In today’s digital-driven world of retail, brick and mortar stores still continue to anchor customer interactions with a unique advantage of in-store experience. The level of experience, however, hinges on the efficiency of the sales associates inside the store. That said, the biggest challenge for retailers is to have the right people at the right time to achieve more conversions. “Retailers have historically been struggling to put an end to the high employee attrition rate because of poor workforce management,” explains Sanish Mondkar, CEO of Legion Technologies. “The retailers need a dynamic labor model that empowers their employees with schedule flexibility and includes digital tools to interact with managers.” In an effort to improve the experience of the hourly workers while driving business efficiency, Mondkar founded Legion Technologies to accurately forecast business demands and align the right employees with changing business opportunities, automatically.
A procurement and supply chain veteran, Mondkar observed how modern technologies brought transparency and thus, greater efficiency, into supply chain performance. He channelizes his vast experience into Legion Technologies to help retailers overcome the persistent workforce-related challenges niggling at their feet. The company offers Legion, a workforce engagement platform, which leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to streamline, simplify, and manage the supply and demand of the labor supply chain in retail and quick service restaurants. It focuses on revealing the best options available to hourly workers that are most likely to lead them to fulfilling and long term employment. “Four things combine to create the optimal schedule in a matter of seconds—forecast, business policies, compliance laws, and work convenience,” explains Mondkar.
From a business perspective, Legion integrates into a business’ various data sources such as past sales, store traffic, seasonality, weather, events, POS systems, traffic counters, and other relevant demand drivers and examines the datasets to create a forecasting model automatically.The platform then displays an accurate and automated labor forecast over the next six weeks including peak hours and number of employees by role. Although Legion’s AI-based engine generates a perfect schedule by correlating the factors automatically, clients can incorporate any changes before publishing it.
Four things combine to create the optimal schedule in a matter of seconds—forecast, business policies, compliance laws, and work convenience
On the employee side, Legion integrates into the organization’s HR application. Retailers can send new employees a direct download link to the Legion app, through which they can engage in discussions regarding work, shift timings, job location preference, and shift length. The platform also enables seamless offboarding—reducing the time and effort of manual onboarding/offboarding process effectively.
Legion is extremely pilot-friendly, and seamlessly integrates with any store. For instance, Philz Coffee, a quick serve restaurant with over 40 outlets across the U.S. has witnessed improved business results through a stable workforce. The client not only wanted to enhance employee experience but also forecast labor and improve business efficiency. Legion Technologies enabled Philz Coffee’s employees with the flexibility to choose shift length, preferred work location, and working hours directly through the Legion app. This ability has allowed the client to match the right person at the right time across all their locations—improving business outcomes as well as developing an incredible community-based work culture. Jacob Jaber, CEO of Philz Coffee acknowledges Legion’s role in allowing employees to create their work schedule while helping the business to best serve the community.
The retail industry represents a unique opportunity and data science problem statement from a forecasting standpoint, and we are focused on building forecasting capability with more detailed use cases. As of 2018, Legion Technologies plans to expand their forecasting capabilities into other verticals such as hospitality, healthcare, and online distribution centers.
