Convenience Leadership Programme

Session 1: The convenience sector and its political and legal retail environment, societal and economic trends

• What are relevant political and legal developments, such as HFSS, minimum wages and employment conditions?
• What are relevant economics challenges does the sector face, such as inflation, energy costs or the labour market?
• How are societal changes affecting the convenience sector, such as the ageing population or urbanisation?

Session 2am: Making attractive value propositions

• What are the key market trends, and how are the needs of the convenience consumer changing?
• How can we decide on the right offer for a convenience store, and how do we evolve it in line with our customers?
• What is great service and how do we deliver customer satisfaction?

Session 2pm: Personal and professional development

• How can we identify how we are perceived or positioned in the workplace through the eyes of your employer
• Which experience/skills are valued highest by the convenience sector?

Session 3am: Staff management

• How do things change when moving up the career ladder into management positions?
• How to hire and retain talents?
• How to motivate employees to do their best?
• How to give feedback most effectively?

Session 3pm: Personal and professional development

• How can we improve the effectiveness of our collaboration within teams - as leaders and as colleagues?
• How can best communicate with others?
• How to best have a difficult conversation?

Session 4am: ACS Conference

• Participation in ACS conference
• Visit of the convenience trade fair at the NEC

Session 5: ACS Conference reflection

• Reflection on takeaways from the ACS conference. What have we learned? What does this mean for my business?

Session 6am: Innovation management

• How to create an organisational culture to stimulate innovation?
• How do different kinds of companies innovate?
• How can innovations be managed how can organisations be more agile?
• How can large organisations think and act like start-ups?

Session 6pm: Retail technology in the convenience sector

• What are the most important technology trends?
• Best practices adopting technology in the convenience sector

Session 7: ACS Technology showcase

• Participation in the ACS Technology showcase
• Reflection on takeaways from the event. What have we learned? What does the information mean to the business?

Session 8: Shelf availability and retail losses

• How can technology optimize shelf availability?
• How to avoid food waste?
• What are the different categories of retail losses?
• How can stores grow sales and profits by reducing retail loss?

Session 9: Safety, security, and risk in the convenience sector

• The state of crime in the UK convenience sector
• How can theft and criminal behaviour be avoided?
• How can staff safety be secured?

Session 10am: Store and customer management

• What makes a store more valuable for customers?
• The basics in store layout and competitive positioning
• Fundamentals of assortment management
• How to optimize pricing to increase profit?

Session 10pm: Decision making in the convenience sector

• What information is available to support decision making?
• When to use intuition and when not to use intuition?
• Biases in decision making
• What differentiates an opinion from facts?

Session 11: ACS Study Tour

Session 12: Social event and poster presentation and graduation

View full course brochure (PDF)

This is an applied, evidenced-based course that aims to be directly relevant to business decisions in convenience retailing, at the same time also has a sound basis in academic or practical evidence. The course structure is aligned with various ACS activities and embeds them into the curriculum.

Requirements for graduation

This course is developmental. Participants will receive a graduation certificate if they have 1) regularly attended and actively participated in modules and 2) composes a final poster presentation about a topic of their choice. At the end of the course, you will receive a graduation certificate at an ACS event.

Final project

For the final project presentation you will look into one particular topic in convenience retailing in more depth and create a poster summarising the results. Topics in the past were, for example, HFSS, food waste, seasonal stores or vaping assortment. This topic can be proposed by your employer or yourself. The presentation will enhance your convenience retailing-related knowledge and deliver insights to your employer and the sector. All the projects are presented at the end of the programme via a poster presentation.