Social Commerce Change Requirements

Technology and process can be improved with imagination and ingenuity and along this same line, the ability to recognize the need to change along with the the ‘what’ to change also requires imagination in addition to a culture that encourages the exploration and implementation of change.  Retailers must focus on developing the practices and culture to recognize the ‘what’ to change and then defining the ‘how’ to change can be performed by project delivery and engineered practices.  It is important to focus on imagination and questioning the status quo in order to recognize the need and the what to change.  Leaders in the industry are more often than not the organizations that have the imagination to question the status quo and ask questions like ‘why not’.  This ‘why not’ culture will drive the industry leaders to succeed.

Another key to success of change is the foundation framework that is flexible and robust to support the change that is driven by the culture.  Flexibility in many ways requires a great deal of imagination to first understand the change and then to determine the best method to support the change based on the framework.  This is certainly one place where a healthy dose of ‘why not’ can help immensely.  Imagination is required to see the problem from different perspectives and imagine how the solution can be delivered via different methods based on the framework and the key objectives.  This imagination must include collaboration across business practices and channels to expand the toolbox of solutions don’t limit yourself to a solution based on one perspective because you may not meet the objective and solve the issue in the most effective and efficient manner.  

Collaboration across business practices and channels along with a collaboration outlet with the customers will be healthy although very difficult to deliver.  This is where a change in culture is required in order to break down internal and external silos.  Many retailers, and especially large legacy retailers, do not collaborate with their customers before making decisions and this is especially evident in cost cutting decisions.  Everywhere you turn now you see stories and studies describing the negative aspects of major retailer cost cutting initiatives on the consumer experience and the retailer’s sales and yet everywhere you turn you see announcements of additional cost cutting measures to counteract the reduction in sales.  

There has been one recent example of a large legacy retailer evaluating the problem and the environment and making the decision to react in a manner more productive to the consumer and sales.  Wal Mart recently provides two examples of this type of reaction; the increase in clerks’ wages and the increase in staff to properly replenish and clean stores for the next day’s sales.  Both of these decisions have resulted in positive reactions and increased sales from consumers.  This shows that there can be another option to the standard practice but it requires imagination and collaboration across channels and and business practices to address.  

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Social Commerce And Continuous Improvement

The changes to the marketplace driven by the growth and expansion of social commerce practices can be supported by a robust continuous improvement program coupled with a focus on collaboration with the consumer.  Continuous improvement practices and methods are standard operating procedures in the supply chain operations along with IT and these practices are also backed into certification programs.  These practices are not new to the market and can be expanded into other areas of the business to support changing consumer demands.  The challenge for retailers is to embrace the practice and then incorporate into their procedures across organizations to support the change social commerce requirements.

This change will allow the retail marketplace ot sense and respond to the changes driven by consumers and especially millennials in a manner that does not require major disruption.  This change will, however cause a disruption in the retailer culture as a result of the changing driven by a robust continuous improvement program.  This is where the challenge comes for the retailer because of the culture change that must be driven by the expansion of a robust continuous improvement program. The continuous improvement practice is not a normal practice for some creative business processes and will require some change to incorporate the structure of continuous improvement.  It must be understood that a continuous improvement program does not limit creativity and it can help the creative process by providing guides for review and evaluation of the creative process.

The continuous improvement program will benefit though from a robust infrastructure framework that can quickly and efficiently support improvements identified in the continuous improvement program.  This infrastructure framework includes people, process and technology and without this robust framework the retailer will struggle implementing change.  One critical aspect to the robust infrastructure framework is the understanding that this framework is a living structure and will change as new requirements are identified.  Based on this understanding, it is not critical or even necessary for the infrastructure to cover all current and potential possibilities. It is critical though for the infrastructure to be flexible and the people and culture to be flexible to recognize and implement changes.  

Technology and process can be improved with imagination and ingenuity and in along the same line, the ability to recognize the need to change along with the the ‘what’ to change also requires imagination and also a culture that encourages the exploration and implementation of change.  Retailers must focus on developing the practices and culture to recognize the ‘what’ and then defining the ‘how’ can be performed by engineered practices.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Omni Channel and Social Commerce

Omni channel retail and social commerce are practices or concepts that support each other and in fact without omni channel retail I would argue there would be no way to support or realize social commerce.  Social commerce though ties together the retail channels to support the consumer shopping activities.  Social commerce has really gained importance as millennials have increased and become a driving force in the retail marketplace.  The growth and maturity of the Internet along with the growth and expansion of wireless and mobile technology have provided the tools for the millennials to transform their shopping and purchasing practices to meet their lifestyle requirements.  Consumers have followed this lead as they have come to understand the capabilities and value to support their lifestyle requirements as well.

Each generation leaves their mark on the retail marketplace and millennials are leaving their mark through the growth and importance of social commerce.  Retailers must realize now that omni channel retail outlets is only a small piece of the retail puzzle and that social commerce has emerged to provide the tools and methods to support the consumer engagement and and participation in the retail market.  This is creating a struggle for control of the marketplace as retailers are slow to accept these changes and this struggle is causing a great deal of fall out because retailers have been so slow to recognize and then accept the changes.

