TEC: Technical Education Consultants, Inc.
Client Case Study


Aaron Brothers

Aaron Brothers is an artistic, interactive shopping destination featuring custom framing, artwork and brand name art supplies. Owned by Michaels Stores, Inc., Aaron Brothers operates over 160 stores in 11 states. Aaron Brothers has sales of almost $170 million and over 1,700 employees.

Training Needs

Aaron Brothers' was moving their corporate headquarters from Commerce, CA to Irving, TX. TEC was engaged to capture and document business processes for the Planning Manager and Planner/Analyst positions. This would help in the development of training materials that would be needed to train new Planning Managers and Planner/Analysts upon hiring in Irving.

Aaron Brothers had no written procedures or processes for these positions. TEC consultants conducted extensive interviews with the Manager and Analyst to construct the processes for 20 weekly management reports and all daily activities for both positions.


Challenges

The greatest challenges of this project were:

  • Lack of current procedures and processes
  • Time constraint imposed by the move to Irving
  • All reports were built in Excel using highly complex macros with no documentation
  • Tasks were repetitive due to discrepancies in data processing timing

TEC Services and Products Delivered

TEC assigned two consultants (one retail expert with over 30 years retail experience and one with advanced Excel skills) to interview the Planning Manager and Planner/Analyst. Access to Michaels/Aaron Brothers network enabled consultants to work off-site when possible to work through procedures to wisely use the time available from SMEs.

TEC documented all procedures, recommended time saving and labor efficiencies, and provided Aaron Brothers with process and procedure documents for use in training the Planning Manager and Planner/Analyst positions, and other merchants.


Results

Aaron Brothers hired two Planning Managers upon its relocation to Irving. TEC's process documentation helped these new employees get up to speed quickly.




 
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