Retail space planning leaders face demands for elevated work under increasingly compressed timelines. More than ever, their teams need to be able to analyze data fast and create localized solutions across a wide range of stores.

So what stands in their way?

According to experts, space planning teams don’t always have the right technology — particularly around accessing and leveraging enterprise data — to execute faster and create more elevated work. Layered atop these challenges, too, is that many companies are being asked to do more with less in a shaky economy. Asking for more budget might not be possible, or advisable, for space planning team leads. Your technology solution provider might have upgraded tools you can use, but if they come at a cost, you’re back at Square One.

So what are retail space planning leaders to do in this challenging environment?

The answer? More than ever, retail space planner team leads need to partner with their internal IT functions, both for quick technology upgrades and for the winning long-term space strategies that can truly elevate the function.

It’s here that some readers may say, ‘We don’t work closely with IT,’ or, ‘We can’t ever seem to get projects off the ground.’

Well, it’s time for that to change. And we can help. This article offers a framework for optimal IT and retail space planning linkage, with perspective from space and IT leaders on the best ways of working.

Step One: Establish a regular meeting cadence with IT.

What this accomplishes: Relationship-building with a vital internal partner.

Ami Hutchings, a retail consultant and former space planning and merchandising executive at Michaels, advises that space planning leaders and their teams meet weekly with their IT counterparts, not only to manage existing projects, but to touch base on what’s going on in their worlds. Such communication is foundational to the space-IT relationship.

“My team relied on tech daily to support the business and talked to their counterparts almost every week,” Hutchings says. “There's always something you need help with. You cannot expect your IT partners to just show up when needed and deliver help tomorrow. They need to know enough about your process and the work you do so they can support in the right way.”

Consistent communication with IT allows the function to best support the business unit needing assistance, says Amruth Laxman, founding partner of 4Voice, a telecommunications company serving small and mid-sized firms. It helps the parties understand each other.

“When the business tells IT what drives value for the business before the work begins, IT can plan and align resources to achieve the goals,” says Laxman.

Regular space-IT touchpoints are also vital in determining whether IT has the time and resources for projects at that moment, particularly ones desired quickly. IT, Laxman says, is often “the final link in the business chain,” with many constituencies to please. The more space planning teams have a lens into IT’s project load, the better.

Step Two: Assess your data needs with your retail space planning team. What do you need that you don’t have? IT can help.

What this accomplishes: IT can link you to the data you need and develop the tools you need to analyze, visualize and present.

Space planning leaders know the importance of data. They want every bit they can get their hands on. Internal data can be siloed and the full scope of available data isn’t always clear.

Enter IT, which can both shine a bright light on what’s available and then outfit you with the tools needed to put that data to best use.

Tapping into all relevant internal data should be Job No. 1 in your journey with IT. Acquiring and mapping is the most important thing you can do right off the bat.

“I think the biggest pain point (for space planners) is having access to all of the different types of data across the company,” Hutchings explains. “There may be customer data that lives in a marketing database that your space planning team is going to want to access, because that customer data could add another level of depth to the baseline information that resides in the space planning system.

“The largest ask we had for IT was just accessibility to different databases. We were being asked to execute strategic space projects like regional clustering, SKU-store relationships and new business expansions. My team and the IT partners had to find ways to get the data needed. It was a good partnership to make it happen.”

Step Three: Prioritize the projects you pitch to IT, describe them clearly and be open to compromise.

What this accomplishes: It helps IT balance your priorities vs. other initiatives to ensure the right projects are done at the right time.

In her experience, Hutchings’ space-IT projects fell into three buckets:

“911” projects — urgent needs, where fixes or enhancements were vital to business being conducted as usual.
Planned major technology projects, ones submitted during annual budgeting.
Ad-hoc projects — minor tweaks or enhancements that might not be high-priority but had the potential to be completed quickly.

For the urgent, “911” problems, Hutchings found that IT and organizational alignment came easy. It was the other buckets, however, where a solid space-IT relationship made all the difference.

To win larger-scale tech projects, Hutchings, said winning approval for projects took 1) visibility to other projects being submitted by other departments and 2) consistent alignment with her IT counterpart.

“When it came to budget-building or anything that was a more sophisticated, higher-level project, my VP partner and I would have touchbases for 30 minutes at the end of the week, so that we could track progress and talk out any issues or concerns,” Hutchings says.

For quick fixes — a new dashboard, for instance — the strength of the IT-space connection is vital. IT can make suggestions and offer new solutions. What’s more, IT can be essential in finding cost-effective fixes to problems — so important in a world where budgets are under closer scrutiny than ever.

Hutchings explains: “I’ll tell you: most of the times when I came in and I said, ‘We need to be able to do this and here's how I think we should do it, they would go, ‘Well, that would be great, but we can do these three other things, and it will cost half as much and it can happen next week.”
From IT’s perspective, successful ad-hoc projects with business units like retail space planning start with having as much information as possible on the problem to be solved, as well as a willingness to work together, with give-and-take, on path toward success.

As Laxman describes it: “A productive approach to IT involves issue and solution descriptions, followed by a detailed explanation of the desired outcome: ‘We’d need this dashboard for X, Y, Z,’ and, ‘Here’s the outcome we’re trying to achieve,’ instead of, ‘Here’s the outcome we’re trying to achieve.’ This invites multitasking and integration collaboration.”

Step Four: Space planning leaders must also have a clear framework on how Space-IT projects are managed and executed throughout their teams.

What this accomplishes: Ensures IT-Space projects stay on track, establishes clear swim lanes, empowers team members to build and grow relationships within the broader organization.

We’ve established that a working Space-IT relationship should be table stakes for your team.

So what should retail space planning leaders do to ensure that there is a consistent flow of bountiful outputs from that relationship, not just stops-and-starts?

We posed the question to Hutchings, who said, “As a space planning leader my role is to ensure upfront alignment within both teams, ensuring clear communication and tracking milestones to ensure progress. My directors and managers had ongoing touch bases and conversations with their IT partners as needed.

“The day-to-day IT questions on existing systems, project management and problem solving is always best handled by the team doing the work. Both teams need to know they can do what is needed to keep the business moving ahead. I just asked to be looped in on anything that they needed support on like any major enhancements that require upgrades, tech changes or funding need to be routed through the executive level for alignment before asking partners to jump in.”

Tying it All Together

At the heart of it, collaboration makes for the best IT and space relationships. And if we go step further, that collaboration starts with mutual respect, our experts tell us.

IT, Laxman says, wants to be seen as “partners, not as gatekeepers.” He adds: “The best collaborations happen when there is transparency, shared accountability, and respect for each other’s expertise. IT is not there to slow things down.”

So it's time for you, the retail space planning leader, to get going. Follow these four steps:

Start getting on IT’s calendar, now, to talk shop. Learn how to work best together. That only happens through talking.
When it's time to start working on IT projects, start with some data pain points. You never know what solutions IT might be able to offer, immediately, to help do your job better, faster and brighter.
After this, prioritize the other IT projects you have. Some will take longer than others. But once you start getting visibility into IT's calendar, you can begin to see what's feasible.
Finally, manage and empower your teams to take ownership of their own IT initiatives. Divide, conquer and thrive.

Don't wait any longer to begin partnering with IT. Because when you really need IT, and you will, it helps to be a friendly voice and an existing collaborative partner, not just someone new chattering fast about how important their problem is.