24 minute read
Daybreak store profile
Without a hitch
Retailers Arthur and Bernadette McGuire say that the boost created by their recent renovation has been “just phenomenal”
For nearly 90 years, a shop on Raven Terrace, Galway City, has sold groceries to the locals and those that travel through the area. Enviably located just a stone’s throw from the Spanish Arch, the shop first came to be in 1935, when Arthur McGuire’s mother opened its doors. “She was just 17 years old at the time,” says McGuire, the owner of McGuire’s Daybreak. “It all started from there. My dad owned the pub next door, which was run as a separate business. I grew up around both businesses, and when I got married in 1980, I took over running the shop from my mother.” Those were trying times for small businesses owners, he says. “I tried to develop the business over the following years, and in 1983 I bought the pub that was next door to the shop. At the time, there were four buildings on the street, and three of them were pubs. Many years later, I was able to knock the two into its current form.
“Things were really difficult for us at the time,” McGuire continues. “I was only 26 when I bought the pub. I borrowed £100,000 at a staggering 18.5% interest rate for the buying and renovating costs. That level of interest is unheard of in today’s climate. It was a challenge to make ends meet for many years. We were trying to make repayments and develop the business at the same time.”
STORE PROFILE Retailer: McGuire’s Daybreak Address: 2 Raven Terrace, Galway, Ireland, Staff: 13; nine full-time and four part-time Opening hours: Monday – Sunday, 6.45am – 10pm Julia O’Reilly caught up with Arthur McGuire of McGuire’s Daybreak to discuss the store’s recent renovation, the importance of good staff, and the support he’s received from Musgrave through the years
Tough times
Just as the going got tough for McGuire, Musgrave introduced an enticing proposition to retailers. “We were an independent store, and I loved being my own man,” he says. “But at the same time, I recognised that symbol groups were becoming a huge influence in Ireland. To bring your business to the next level, you had to be part of one of these groups.”
When Musgrave introduced Day-Today to the market, offering retailers a chance to be part of a symbol group, while retaining significant control, McGuire grabbed it. “I never looked back, Musgrave really was a godsend to me,” he says. “The whole team has been absolutely phenomenal over the years in every aspect of our business. I have nothing but the highest of praise for all the Musgrave hierarchy, from the top down.”
Rapid renovation
McGuire was particularly grateful for the work the Musgrave team put into his store’s recent revamp. A rapid-fire affair, the extensive renovation went off without a hitch thanks in part to meticulous planning on Musgrave’s end. “On 28 February 2021, we closed our doors at half six and we opened them again on
5 March, effectively as a whole new store. We had 14 people on hand for the renovation. It was four full days’ work – 24-hour days. On the organisational side, Musgrave made sure it ran like clockwork. There was not one glitch in the whole operation, all the equipment arrived on time, all the tradespeople arrived on time. Everybody really stepped up to the mark, the level of change we achieved in that time was incredible.
“We’re delighted with the result, and our customers are too. The boost we have seen from the reboot has been just phenomenal. We always had a strong deli, but the Munch & Co. concept has brought it to a much higher level, and we have seen growth of about 15% since.
Sales boost
Another welcome area of growth came from unexpected means. After McGuire established a dedicated off-licence area in line with government regulations, alcohol sales shot up by 30%. “We always had a name for having a broad range of wines and the craft beers,” he says. “Within the Daybreak group, we were named Wine Store of the Year for nine years running. We have only slightly under four metres of wine, but we carry over 190 varieties. Before we did these changes, I think people had been rushing past them. Whereas now, they’re in the section and they’re spending 15 or 20 minutes reading about grape varieties. Now we have customers saying, ‘God, I never knew you had this range’, but we always did, it just stands out more now.
“It’s the same with craft beers, we carry a huge range for a store of our size,” he continues. “There are three standalone craft beer pubs in our area. A few years ago, we recognised that there was huge potential to develop our craft beer business to tap into that clientele, and it’s been going well for us. It’s important to tap into customer bases that exist in the area you’re in.”
