For a national supermarket chain, a poorly serviced retail estate can lead to operational downtime, health and safety issues, fines, and—most critically—damage to the national brand. After decades of mergers, acquisitions, and rapid estate growth, one of Mistral's retail clients needed a comprehensive store audit covering over 400 locations.
This ambitious audit aimed to provide actionable data to identify problem areas, improve servicing efforts, and align all stores with operational standards. Mistral played a pivotal role in delivering this essential information over a two-year period, ensuring the data was live, actionable, and prioritised by urgency.
Products Featured
Managed Devices
iOS devices were issued to auditors across the country, ensuring secure and manageable mobile access to the auditing system.
Google Workspace
Google Workspace acted as the backbone of communication and data access, providing secure and seamless integration with auditing tools.
iAuditor
The cloud-based iAuditor app enabled auditors to conduct inspections efficiently, capturing data in real time.
Vonage
Vonage allowed auditors to contact stores using a landline number, maintaining professionalism and protecting personal contact details.
Ostratto Support
Auditors had access to technical support at all times, ensuring confidence and uninterrupted operations in the field.
Professional Services
From design to implementation and ongoing maintenance, all solutions were delivered by Ostratto's in-house team.
Implementation
The entire approach was then designed around these requirements, plus a few extras that would enhance the solution.
Live
By adopting a cloud-based auditing solution, iAuditor, auditors utilised pre-defined templates within an intuitive mobile app to conduct audits. The system enabled the capture of notes, photos, and multiple-choice responses, with live data instantly uploaded to the cloud. Automations flagged critical risks immediately, allowing swift action.
Actionable
With over 2,100 audits completed to date and more than 17,400 issues flagged, Mistral used customised dashboards to distil raw data into meaningful insights. Each audit automatically generated a detailed report for the relevant teams, saving significant time and ensuring informed decision-making.
Secure
Given the sensitive nature of data collected, security was paramount. Using Google Workspace, all data access was authenticated at every endpoint. Auditors’ issued devices were secured with strong passwords, geographic tracking, and remote management, ensuring a safe yet seamless user experience.
Accessible
Stakeholders received their own secure logins and managed mobile devices, enabling them to view live data and reports at any time.
Automated graphs highlighted key issues, such as recurring faults with specific refrigeration suppliers in certain regions, facilitating targeted solutions.
I.e. Stores in the South West using a common refridgeration supplier were experiencing more fault call-outs than stores using a different supplier.
Accurate
Mistral developed bespoke audit templates with straightforward response options, such as “yes/no + photo.” This approach ensured auditors could complete inspections efficiently while producing reliable, weighted data for actionable reporting.
Manageable
Building on top of the secure user management offered by Google Workspace, all auditors are also issued a managed mobile device.
The managed devices are geographically tracked, apps and features are managed and restricted centrally, and security measures such as strong passwords are enforced. The devices are consistently monitored for non-compliance with automatic alerts being sent to Ostratto Support for investigation.
By managing the devices centrally, all stakeholders can be confident using them in the field so that more time and resource can be spent on achieving the overarching objective(s).
Result
At the time of writing, 2,694 audits have been completed with 20,171 items flagged for review across 421 stores. A confirmed value of over £500,000 has already been recognised as a cost saving due to proactive identification of failing refrigeration systems resulting in minimal stock loss. The information provided by this cutting-edge auditing solution has resulted in massive service overhauls within the end client's operations, improving efficiency and reducing costs significantly by taking a proactive approach to service issues.
Although initially only contracted for two years, the auditing service is now into it's fourth year of operation due to it's incredible success. The service is now deemed a vital part of the end client's service plan with no intention of ceasing Mistral's input or the solution implemented by Ostratto.
At Ostratto, we're fundamentally customer-success focused. This means instead of designing solutions based on our expectations, we focus on customer requirements and needs to ensure their success. In turn, we find success in shared success as our customers' trusted technical consultancy partner whom they can rely upon.
Ostratto specialises in delivering innovative, scalable solutions like Google Workspace, iAuditor, and Vonage. By combining cutting-edge technology with a customer-first approach, we help businesses streamline operations, improve efficiency, and achieve measurable results. Contact us today to learn how we can help your business thrive.
We solve complex business problems with cutting-edge technology, whilst keeping everything simple for our customers. Be sure to check out other examples of how we have helped businesses make their work, less work.