Retailers must embrace the change as what it really is - a culture change from the retail consumer to how they interact in the retail marketplace with retailers and other consumers.  The key to this is the change driven by consumers, and especially changes lead by millennials, to support their lifestyle.  Retailers are struggling with this culture change because of the impact to the retailer organization and methods to sell to the consumer.  Until retailers embrace this consumer culture change they will continue to struggle in their relationship with consumers and ultimately they will continue to struggle with their sales.  

Millennials are really the driving force now of the retail marketplace change to a social commerce practice that blends virtual with physical and then further blends purchases across retailers and the channel to support their lifestyle.  My concern for retailers is the impact of delays in their acceptance of this new reality.  We are seeing the fall out now of legacy retailers struggling with the expansion of eCommerce sales and the difficulty is that these retailers are focused on building and expanding the eCommerce channel rather than embracing and focusing on social commerce.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Social Commerce Consumer Strategy

Consumers, and especially the millennial generation’s, effect has turned the retail marketplace upside down and inside out leaving many major legacy retailers struggling to maintain or regain market share.  Consumers have implemented their strategy to support their changing lifestyle demands through technology leaving retailers to struggle to catch up.  Retailers are not accustomed to consumers developing and implementing a strategy that cannot be controlled by the retailers.  This is, however, just exactly what has happened in the retail marketplace as a result of the mashup of eCommerce, social networking in combination with a much higher level of comfort and acceptance of the virtual retail marketplace.

This has been really a long time coming and when you look backwards you can see the signs years ago from the retail marketplace especially where retailers struggled to stop consumer trends that improved consumer ability to shop but hindered retailers ability to control the market.  In the past retailers would have been able to control the market through their offerings and their control of the consumer availability.  The Internet and now social commerce has changed all of this and now retailers require a strategy to embrace the social commerce along with the collaboration with consumers to support this strategy.  I believe that an essential ingredient to this strategy is the collaboration with consumers.  This collaboration requirement is a major change in the consumer to retailer relationship and this is what is causing the major challenges with legacy retailers ability to implement an effective social commerce strategy.  

The large legacy retailers have been accustomed to control the market through product placement, promotion and also the brick and mortar channel span to provide sales demand and increases through market share and reach.  This has all been changing over the years and you can follow the trajectory with the success and span of Amazon as an example.  The Internet and now social commerce has crushed any controls the large legacy retailers have been able to use on the market.  This is a major shift for these large retailers that for years and years have been able to control the market through their size.  The growth of millennials has driven the final nail to kill these large retailers control of the market.  

Retailers must now change their strategy from a command and control strategy of consumer buying ability to a collaborative partnership with consumers to sense and respond to the consumer demands and desires.  Consumers have taken that final step into the virtual marketplace and now the large retailers must chase these trends to catch up.  The only watch though to catch up and maintain this new strategic requirements is to change their culture to one of adaptive collaboration that encourages consumer partnerships. The consumer relationship will drive the success of retailers going forward and retailers must embrace this strategy in order to survive.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Embrace Adaptive Collaboration

The rate of discontinuous change driving retail markets and social networks now requires a much more flexible and collaborative approach to maintain pace and survive.  This requires a continuous approach to monitoring and reacting to changing demands from all participants.  Consumers have become a key factor in this new model of change and drive the collaborative approach to changing demands and this requires other players in the marketplace to embrace the adaptive collaboration approach to monitor, reach and adjust to the change.  The days are gone when retailers and suppliers could control the rate and reaction to change, there are too many players in the market that are willing and anxious to adjust and support the changing demands of the marketplace.

As I look across the retail market I see the examples of success for players that engage and adapt to the changing demands of consumers and I also can see the examples of the players that either don’t understand the market is changing, or cannot adjust to the changing demands.  This is causing a fallout of players in the market which seems to be currently focused on large legacy retailers struggling to adapt.  This struggle could be the result of either size or culture and either factor can be extremely difficult to address.  These large retailers seem to have been trying to fit the consumer demands into their existing model following the old adage that if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  Unfortunately, consumers have not been limited to the one tool and in fact are continuously expanding their tool selection.

It seems to me that the market has shifted to a more nimble and specialized approach that supports a continuous shopping practice rather than the previous shopping trip approach to wait to shop until there were enough demand to justify a trip to the mall.  Large legacy retailers have invested heavily in a strategy of size and the market has shifted now to a strategy of continuous, pointed, shopping.  Consumers are changing their shopping and purchasing practices through the embrace of adaptive collaboration in order to support their tumultuous changing lifestyles.  Consumers are adapting and embracing tools and social networks at a breakneck pace to allow them to incorporate into their needs and then adjust to meet their changing lifestyle demands.  From a retailer perspective, consumers have opened a Pandora’s box of tools and capabilities that is disrupting the market and retailers must adapt or die.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Social Commerce Adaptive Collaboration

The retail industry now requires a strong adaptive practice to cope with the change demanded by consumers.  These adaptive requirements or practices are a natural addition to collaborative practices and a direct outcome of collaboration practices. The growth and affect of the millennial generation on retail along with the growth of social commerce that combines shopping and purchasing into a virtual marketplace that crosses channels is now highlighting the necessity of adaptive collaboration practices.  These practices cross over consumers, extended supply chain partners, retailers and social networks to create a cohesive adaptive collaborative network that senses and responds to the discontinuous change driven into the retail marketplace.

