We recently completed an entire renovation of a store measuring over 4,000 square metres. To be honest, we had twice as much work doing the preparatory work as the building consultants the customer had originally engaged, which I’ll call company X. Those building consultants promised six months, but we took a year to complete the preparation phase.

Open again very quickly
Company X said they would take another eight months after the preparation period of six months to do the work. We did the work on site in six (!) weeks. When you’re renovating shops, it’s unbelievably important for the retailer that you work quickly, because the longer the store remains closed, the more it costs. In the end, the much longer preparation time is more than recouped in the implementation phase when the construction workers are actually in the store.

Building freeze
Why do we spend so long at our desks before we start work in the store, I hear you ask? I’ll start by dispensing with the first misunderstanding: as little of the work as possible is done at our desks. The real work is done on site and that’s where we can usually be found, well before any demolition works starts. We start by taking a good look at what our customer has bought or rented: what exactly does he need? And which permits will have to be applied for? After all, no one wants a building freeze. We personally visit each site, accompanied by the customer, to build up a complete picture.

Precision pays
We look at everything with the customer and advise them, because sometimes customers don’t even exactly know what has been bought and what is leased. We also measure everything again ourselves, because we’ve often found that the original drawings aren’t exactly right. And every centimetre counts in the retail trade!

Criticism
Years ago, we were occasionally criticised about the way we work: when are you going to start building, our early customers wondered? But when a customer tried to do it all himself, he ended up with a building freeze within three weeks, which did nobody any good. After that, we resolved things professionally. It is just possible to complete a mammoth task in six weeks, but it has to be very precisely prepared. We work to such a tight schedule for our customer Albert Heijn that each van is scheduled to arrive once every quarter of an hour (!). If a van arrives too early, it's sent away again, because time is of the essence in the implementation phase. Thorough preparation is what determines whether this tightly controlled system of conversion succeeds or fails. And only then can we guarantee a super fast conversion of the store. That’s why I’m so proud of our approach.

Operational manager at MVRO

Fred Vink