The Midcounties Co-operative’s travel group aims to empower its branch managers to work more like independent business owners as it targets further growth.
Sara Dunham (pictured), chief officer for travel and tourism, said the group could open new high street stores or “pop-up” branches where it identifies opportunities, with a review of its network “ongoing”.
The travel group recently restructured and brought its 71 Your Co-op Travel stores and 130 agency members in The Co-operative Travel Consortium together under head of retailing Alison Holmes.
Dunham said the move to streamline the group aimed to make its Your Co-op Travel shops operate in a similar way to its consortium members.
She said: “We’re trying to get to the point where every branch manager has more autonomy and power to run their business.”
The group has moved to “dual branch managers” who run two stores each “in most places” across its chain.
“It was a cost-saving [exercise] but also about setting ourselves up for the future and providing managers with more autonomy and the chance to share best practice,” said Dunham.
She said managers could introduce ways of working from one store to another and choose point-of‑sale offers for their branches.
We’re trying to get to the point where every branch manager has more autonomy
to run their business
Dunham said the target was for Your Co-op Travel managers to be more commercial and identify local opportunities, which the group will encourage by sharing insight on local markets across its retail division.
“We see opportunities for our branches to work more like our consortium agents. It’s about giving them the training and tools to do the job,” she said. “Our overall objective is to grow the travel business, both our retail and consortium agencies. There is more chance of doing that if everybody is focused on the same things and working in the same way.”
Holmes said consortium agents “worked to their local markets”.
“We have to get our branch managers doing that and taking more responsibility for their own businesses,” she added.
“We would give guidance across retail stores to identify opportunities.
“We can also be smarter on our marketing. If we see something doing well, we can now share that offer more quickly [across retail].”
The group has also outlined plans to increase the number of its employed homeworkers from four to eight, who can take ‘overspill’ calls from the group’s shops.