Win Your Multi-Site Rollout with These Brand Logistics Tips

With multi-site rollouts, your brand image rests on producing new assets — and getting them to their final destination.

Whether it’s part of a larger organizational rebrand, a periodic refresh cycle, or the need to implement better ways to connect with your customers, a multi-site rollout is a significant undertaking spanning dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of locations and an exponentially higher number of brand assets. As you can imagine, it’ll be crucial to implement a brand logistics program that ensures all new assets such as signage, vinyl graphics, interior fixtures, building materials, and more get where they need to be — and when they need to be there.

4 Brand Logistics Essentials That Factor Into the Success of Any Multi-Site Rollout

1. Asset Planning Before Production

Let’s consider a refresh program for a hospitality brand as an example. Many hotel brands will refresh or remodel their locations every several years to ensure they’re keeping up with consumer preferences and styles and to avoid the appearance of wear. After all, the last thing a patron wants to see when they choose a hotel for a good night’s rest is unsightly flooring, worn-out fixtures and furniture, and extremely outdated styles.

With so many different elements that need to be updated, remodeling even one hotel location is likely to have thousands of brand assets in various categories ranging from flooring and furniture to interior signage and vinyl graphics. If the brand fails to account for or include one or more of these assets, it could throw the entire program off-schedule. Quick-turn refreshes and remodels are often completed in a few days to a couple of weeks, so a proper brand logistics program must explore all of the assets that need to be manufactured and their timelines to ensure work crews are ready to rock.

More insights: Learn more about what refresh and remodel programs typically include and how they proceed.

2. Centralize Asset Storage After Production

As your new brand assets are manufactured, they should be centralized to make the final steps of the multi-site rollout more efficient. This can be difficult because different assets are made by different vendors on different timelines, so there’s a significant amount of detail to manage (and often more than an internal facility or project management team can handle). Working with partners that take a program-level approach will ensure all assets are managed from start to finish, but more importantly that those assets are centrally stored and secured until they’re ready to be shipped to install locations.

Strategy in the middle: Learn why working with a partner to handle asset warehousing makes sense. Download our fact sheet:

3. Kitting Assets for Improved Handling and Tracking

As the new brand assets are delivered to a central location, kitting them by location or a subcategory tied to a location (such as by room type or space) organizes all assets that are needed to complete a refresh or a portion of it into handy project kits. This is important for a number of reasons:

• It frees up storage space in your own warehouses and at individual project sites
• It keeps assets organized and prevents lost materials, which can impact timelines
• It improves asset tracking, ensuring that your investment in your brand is protected
• It makes transporting assets from the central location to your sites easier and faster

Simplifying A to B: Learn more about what goes into the kitting stage of a brand logistics program — and why it matters.

4. Last-Mile Delivery and Final Installation

Quick caveat here: following all of the above steps in a brand logistics program are essential for success when it comes to routing all assets to their final destination for installation. If they haven’t been properly planned, centralized, and kitted, the chance of assets not arriving or going missing increases, which in turn extends your timelines and costs. Completing multi-site rollouts in a timely manner is important because delays can impact the customer experience, cause disruptions in site operations, and even impact your revenue.

But provided that you’ve managed all of your new brand assets effectively, the final step is installation. This execution phase is critical — you don’t want your brand assets being improperly installed or mishandled here because customers will notice, and even one negative impression can offset a hundred positive interactions. Don’t leave this to chance — work with a partner that will ensure timely last-mile routing, white-glove delivery, and expert installation of your new brand assets.

Handle with care: Learn more about the installation phase of a brand program.

Navigate Your Next Rollout with Confidence — and an Expertly Crafted Brand Logistics Program

At Stratus, one of our core differentiators is not only our relentless focus on putting your brand in the best light possible but also ensuring that every detail of your program is managed from top to bottom, end to end with unmatched expertise. We leave no detail unchecked — everything from the design of your new brand assets to how they’re produced, permitted, and implemented is considered. Our program management team and dedicated account contacts work closely with you at all times, keeping you informed of progress and providing all information needed for your own tracking and reporting purposes.

Experience an entirely new approach to brand logistics and implementation programs. Get in touch with our team today.