Retailer Arthur McGuire is understandably proud of the store’s off-licence department which has resulted in it being named Daybreak Wine Store of the Year for nine years running
Stellar staff
Keeping staff happy is one of the secrets to McGuire’s success. “Staff can make you or break you,” he says, “if you have a good team, you have to look after them.” And from talking to McGuire, it seems he’s doing just that.
With 13 staff in total – nine full-time and four part-time – McGuire works hard to foster a positive working environment in his store. “We treat everyone as a family, not as staff, and they reciprocate that,” he says. “Prior to Covid-19, we would go out at least once a month. It creates a nice atmosphere in the shop. Show interest, invest time and energy in your team, and they’ll show it back to you in spades. You can have a beautiful store, wonderful products, all the gadgets, but if you don’t have good staff then you’re wasting your time. Customers pick up on the working environment, and if they get a nice, homely feeling in a shop, they’ll want to spend more time there.”
As well as his own staff, McGuire is full of praise for the team at Musgrave, who he thanks for making the revamp process as seamless as possible. “The level of professionalism and integrity from each and every one of their team was just fantastic,” says McGuire. “Liam Coady and Leonard Doyle, who are both business development managers at Musgrave, were a great help in the development and the rebranding stage. A lovely man called Philip Kelly, who is the fresh food advisor for Musgrave, spent nearly a full week with us introducing new elements to our deli from the Munch and Co. menu. Musgrave Cash & Carry in Galway were a huge help as well. We really appreciate all the help we’ve received through the years in making our store a success.” ■
Brian Donaldson, Maxol Group CEO
Hot on the heels of Maxol’s announcement of a €7m investment for its forecourt network across the Republic of Ireland last month, Maxol Group CEO Brian Donaldson was in a justifiably buoyant mood when we caught up with him over Zoom to discuss the group’s latest tranche of investment for 2022.
Since 2012, Maxol has already invested over €220m in its 236-strong network across Ireland and the latest announcement will include more than €1m each on the refurbishment of two high-profile sites: Maxol Ballycoolin, Dublin and Maxol Riverside in Navan.
Back on track
“Much like last year, 2021 hasn’t been quite the year we had planned for,” Donaldson says in his characteristically upfront fashion. “Our investment programme in Ireland came to a halt on several occasions due to the pandemic, but we remain committed to our plans, and it is great to be back on track and looking ahead to the future with confidence.”
In many ways, Maxol as a family-owned business under the McMullan family, appears to be reaping the rewards of a financially prudent approach. Although the group has continually ploughed money back into developing the business over the years, Maxol has been careful not to over-extend from a debt perspective.
Financial control
“Family businesses always take a much more long-term view in terms of investment and one of the things that we have never done is lost the run of ourselves,” says Donaldson. “The McMullan family reinvest significant amounts of the profit back into the business which is all about building the future for the next generation. Certainly, one thing that we’ve always been very strong on is financial control, financial management. We’re very much P&L driven, investments need to make sense for that investment to go ahead, projects will all come to table, but we will only proceed with those where the best return is and that’s always been our mantra.
“We don’t like having a lot of debt on our books,” he continues. “Therefore, we try to manage it as tightly as we can because you never know what’s round the corner, you only have to look at the crash in 2008 and the casualties that arose from that. Some players [in our industry] were very fortunate to escape due to the amount of debt they had taken on, that’s not our style. We’re very much balance sheet driven; the majority of all our company-owned sites are freehold, we own them and that means we’re in control of the site, it means we’re not paying large annual rents to landlords, and we’re very agile.”
Charging ahead
W h i l e 2 0 2 0 w a s c l e a r l y a c h a l l e n g i n g y e a r f o r I r e l a n d ’ s f o r e c o u r t i n d u s t r y , M a x o l , n a m e d ‘ B e s t o f t h e B e s t ’ a t t h e N A C S E u r o p e a n C o n v e n i e n c e R e t a i l A w a r d s , i s “ b a c k o n t r a c k ” w i t h a € 7 m i l l i o n i n v e s t m e n t p l a n f o r 2 0 2 0 , C E O B r i a n D o n a l d s o n t e l l s
G i l l i a n H a m i l l
100% Irish
As further evidence of the group’s financial prudence, Maxol operates “a very tight overhead structure with our core business”, employing “no more than 85 people, of which five are members of the McMullan family”. What’s more, its focus is 100% on Ireland: “All of our money only goes into Ireland,” says Donaldson. “We don’t have business sitting over in mainland GB, we don’t have any businesses in the States, we have nothing over in Europe. All our money is going back into the domestic economy in Ireland, and I think that’s what sets us apart, in terms of being truly local, truly family and truly 100% Irish-owned. That’s our big difference and I think in the next number of months and years ahead, that’s going to mean an awful lot to the Irish consumer.” As of course, do “first-class standards and service”, both attributes reflected in Maxol Newbridge winning the inaugural Best of the Best Store award at the annual NACS European Convenience Retail Awards held in June – a coup which Donaldson says is a testament to everyone involved.
