in the West. For example, I believe that there is an opportunity to grow category sales by having the right mix of regional items in our stock assortment albeit, we must do our homework and be selective. In DeCA West, we also found that it s important to ensure we tailor the stock assortment in the overseas environment. We have to understand that the great majority of our sales in CONUS come from retiree transactions. Within the overseas environment, it s the active-duty military and their families that drive our business. It s our job in the Sales Directorate to ensure that we have the right product mix and tools to positively enable our overseas operations. I believe that patron awareness of this benefit is more important today than ever before because of the increased competition outside of the installation, Burns points out, and he is working on a number of initiatives to reinforce the value of shopping at the commissary and making the installation a destination for military shoppers. E and C News: Will we see more work being done on the topic of SKU reductions, similar to the test run at Fort Bragg North, N.C.? What are some of the pros and cons of streamlining SKUs, while at the same time providing patron variety? Burns: There are definitely pros and cons to streamlining SKUs. We tried several tests at Fort Bragg North. When we compared sales results against the sister store, Fort Bragg South, we noticed increased sales in some categories where SKUs were reduced while in other categories, we saw slight decreases or no change in sales. We plan to use the lessons learned at Fort Bragg North as we move forward. We ll also continue to test new initiatives in our stores, as it s important to test new concepts. E and C News: With shoppers watching their pennies more closely, are they cutting back and keeping quantities smaller, or are they spending more on club packs? Will we continue to see this segment evolve? Does it pose any challenge for single unit item sales? Burns: Our patrons continue to let us know that club packs are important as sales continue to increase. Sales for club packs from fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2009 There are definitely pros and cons to streamlining SKUs. We tried several tests at Fort Bragg North. When we compared sales results against the sister store, Fort Bragg South, we noticed increased sales in some categories where SKUs were reduced, while in other categories, we saw slight decreases or no change in sales. DeCA Sales Director Chris Burns 56 JUNE 2010 EXCHANGE and COMMISSARY NEWS

4

5 DeCA Interview E and C News: Can you fill us in on the background of the inaugural Family Fun Fitness Festival, held in May? DeCA teamed up with installation, MWR and exchange resale systems in May, to bring servicemembers on base the first joint Family Fun Fitness Festival. Health, wellness, nutrition, fitness and fun were the focal points during the month, with events ranging from parking lot and case-lot sales, health screenings and entertaining activities for the very young, to organized running races and games that provided opportunities for youth to interact and enjoy physical activity, such as the street-hockey game, shown here at NAS Corpus Christi, Texas. increased by more than $9 million. Club packs are a promotional item and provide a great opportunity for the treasure hunt concept within our commissaries. I believe it s important for club packs to continue to evolve. Our industry partners continue to provide us with different club pack SKUs, which I believe helps provide our various departments with a fresh look and ultimately helps drive sales. Club packs should be treated as a promotional item. There may be instances where club packs pose a challenge to single-unit item sales if the pricing is not watched closely. We need to work closely with our industry partners to ensure we have the right balance and price points on club packs and single units. E and C News: During these challenging economic times, what are some of the latest merchandising initiatives that the DeCA Sales Directorate will soon be introducing? Burns: Thus far, we have seen great results and have heard positive feedback from the field on the mandated end-cap program. We are seeing better sell-through at the store and also better price points being offered from industry. We will continue to focus on promoting and ensuring that we have the right mix of healthy items across departments and categories within the commissary. Our patrons are asking for more gluten-free items, and the sales team is working closely with industry to ensure that we have the best product mix at the best prices available to all our stores. As I noted earlier, I believe the commissary niche and its strength is in quality, perishable items that we make available to our patrons at great savings. One of the good news stories for the past four years is within our produce department. I believe we can learn a lot from the collaborative partnerships our industry s FF&V contractors have formed. The contractors have helped our store team maintain a fresh look within our produce departments. Our patrons have responded by purchasing more products at great savings. 58 JUNE 2010 I believe we can use some of the merchandising lessons we have learned from our produce contractors and implement them within our fresh-meat case. We are in the middle of brainstorming this and hope to test some new meat-merchandising concepts in the future. Burns: The Family Fun Fitness Festival event started as an idea from Brad McMinn. He put together a team from DeCA and industry last summer and began the process of creating a new and fun event for the May case-lot sale. The exchanges and MWR were all queried as to whether they would like to participate in this event, and the response was an overwhelming yes! During the annual case-lot sale in May, the fitness festival expands to most of DeCA s May case-lot sales events by partnering with participating exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) programs to create festivals that highlight National Physical Fitness Month. Case-lot sales, exchange sidewalk sales, MWR fitness events, demos, music, free nutritious food samples and lots more related to health and fitness were available to shoppers, all in one place. As Mr. Sakowitz has stated many times, we want to play a part in making the installation a destination for the military shoppers so that they consider traveling there to be worth the trip! America s Top Supermarket Chains E and C NEWS Sales % Change Rank Rank Retailer in Billions ($) from The Kroger Co. A $ Safeway Inc Supervalu Publix Super Markets Ahold USA B Delhaize America C H.E. Butt Grocery Co Meijer Great A&P Tea Co. D Whole Foods Market Giant Eagle Winn-Dixie Stores Inc Trader Joe s Aldi Supermarkets Hy-Vee Food Stores Defense Commissary Agency* Wegman s Food Markets Save Mart Supermarkets WinCo Foods Albertsons LLC * DeCA sales reflect the commissary pricing policy of cost plus 5 percent (the 5 percent surcharge is not included in the sales figure shown above). When reviewing this comparison, it should be noted that civilian supermarket sales reflect a much higher markup. Notes: A This list includes only chains primarily devoted to food and grocery retailing. It does not include discount store chains, such as Wal-Mart (which generated 2009 revenues of roughly $131.7 billion from its grocery department for the first time in history, deriving more than half its sales revenue [51 percent] from groceries, in addition to another $18.2 billion in food and beverage sales alone in its Sam s Clubs division, making it far and away the leading food and consumables retailer in the country or Costco (with about $39.1 billion in food and consumables sales); convenience store chains (7-Eleven rang up about $10.2 billion for merchandise during the year); dollar stores (Dollar General generated food and consumables sales of more than $8.3 billion) or food distributors such as Nash Finch (with retail sales of more than half a billion dollars), which operate significant retail supermarket and grocery store chains as well. B Includes Giant Food, Stop & Shop, Martin s and Ukrop s chains. C Includes Food Lion, Hannaford Bros., Sweetbay, Harvey s, Bloom and Bottom Dollar stores. D Includes A&P, Waldbaum s, SuperFresh, Pathmark and Food Emporium stores. DeCA sales are FY09. Supermarket sales are for FY closest to DeCA FY09. Some sales figures shown here are estimates. EXCHANGE and COMMISSARY NEWS

6 Sales Execution Category Management Information Technology Passion Results For More Information, contact: Frank J. Makely Jr., President Dunham and Smith Agencies A division of Eurpac Service, Inc. The Powerhouse, Suite 400, 800 St. Louis Union Station, St. Louis, MO Phone: Fax: fmakely@dunhamsmith.com Web site: