Is Your Company Store Really Maximizing Its Value to Serve Your Enterprise Needs?

Part 1

Is It Living Up to Its Highest and Best Use? 

I imagine that most of you reading this may already have a Company Store chock full of branded merchandise. But, I should take a minute and define what I’m talking about when I use the term “Company Store”. A Company Store is a central enterprise resource for your organization’s branded merchandise. This merchandise can be anything from inexpensive pens to tech items to North Face jackets. However, which particular items are found in your Company Store is not as important as why they are offered there.

In a sizable organization, typically there are many departments comprised of diverse groups of employees across a large geographical expanse. Each has a different set of needs to achieve their monthly, quarterly and annual objectives. Objectives from various key functional areas often include:

• HR:  Employee engagement, recruiting, onboarding and training.
• Marketing:  The central resource for building your brand. Harnesses the brand image and voice through promotions and events.
• Operations:  Implementing enterprise-wide initiatives including safety and wellness programs as well as other objectives that create efficiencies and reduce waste.
• Sales:  Reward and recognition for achieving business development goals; client engagement and recognition.

So, as a valuable central resource, your Company Store should be able to serve your organization’s unique needs on a regular basis day-in and day-out. Just to be clear, the Store can’t be all things to all people in your organization. The Store needs to serve the key recurring needs across the entire enterprise.

With this basic overview of what the purpose of a Company Store is, in my next post I want to address the reason your organization would need one. It’s not as simple as you would think. The Company Store is not just your “sway supply closet”.  Stay tuned…