“The past ten years have seen us transition from being a fuel centric brand to one that is more known for our food offering,” he continues. “To achieve this, we have been redeveloping existing service stations by introducing more eatin and seating areas, together with family friendly spaces, wherever possible.”
Indoor dining
Speaking of seating areas, it is impossible to ignore the elephant in the room. Although our interview took place before the government’s announcement that indoor dining could reopen for vaccinated customers on Monday, 26 July, Donaldson nevertheless shares his thoughts on the difficulties involved for the convenience and forecourt sector.
“Within our sector, it’s a high turnover with a high frequency of visits and a short stay per visit so to go through all of those [proof of vaccination] controls for someone maybe sitting down for five to ten minutes, it’s going to a challenge in terms of resources and how we manage that,” he says. “We have fed those concerns back to the government to say, look, we know that you’re trying to get restaurants back open, but I think what you need to be looking at is whether there could be some form of alleviation for our sector, particularly for those high turnover locations where people aren’t going to be spending an hour to two hours to sit down for a meal.”
Afterall, as Donaldson points out, it was the convenience and forecourt sector’s strict adherence to Covid-19 hygiene and safety measures that helped give government confidence that the non-essential retail sector could be safely reopened. “One of the things that I think our sector can be very proud of is that we set the principles, the ground rules for highstreet retailing to reopen. We were able to prove to the government that we could trade the whole way through Covid without being a spreader of the disease through implementing best practice.”
Change in buyer behaviour
Forecourt volumes were obviously majorly impacted during the first lockdown in 2020, due to the restrictions placed on travel. “They were reduced by anything up to 70% depending on the location - the more transient location you had probably the worse your volume percentage fell - but as a business we quickly became very much that community store, that hub for all of the local residents, all of those businesses that still had to work through Covid to provide essential services. To be quite honest it became almost like a military exercise in terms of making sure we were doing the right things at the right time as more and more information came through. For us, it was very much important to show solidarity in clear communications with all of our retailers. It was a matter of making sure we gave them the up-to-date information on how best to navigate their way through Covid19. We worked very closely obviously with our strategicalised partners such as BWG Foods, the Musgrave Group and also the Henderson Group in Northern Ireland.”
Thankfully, the second lockdown was less severe, as people had greater confidence in
Maxol created 20 new jobs in Wicklow following a €3.75 million investment in Maxol Rathnew, which opened last year
making journeys. “At this moment in time,” says Donaldson, “we are seeing city centre type locations more proportionately hit in terms of volumes not recovering and in-store turnover not recovering, due to less traffic coming into those locations because office workers aren’t coming into the office, they’re still continuing to work remotely from home. From our point of view, the majority of our network is thankfully within the suburbs, all within community neighbourhood type locations.”
“A big change” in buyer behaviour has occurred whereby shoppers are increasingly using Maxol stores not just for impulse purchases but for their top-up grocery shopping. “Therefore, what we had to do as a business is make sure that we expanded our range so that people could come in and do a larger, more competitively priced type shop, getting everything necessary for their family needs.”
Maxol Ardbrae, located on Vevay Road, Bray, Co. Wicklow, reopened last year following a €1.7 million investment, with new food offerings and customer seating
That said, Maxol was already less impulsefocused than some competitors in the forecourt sector. “Our model has always been not as extreme,” says Donaldson. “A lot of our competitors moved purely to impulse, and that might well have been down to the types of locations they’re serving.” Yet with “the backbone of Maxol’s model” being neighbourhood locations, Donaldson says that the latest Maxol store concept “still had a much greater range of products compared to our competitors; all that we’re doing is now extending that and giving a wider choice, certainly within fresh and chilled, and ambient.”
