STORES Magazine - July 2008 - (Page L6)

cover story BY LIZ PARKS t could be something as routine as a power failure or as catastrophic as a terrorist attack, but whenever business continuity is threatened, retailers must be prepared to respond pro-actively and decisively. That takes planning, of course, and as a result of manmade and natural events of the new millennium, retailers have become more sophisticated in their preparations. “Not only are businesses more pro-active to weather-related crises,” says Roberta Witty, research vice president for Stanford, Conn.-based IT research and advisory company Gartner, but also “to any type of event that could impact their day-to-day operations and the welfare of the communities in which their stores operate.” Gone, she says, are the days when retailers thought of business continuity and crisis management as primarily being the responsibility of the IT department. Today, it is typical for retailers and other businesses to engage “teams of key corporate executives who help coordinate a pro-active response across all their key business processes, from procurement through comHome Depot’s crisis munity and public relations,” Witty says. “It’s philosophy: Be the also seen as necessary to protect their brand last store to close images along with the security and safety of “As a company, we take a very holisand the first store their customers, associates and facilities.” tic approach functionally,” says Chris to open without It is no coincidence, she says, that the retailCanoles, senior director of environmenputting associates ers most acclaimed for their crisis managetal health and safety for Home Depot. or customers at risk ment planning skills and solutions have develStakeholders in each business area oped a broad, corporate-wide approach to convene to discuss the situation as it deemergency planning. velops, and “we use a third-party disaster and emergency The business continuity plan in place at Home Depot, for management consulting firm and its weather forecasting example, relies on a company-wide initiative focused on service to track a storm, its intensity and the approximate key functional business areas: IT, asset protection, store oplandfall areas,” Canoles says. erations, supply chain, merchandising, HR, procurement Home Depot maps the stores it believes are in harm’s and public relations, as well as the Home Depot Foundaway, “and then there is a whole series of conference calls tion (which manages charitable giving) and its government and action items that are followed to ensure that our stores solutions department. are adequately prepared in the days and hours leading up As a crisis of significant magnitude emerges, Home to the event — and just as important, that they are prepared to open successfully and restore business to our cusDepot sets up a command center, utilizing space set aside tomers as quickly as is practical,” he says. for such eventualities at its Atlanta headquarters. L6 STORES / JULY 2008 WWW.LPINFORMATION.COM http://WWW.LPINFORMATION.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of STORES Magazine - July 2008

STORES Magazine - July 2008 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Dearth of Retail Creativity What Shoppers Think Wow, Is That a Wawa? 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Merchandising Strategy Concept2Watch Point of Sale Outsourcing Human Resources Top 100 Retailers Store Design RFID IT Operations Systems Managements LP Vantage Point Newsbeat Cover Story Emergency Response Systems Background Checks LOEB Retail Letter Point of View NRF News Retail Crossword Retail Industry Calendar Last Laugh

STORES Magazine - July 2008

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