Brewers Retail Inc., Corporate Restructuring, Ontario.

At the request of Hugo Powell, (then President of Labatts but now CEO of Interbrew) Talbot Consultants International Inc. were retained by Brewers Retail Inc. (BRI) to conduct a detailed three phase "in-house" study to assist them in re-vitalising their corporate structure and the 470 store chain. The first phase involved in-depth research into each corporate division and then preparing recommendations for the president and his senior executives. Regular team co-ordination meetings were required as were periodic briefings for senior executives of the two majority shareholders Labatts and Molsons. One of our key recommendations from the first phase was the requirement for BRI to immediately review their existing store network, store design, store merchandising and staffing. The second phase therefore involved us reviewing the entire store network, setting up and administering detailed consumer research and selecting and supervising store, corporate logo and packaging designers. Our resultant recommendations from this phase then led into the third, and final implementation, phase. This required us to recommend suitable retail designers, generate a short list for client interviews and then work with the selected designer (Shikatani Lacroix) to recommend a new logo, new store designs and internal merchandising plans. Our final task in the third phase was to develop an in-house Geographic Information System (GIS), download all our project data and set-up and train a market research & analysis department so that all future research and analysis could be carried out by BRI themselves.