IT Project Management at Pret-a-Manger for Franchise Expansion

As of December 2022, Pret-a-Manger had 434 shops in the UK, including 273 in London, plus three “Veggie Prets”, which focused exclusively on vegetarian and vegan options. It also has shops in France, the US, Hong Kong and several other countries. Around 90% of all Pret shops worldwide donate their unsold fresh food to local charities, giving more than 16,000 sandwiches, wraps, salads and baguettes every day to homeless shelters and charities.

This large international franchise chain decided to expand their franchise into Ireland. To support this transition, we provided IT Project Management resource to coordinate the roll out. This involved managing the set up of the new Ireland franchise stores, which fell under a new Operating Model in the new partner transformation model.

We provided support to implement all front and back of house systems to enable shops opening within a 3-month period.

Pret was faced with a number of challenges:

• Primarily entering a brand-new market for the first time;
• Integrating a new supply chain;
• Piloting a modern technology operating model that will become the gold standard for future Pret franchise stores in the UK and several of Pret’s markets around the globe.

To overcome these challenges, we focused on:

• Delivering the project 2 weeks ahead of go live and shop opening;
• Working with third parties and offshore partners to ensure technology was developed and deployed on time;
• Conducting thorough end-to-end testing on systems with thought out test scripts to ensure any issues were resolved prior to go live;
• Creating project plans and RAID logs to ensure the project was monitored and tracked throughout its lifecycle.

By the end of the project, we had formed strong relationships with franchise partners which enabled the company’s growth plan with partners. We successfully launched a new oracle simphany model in a brand-new market, setting standards for future models. 

Commenting on the Ireland project, Ian Webster, Franchise Technology Programme Manager at Pret A Manger, said, “The opening of our first Pret store in Dublin in the Summer of 2022 was a major milestone on our ambitious growth plan through franchising. In so doing, we asked a lot of the project team responsible for delivering such a successful outcome. One of the key factors in this success was excellence in project management, something we were able to achieve by partnering once again with CI Projects and OCS Consulting.”

Read more about our Project Management Services here.