Langford: fivehead

The 2nd & 3rd January at work was a real struggle for me :( The 2014 Ursula is totally a different Ursula from 2013 – more ambitious, more aggressive, more demanding, more pushy, more detailed. Akhirnya, Ursula has keluar her tanduk & ekor :) That’s because whatever outcome or results from last year was Leonardo’s…now 2014 is Ursula’s actual KPIs. Ursula & I have a heart-to-heart talk. Now, it’s all about serious talk and serious work. No more about bonding and we have move away from the getting to know each other phase. Maybe, all these while – I am the one who is perasan :) Below are the conclusions from the meeting:

(1) Acknowledgment that I am indeed weak & lacking. I need to extend my thoughts & thinking a little bit further.

(2) Build up a strong Master List with YTD sales data which correspond with stock holding. Initially, I only have the sales data with me – this Ursula is also another one, if need the stock holding information, just say so…she have to pusing 1 round to tell me. This woman also another one clever to pusing and always say I pusing some more.

(3) Then, use the above data to know what are the top items, identify the key drivers which will lead to consistent ordering to ensure stock availability because these top items will at least generate 50% of the sales. When there is stock availability, there will also be stock visibility at the selling floor to block up, to do bulk display at the gondola end. Then with these stocks, can use it to do promotion in the leaflets.

(4) Hard sell to her any new listing or promotion plans. Sell to her the ideas, the concepts, the mechanics. Must tell her the story line. Must link to Press Ads or Leaflets exposure.

(5) IK Paper – Ursula is a real genius here. New A4 paper strategy. After bringing in the paper in November last year, the sales have been very encouraging. Thus, Ursula have decided to remove all of the Double A paper from the Supermarket format and put it in the IK paper. IK have the brand credibility in the market and its cheaper in terms of pricing compare to Double A. IK was initially removed by Leonardo & Jonas because at one point of time, G13's pricing was not that competitive in the market as The English keep on throwing the prices. But Ursula shoots me back – why, you don’t know how to negotiate ar? She is right about bringing back the IK paper. 2 months of sales and now IK paper is in my Top 10 2013 YTD sales.

I also apologized to Ursula that for the past 2 days, I have been very reluctant and showing a very bad attitude towards her but I really want to learn from her.