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Sentry: Your Critical Retail Friend

Sentry is your honest retail coach. Not an audit, not a report — a relationship. From the people behind the M&S transformation.
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What is Sentry?

Sentry is your honest retail coach. Not an audit, not a report — a relationship. It’s the voice that tells you what others won’t.

The second set of eyes that sees what your teams may have stopped noticing — or at worst, started tolerating.

The support system for retailers who want to be challenged — not comforted.

Sentry is an immersive service from Grocery Insight, the people behind the M&S Food transformation.

They put their years of experience patrolling the aisles to good use. They immerse themselves in your market — walking your stores, visiting your competitors — to adjudicate where your business stands, where the competition is ahead, and where real opportunities lie.

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Turbocharging insights

Opportunities are then turbocharged into actionable items through Grocery Insight’s extensive best practice imagery. Where there’s an opportunity in Bakery, our best practice examples translate it into specific action. We can lay the path to improvements through our imagery — captured by experts and selected for their real-world effectiveness.

The outputs — reports, presentations, and imagery — are then shared with you, your executive team, and the teams directly responsible for each area of your business.

There are always surprises, but to establish a baseline of “where are we, really, as a business,” there is no better service than Sentry from Grocery Insight.

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Why Sentry exists

Because you don’t need another dashboard. You need truth.
You need someone who’s walked the aisles, spotted the problems, and knows how to fix them.
Sentry isn’t polite. It’s precise. Built by people who live retail, for teams who want the best.

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Steve Dresser, CEO

"The man supermarket CEO's turn to" - BBC

What you get with Sentry

  • Bespoke Visit Package: We'll travel to you and visit a pre-agreed number of stores — both your own and your competitors'. You're welcome to suggest stores too, whether they're strong stores or historic problems internally (shush! Don't tell us which is which!).
  • Store Visit Detail: What you'll get is an impartial, grounded view across all elements in store. Customer-facing elements like price, promotion, value, range, assortment, signage, and wider retail operations, standards, and availability.
  • Store by Store Feedback: A report per store — what we saw, the highs and lows, and where the opportunities lie. Every observation is backed by real-life imagery. Pictures or it didn’t happen!
  • Rolled-Up Observations: One store is one store too many — but when the same issue appears in four, it’s a pattern. We consolidate observations across stores to surface systemic challenges. Then we work with your internal teams to fix them, fast — together, for the stores.
  • Opportunities: Where we see a Bakery that needs revival, or a better way to communicate in-store Butchery, we’ll share our best practice imagery from retailers the world over to help you find a better way forward.
  • In-Depth Presentations: We return with presentations, aggregated observations, tactical solutions, and strategical support.
  • Brutally Clear Coaching: Tactical suggestions. No fluff. Just practical next steps from someone who’s been there.

“Steve is one of the best retail operators I’ve ever come across. He operates in a level of detail beyond most people in the Retail business.

He’s a truly customer centric leader, magnificent at process and challenges the status quo. He always pushes for improvement with a strong sense of purpose and a high Level of drive.

He’s a true force to be reckoned with and continues to be a good support to M&S and to me as CEO"

Stuart Machin, CEO

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How Sentry works

You’re in control of where you want us to focus. Here’s how Sentry works:

  • You pick the stores
  • We visit, observe, and feedback.
  • You get a store-by-store view on how your business — and the competitors — match up.
  • We return with aggregated observations, fixes, and strategical support, and present our findings to as many teams as necessary.
  • You benefit from an honest, impartial, expert view on your business — meaning you know exactly where your business is, and where the opportunities are.
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Add Sentry to your retail life

Sentry works as a standalone programme or integrates seamlessly into your wider operational improvement programme. Get in touch today to deploy Sentry.

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Steve Dresser, CEO

"The man supermarket CEO's turn to" - BBC

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