Location Planning Insight - Stephen Holt

In November, we were delighted to welcome Stephen Holt, Senior Location Planner with Sainsbury’s as a guest speaker on our BSc Business and Retail Management programme. Stephen, whose role for the grocery retailer has a focus on acquisitions, has ten years of experience in this field. His presentation explained how location planning supports the work of other functions across the business.

Sainsbury’s are especially targeting the convenience sector with a planned 150 store-openings a year, reflecting the growth in this market segment. The UK’s leading food retailers have developed sophisticated techniques for site evaluation and the forecasting the sales performance for new stores. Stephen detailed how gravity models and analogue assessment techniques are commonly employed to appraise sites and discussed how these strategic assessments are presented to senior board level management. Stephen’s presentation was a fascinating insight to the complexity of location planning decision-making, including factors from the detailed level of local knowledge through to the developing relationship between physical stores and on-line trading. We would like to thank Stephen for his contemporary industry perspective, which adds a valuable dimension to our programme.