It's probably no longer politically correct to use the term "supervisor," but the role of a manager or "team captain" to ensure the quality of results is critical to the successful accomplishment of business goals. Individual managers must be able to correct errors and, hopefully, prevent their future occurrence through a combination of training, encouragement and discipline.
The recent announcement by Wal-Mart that one of its new goals for radio frequency identification (RFID) is to use in-store hotspots combined with pallet RFID tags to ensure merchandising programs are properly executed leads to several thoughts. I can only assume that the reason Wal-Mart wanted to do this was because they were not happy with the current level of execution.
Is it possible that the local management doesn't know they have a problem with program execution? Is providing notification to the central office going to improve compliance? If managers are failing to train, encourage and discipline, is the threat of some kind of retribution from headquarters going to make a difference?
I refer to my own experiences at a major, east coast supermarket chain. In the mid-80's, we put a system in place that automatically verified the proper shelf tags had been put on the shelf. We also monitored the first order from a shelf tag after a new item introduction to make sure the item had been shelved, and to spot any invalid orders for discontinued items from old tags. The simple result was that we could quickly tell which stores had sloppy shelf management. Great news, but did this fix anything?
It came as no surprise to the local management that their tags were not up to date. The fact that middle management now also understood the magnitude of the problem made some difference. Publishing the report had some competitive influence. But true corrective action required some tough decisions and good management at the local level.
Discussion Questions: Can technology make up, at least in part, for poor supervision of store-level execution? Does more emphasis need to be placed on the quality of results? Do managers properly monitor the quality of results coming from their teams?