The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co.

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, Inc. (A&P), based in New Jersey, operates food and drug stores, supermarkets and limited assortment food stores in 16 states, the District of Columbia and Canada. A&P operates under the A&P, Waldbaum's, Super Foodmart, Food Emporium, Super Fresh, Farmer Jack, Kohl's, Sav-A-Center, Dominion, Ultra Food & Drug, Food Basics and The Barn Markets banners. In 2000, over 80,000 employees helped post sales of more than $10 billion.

Retek Training Needs

A&P selected TEC to provide leadership in creating the training strategy, developing the training program, and delivering training on Retek's RMS pre-release version 10.0, RDW and RPM software modules. As the project progressed, TEC was called in to assist with many facets of the project including delivering training on an interfacing item legacy system, providing User Acceptance Testing training, developing Help Desk support documentation, and delivering Help Desk and IT overview training.

Challenges

A&P is working to transform itself into a stronger grocery competitor for the 21^st century, a goal that is accompanied by significant organizational change. To this end, A&P tapped employees from across the company to form a tactical merchandising team called everGReen. The team helped A&P introduce new business processes to support the centralization of item maintenance. This positive step led to a major change in each region's day-to-day activities, and was just one step in the total transformation of the organization.

TEC Services and Products Delivered

TEC consulted with A&P to provide the following customized materials and services:

Customized User Guides for RMS, RPM and RDW. RDW User Guides included a detailed interpretation of 30 reports.
Classroom training materials for RMS, RPM and RDW including Practice Exercises, Learning Surveys and Quick Reference Guides.
Context-sensitive online help for RMS.
Extensive assistance with developing training database requirements, as well as entering and testing data.
Train-the-Trainer ^TM sessions and Pritchett & Associate's Productivity under Pressure workshops to prepare Super Users for regional training and support.
An RPM functional overview for regional pricing managers.
RMS training for 12 Super Users. TEC also developed a Super User Guide to assist Super Users in preparing for training.
RMS training delivery for 425 Regional and Corporate office employees.
Assistance with performance management measurements.
Help Desk support documentation and training delivery for Help Desk and IT groups.
Post go-live support for multiple weeks.
RDW training for 24 Super Users during Summer 2002.

Results

After many weeks of training, A&P successfully implemented RMS Phase 1A on May 13, 2002. Said Leo Simpson of A&P's Change Management Department, "Congratulations have to go out to the entire TEC team. We could not have done it without them."