In fact, during the pandemic, more shoppers’ eyes have been opened as to the range and value available at Maxol, Donaldson adds. “We have been making sure that our stores are set up for the needs of the people within that area. We aren’t applying a one-shoe-fits-all approach, we are looking at each of the demographics of each location. We’re working hand-in-glove with our independent retailers along with our supply partners to make sure we’re giving our customers what they need.”
Careful consideration is given to stocking the ranges customers want, including delisting products that are not moving. Technology plays a key role in this task. “We continue to invest very heavily in ‘big data’,” says Donaldson, “understanding the trends, understanding what’s moving, understanding on-shelf availability, the importance of sell-by dates; making sure that we are becoming not just good retailers but exceptional retailers in terms of the service that we give.”
Rosa Coffee
“Covid has accelerated the change in consumer behaviour,” he continues, “and what we have done with all our independent retailers is work with them to make sure that we continue to adapt because everything evolves. Certainly, we have seen in the last 24 months, there’s been quite a dramatic shift. In terms of our coffee business under Rosa Coffee, it’s doing extremely well for us, our turnover is now well in excess of €8 million a year, and that’s for a brand that we only launched towards the end of 2018.”
He attributes Rosa’s success to several factors: investment in the latest machines, quality coffee beans and sustainable cups and lids. “We’ve done it right from day one and we’re very consistent in our approach and that’s the same with our deli business; we’ve invested very heavily in the supply chain, the training and the ongoing product development and that’s been achieved by listening to our customers and to what they want.”
A testament to the brand
The shift to a more food-centric brand was fully laid out in the group’s five-year strategic plan in 2016. Alongside the success of the deli, coffee and bakery departments, two specific examples which show how far Maxol has progressed, include Maxol’s own milk and sandwich range, now provided through Deli Lites. “What we have achieved really reinforces and is a fantastic testament to the brand,” Donaldson says. “People said to me, ‘How can you have Maxol milk when your brand is fuel?’ It wasn’t any problem whatsoever. If anything, the endorsement from our name being on it, meant the product was very trusted, people knew that it would be reliable and come from a quality source.”
Launched in 2018, turnover of Maxol’s Rosa Coffee “is now well in excess of €8 million a year,” says Brian Donaldson
EV charging
Another area in which Maxol is moving with the times is within electric vehicle chargers. “We were one of the first players to put in EV chargers way back in 2010/2011 with ESB and to be quite honest that revolution didn’t happen for all the reasons that are well known to all of us. However, we know that every government across the globe is now mandated in terms of getting to a net zero carbon environment by 2050. Our view is that electrification is coming and we have been preparing for electrification for four years.
“We have had a dedicated team looking at equipment and payment platform models. We were probably one of the first companies in Ireland to go to Norway with our board of directors to do a study tour looking at what’s happened within that particular market, which is way ahead of any other country across the globe. Based on our learnings there, we have a model which we can roll out, we even have a brand name for what we would be selling electricity under in terms of superfast chargers. We have a payments model already under trial in Northern Ireland in Townparks in Antrim. We’re working closely with the Electric Vehicle Association in Northern Ireland (EVANI) to get their feedback because again we’re trying to look at this through the eyes of our EV customer.”
Learnings from Norway
Some of the key learnings from Norway include the importance of equipment reliability; “a lot of equipment is breaking down quite frequently,” Donaldson says. There can also be issues with queuing which would necessitate a “model where you can book your space, and thirdly, it needs to be a very simple payments platform. At the moment in Norway, there could be anything up to 13 different payment platforms needing anything up to 13 different apps and that’s very inconvenient and confusing and doesn’t always work for customers if they call into a location where they don’t have the right app downloaded.”
