How Lids brings retail stores to life

Lids has experienced rapid growth over the past several years. The brand now has a presence in eight countries and counting. However, this expansion has underscored the need for better project management processes within the company.

“My department was just a department of one until a year before I started. I was hire number three and now we’re a team of six,” says Molly Quella, Project Manager, Store Planning at Lids. “No one had really exposed the problems and the lack of processes until we started adding more people and we realized we didn’t have any systems.”

At the time, employees were relying on spreadsheets and email to manage projects, and using other tools such as Microsoft OneNote and Teams, as well as Trello. This approach resulted in excessive back-and-forth emails, numerous meetings with different departments, and an overall lack of organization and effective communication between departments.

“We had no source of truth for past, present and future projects,” Molly says. “This was problematic because when someone leaves a company, all of their knowledge leaves with them.”

Lids set out to find a platform that could improve its processes. The company needed a solution that would allow departments to collaborate, but also to work within their own teams, streamlining and optimizing workflows.

Lids leverages new cross-team collaboration to keep store openings on track

Lids evaluated ClickUp vs. monday.com. The company appreciated ClickUp’s consultative approach to the sales process, as well as its commitment to partnership and problem-solving.

“My conversation with ClickUp was less salesy and more personalized,” Molly says. “They asked me what my problems were and what outcomes I wanted to achieve. Then they showed me how ClickUp could be useful. I’m a visual person, so to see how my specific challenges could actually be solved was eye-opening. That’s what sold me on the platform.”

ClickUp empowered Molly with the right resources to easily share the information with her CFO and other leaders. Shortly after, Lids moved forward with a contract for 135 employees to leverage ClickUp as a centralized collaborative project management hub.

Today, numerous teams at Lids use ClickUp, including Construction, Store Planning, Facilities, Operations, Marketing, Custom, Finance, and Buying. The platform helps them manage high-volume, deadline-critical work as they bring retail stores to life. As of September 2023, Lids has 25 stores under construction and three store rollouts in the works, with another 50 set to open in 2024.

1. More effective communication slashes administration time

Email count is down since Lids implemented ClickUp, thanks to the ability to create processes and share files using the platform.

“I recently came back from a three-day weekend and I had just under 50 emails in my inbox. Before ClickUp, it would have been over 100,” Molly says. “There’s also less confusion now because mix-ups in email chains have been eliminated.”

Meetings are also more intentional with ClickUp. Instead of using meeting time to read through a checklist and make sure every team has completed their tasks, attendees can bring issues to the table and solve problems together.

“We have an hour reserved to discuss one concept and this meeting has been ending earlier and earlier week after week,” Molly says, “Since everything is being updated and communicated in ClickUp throughout the week, discussions take less time because everyone already knows the status of the work.”

2. Centralized communication simplifies vendor collaboration

Lids can now seamlessly communicate with teams in other departments and other countries, as well as vendors across the country. The company has created a business directory within ClickUp for vendor management.

“I have all of our vendors collaborating in ClickUp. Each one has a tracker, and when I have a new store project I want contractors to bid on, I put it in their tracker. It’s like a survey bid request,” Molly says. “They drop their quote into ClickUp and I take it from there.”

ClickUp is also where order forms for construction materials are housed, and where vendors can ask questions and upload project progress photos. All vendor communication takes place within the platform, and Molly has a weekly call with each vendor to discuss project statuses.

3. Improved inventory management means more accurate budgets, faster

Using ClickUp, Lids can now track the cost per unit for all inventory items. In addition, Molly can more accurately build budgets for each store rollout.

“When we’re looking at new spaces, instead of just estimating the budget, I can now look at other stores in the same region to see what the costs were,” she says. “I look at contractors to see scopes of work and who averages close to the budget. That’s who I invite to bid, because I know I’m not going to waste my time getting the wrong bids.”

With a new inventory management process up and running in ClickUp, not only can the team budget better, but the warehouse managers are saving hours of time.

“The group used to count inventory manually,” says Molly, “With the new process in ClickUp, they only need to check a few boxes and change a few numbers, alleviating the manual counting of every fixture or accessory.”

4. Faster workflow solutions achieved with expert support from ClickUp

ClickUp’s Strategic Services Consultants is an invaluable resource for Lids. The team helps with everything from managing day-to-day administrative functions of ClickUp to creating brand new workflows. This offers Lids expert resources to answer questions, because ClickUp is now a part of the company’s extended team.

“Working with the Strategic Services Consultants team has been nice because even though I love ClickUp and being able to help people with it, I have over 25 stores in construction right now and three rollouts going on, so I can’t do it all,” Molly says.

Scalable new efficiencies drive more effective expansion

With solid project management processes in place, Lids has saved time, reduced meetings and emails, streamlined communication, improved vendor collaboration, and increased productivity overall. By using ClickUp, they’ve saved 100+ hours across teams and improved meeting efficiency by 66%. This means the company, from project management to operations to marketing, can focus on opening stores and serving customers.

“ClickUp has made our lives a lot easier. It has created more intentional interactions,” Molly says. “My next goal is to get the right people using ClickUp and have them play with it and work on it to grow it to their teams.”