Shopper's Stop Limited - Securities and Exchange Board of India

4. Reduce operational risks by permitting us to identify issues and areas of concerns and
deviations from set processes
5. Reduce our dependence on individuals, including those in critical functions
6. Induct new employees faster
We rank our stores based on their compliance with the SOPs. We believe our thrust on systems and
processes will help us manage our growth better.
Management Information Systems (MIS)
We have strong MIS capabilities that make use of our technological investments to generate valuable
insight for us and help us in improving our operations, as well as in enhancing our speed of response to
what the customers want.
We are thus able to monitor our performance on a day to day basis, across stores, departments and
product categories and compare the same with other stores as well as across periods. This helps us take
corrective action on a timely basis, and optimise our stock.
We are in the process of implementing a business intelligence software called Business Objects, which
we believe will further enhance our capabilities to extract and analyse our business data.
Measurement of Customer Satisfaction
We have been measuring and tracking drivers of customer satisfaction since 1999, and have devised a
Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI). The CSI score as well as feedback received as part of the survey
done of our customers provides us with valuable information. We use this for our strategic planning as
well as operational improvements.
We carry out two studies in a year, with our First Citizens and walk in customers at the store, with CSMM
Walker International, a leading global research agency, conducting the studies for us. Our CSI scores for
the previous two years are given below:
Consumer Satisfaction Index
May-02 Dec-02 May'03 Dec'03
Process Index 48.27 50.73 49.38 54.50
Overall Index 58.19 62.43 60.30 63.15
The Process Index covers factors within the control of the Company whilst the Overall Index also covers
additional factors that may be outside the control of the Company but may have an impact on customer
satisfaction.
CSI scores are made available at the unit level for each of the above parameters as well as for the chain.
This allows us to track performance on customer expectation at overall, segment and unit levels,
determine critical improvement areas at all levels and also identify opportunities that we can leverage
upon. We use the CSI score as an indicator of employee performance with several of our managers
having the CSI score as a Key Result Area (KRA) in their performance appraisal.
Measurement of Employee Satisfaction
We actively measure employee satisfaction as we believe that employee satisfaction has a direct
relationship with customer satisfaction. Satisfied and motivated employees are critical for the success of
any service intensive business like ours.
We carry out an annual online survey in which all our employees participate, based on which we
determine the Employee Satisfaction Index (ESI), on store as well as chain level. We have linked ESI to
management performance and have made it a KRA for several of our managers. Our ESI scores for the
previous two years are given below:
Employee Satisfaction Index
Dec-02 Dec-03 Variance
Work Factor Index 55.6 64.9 9.3
Overall Index 71.6 78.8 7.2
(Source: IMRB, an affiliate of CSMM Walker International)
The Work Factor Index covers parameters that directly impact the employee whilst the Overall Index
covers additional factors such as company loyalty and image, which also influence employee satisfaction,
but are outside the purview of the immediate manager.
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