Following Maxol’s 100th anniversary in 2020, Donaldson says, “my job is making sure that the business has got the foundations for the next 100 years”. With the group’s current category management, coffee, deli, carwash, fuels and branding refresh, “we are making sure that we’ve optimized the return from our existing traditional business, and we still have a very strong future well into the next decade, but it’s important we now lay down different foundations in different sectors which will grow and build over the next ten years.” n
N a v i g a t i n g h y b r i d w o r k i n g
With Covid-19 radically shifting many workforces towards greater flexibility and more working from home, The HR Suite’s Caroline McEnery outlines how to decide what type of hybrid working model will suit your workforce best and how to implement these changes into your long-term operations
CAROLINE MCENERY
managing director, The HR Suite
80% of employees now want to work remotely or work in a blended environment, according to Amarach Research
CONTACT THE HR SUITE:
If you require further information or advice on HR, please do not hesitate to contact The HR Suite’s consultants on (01) 9014335 or (066) 7102887 or email the company at info@thehrsuiteonline.com. Awide range of research indicates that after the pandemic, the majority of workers want to continue to work from home at least some of the time, presenting new opportunities for organisations to establish new ways of working.
There is no exact definition of hybrid working as it can mean many things for different companies and industries. But essentially it means a working arrangement between an employer and an employee, where the employee works sometimes in the office and sometimes at home. At present in Ireland, all employees can ask their employers for the right to work remotely, but there is no legal framework around which a request can be made and how it should be dealt with by the employer. Currently, the government is in consultation to develop a framework for employees on the right to request remote working which would allow remote working to form part of their terms and conditions of employment.
Experiment results
We saw in March 2020, a quick change in how people work, which gave employers the push to allow employees to work remotely. Now that employees can return to the workplace, employers are seeing them request that the company work within a hybrid model. Exactly how to implement hybrid working will vary from organisation to organisation, and even from team to team – these new ways of working should be tailored to the unique needs of the individual, team or department.
While we can class the previous 16 months as an experiment, for the vast majority of employees, it has been a positive experience. As a result, 80% of employees now want to work remotely or work in a blended environment, according to Amarach Research.
There is a huge appetite for remote and blended working arrangements when the Covid-19 restrictions end. The role of the line manager will be key to establishing these. In particular, managers will be responsible for effective communication and teamworking within newly hybrid teams.
Employers are encouraged to discuss the hybrid working dynamic with all employees and decide what the general consensus is. This can be completed through an employee questionnaire and will involve assessing roles to gauge how much remote working can continue in the future.
Types of activity
It’s important to remember that jobs can be time flexible, location flexible, or a mix of both. Most jobs are typically comprised of several types of activity which influence the type of flexibility that can be undertaken.
The balance of these activities can help you to consider whether a role can be hybrid and how much remote work can be undertaken: • Activities that are undertaken with other people, at the same time and at the same place, may not permit hybrid working, or only a minority of time spent working remotely. • Activities that are undertaken with other people at the same time in person or remotely; such roles may be able to undertake some hybrid or remote working. • Activities that are largely independent and can be undertaken anywhere or at any time; these roles may permit a significant amount of remote working.
Increased productivity
Although it may not be possible to meet all employee preferences or expectations, when people are able to work within their preferred style this can help them to be productive, support employee engagement and is also good for wellbeing. Employees should be made aware that personal preferences cannot all be met and given a timeline for providing more information wherever possible. Also, it is important to note for some companies, the hybrid working model will not work, for example the retail industry and the hospitality industry.
There are many additional benefits for employers and employees who engage in a hybrid working dynamic. These would include a better work life balance, less time spent commuting and being more proactive while in the office space. It is also estimated that more than a million workers will benefit from tax breaks aimed at incentivising remote working on a permanent basis in October’s budget.
New normal
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has stated that he hopes the working environment will not return to the way we once used to work, but a new normal based on people’s personal choices.
Firms such as Microsoft, Apple, and Google have stated that they will be using a hybrid work model when employees are permitted back to the office environment.
How hybrid working needs to work and be managed in practice will vary broadly according to the type of work being undertaken. Be prepared to collaborate with your team and adapt your approach as you learn what works and what does not. You may need to try different methods and approaches to determine what works best for your particular situation.
If you are an organisation based in the Republic of Ireland and require further information or advice relating to HR, please do not hesitate to contact The HR Suite’s office on (066)7102887. ■
