Kent Business School trained 20 Branch Managers from Waitrose at a two-day mini conference hosted last week at the School. Dr Zita Stone, Lecturer in Strategy at KBS delivered a two hour session on strategic management, strategy development and strategic implementation.
Dr Stone’s strategy session set the base for discussions on the strategic direction of Waitrose and the food retail industry as a whole. As Dr Stone commented:
“This is a clear demonstration of how academic knowledge and expertise in the field of strategy provides different perspectives to some of the challenges managers experience in practice, yet perhaps do not understand. In particular, the origins of these challenges, the best way of untangling them and how to potentially turn these into competitive advantages.”
Simon Rudland, Head of Retail Operations at Waitrose and Executive Kent MBA student, organised the training event. During the two-day conference, Simon led discussions on strategy concepts with branch managers following Dr Stone’s initial presentation. As Mr Rudland said:
“Dr Stone’s session heightened everyone’s understanding of the concepts of strategic choice and implementation, and gave us a fantastic foundation from which to discuss and form a shared strategic vision. It also provided a platform for us to discuss the process of Continuous Improvement, which is a big focus for us at the moment.”
For further information about corporate and business training opportunities with Kent Business School, please contact the KBS Business team at kbsbusiness@kent.ac.uk or call +44(0)1227 824068.