Cabot Circus people

Wednesday, 6 August 2008

Back at work after my holiday and the reality that the store opening is only 7 weeks away has hit home. We are now in temporary offices and I have been joined by the Finance and Operations Manager, Shirley Aitken, and the HR Manager, Hannah Type, this means we have a base to work together from and it has made a huge difference.  Both Shirley and Hannah have worked with Harvey Nichols before in Istanbul and Knightsbridge respectively but have relocated to Bristol for the new store.

We now have in place a management team for the selling floors and have begun appointing sales advisors for each area. This means that we can begin to focus on the Hospitality appointments for the Restaurant and Brassiere, and whilst Hannah researches candidates for the key positions Shirley and I take the opportunity to discuss the delivery schedule for accepting stock into the store.  

This is akin to a military operation with the task of co-ordinating deliveries of everything from pencils to Petrus, rhubarb to Reidel glasses, Dolce and Gabbana and Louboutin to loo rolls, needing to be organised within a two week window after the store is finished and handed over in preparation for the opening on the 25 September. 

In addition Shirley has to recruit the stock movement team, store detectives and cash office staff, who will make up the operations team and who are the backbone for the store.

Yesterday I was joined by the new Head Chef, Louise McCrimmon and the Executive Chef from Leeds who arrived to check the kitchen installation. This is at one of the most advanced stages of completion and features a state of the art range for the chefs to use, made in St Etienne in France it is electric which allows for a much more even cooking temperature resulting in a higher quality of food, Bristol is the first store to have this bespoke made, cutting edge technology installed.   

This is also Louise’s first view of the developing restaurant interior and I am delighted to see she is as excited about it as me. Having received her menus for the opening I am also anticipating trying everything out, which will give me a good excuse to go and buy more clothes from the fashion floor when my current wardrobe ceases to fit me.

The PR and Marketing teams at head office are now busy contacting their press contacts to ensure that everyone in Bristol and the South West is aware of when we open and what to expect from the new store. Our launch campaign has been put together and is being presented to the board,  I have had a sneak peak and I think its really good but unfortunately I am sworn to secrecy, not long to wait though, 7 weeks and counting…….

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