Adaptive collaboration describes a method to sense and respond to the discontinuous change being driven by the millennial generation growth and impact in the marketplace.  I think of adaptive collaboration as a type of continuous improvement process that supports and encourages collaboration across the retail extended supply chain.  This is also requires and supports a major cultural shift for the large legacy retailers to engage and collaborate with all partners across the supply chain with the objective of adapting and growing collaboration across the entire network.  This extended adaptive collaborative network provides and supports the process to engage with partners to understand and implement incremental improvements to support the changing demands of the consumers.  

Consumer demands combined with growing and improving technology capabilities has created a marketplace that is changing in manners that defy a long term strategic program.  This is the key challenge for legacy retailers.  These retailers must embrace an adaptive collaboration strategy and implement the processes that sense the changes and allow the retailers to respond with incremental change to incorporate new tools and technology quickly and effectively.  In addition to the change to embrace the adaptive collaboration culture these retailers must also implement a flexible and robust infrastructure that can support a culture of incremental change.  This is no small feat and I think that retailers are now struggling under the pressure of the changing demands that have come to a head and are impacting the foundation of the large legacy retailer.

Anyone can see the impact on the retail marketplace of the growth of the millennial generation from the increase in online sales to the drop in shopping center traffic to the lack of consumer loyalty to these retailers to the impact of the economy and resulting changing consumer lifestyles.  In hindsight this is easy to recognize and going forward we do not have the luxury to look to the past to analyze future trends.  In this new reality retailers must embrace the adaptive collaboration culture in order to allow them to sense and then most importantly quickly respond with incremental change.  They can no longer afford to plan, develop and implement large change because the risk is too great that the market direction will change before their large change program.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Social Commerce Discontinuous Change

The retail industry is going through dramatic and discontinuous change in consumer shopping and purchasing habits resulting from social networking and collaboration tools combined with mobile technology.  Retailers must change and embrace these changes in order to survive because these changes will not stop and will not slow.  In fact this rate of discontinuous change will increase in velocity due to the millennial embrace and immersion in technology and the social networking aspect of social shopping.   This can only grow and expand in capabilities and retailers must incorporate a consumer collaboration strategy into their long term marketing strategies.  

The large legacy retailers must change their culture and their methods and processes to support the business in order to incorporate these discontinuous changes.  They are at a distinct disadvantage at this point because they seem to be buffeted by change from every direction, from the retail stores ot the online outlets these retailers have been caught flat footed as the marketplace changes.  There is an old adage as it relates to large retailers that compares the ability for the retailer to change to a large ocean liner, stating that large companies take a while to change just as large ocean liners take a while to turn around.  This is really a bit of a cop out and a poor excuse for not changing and should be attacked every time it is mentioned.  The retail culture, from the top especially, must change to accept and embrace change as it occurs so the course corrections are simple and can be implemented quickly.  

Large retailers must change into more nimble and more imaginative retailers that are asking why not change rather than why change.  The change occurring in the marketplace feels now like massive change and it is a massive change to the market as it stood five or even ten years ago.  Retailers now are forced into massive and wholesale change in their actions and business capabilities to incorporate social shopping and purchasing.  However, this current massive change has occurred incrementally over the years and if retailers had spent the time and resources, and begun to change their culture to embrace the new capabilities rather than fight new consumer shopping trends I would argue their position today would have been dramatically different.  

It is human nature to fight change and that human nature has caused the retail market disruption.  Now retailers must change their strategy and embark on large scale change in order to survive let alone succeed.  Retail leadership must recognize this and embrace and encourage the change going forward.  They must create a culture that encourages analysis and change rather than discourage.  At this point though the hurdle to overcome the market changes will be too great for many companies and the others will survive as a much different entity.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Social Commerce Discontinuous Change

The retail industry is going through dramatic and discontinuous change in consumer shopping and purchasing habits resulting from social networking and collaboration tools combined with mobile technology.  Retailers must change and embrace these changes in order to survive because these changes will not stop and will not slow.  In fact this rate of discontinuous change will increase in velocity due to the millennial embrace and immersion in technology and the social networking aspect of social shopping.   This can only grow and expand in capabilities and retailers must incorporate a consumer collaboration strategy into their long term marketing strategies.  

The large legacy retailers must change their culture and their methods and processes to support the business in order to incorporate these discontinuous changes.  They are at a distinct disadvantage at this point because they seem to be buffeted by change from every direction, from the retail stores ot the online outlets these retailers have been caught flat footed as the marketplace changes.  There is an old adage as it relates to large retailers that compares the ability for the retailer to change to a large ocean liner, stating that large companies take a while to change just as large ocean liners take a while to turn around.  This is really a bit of a cop out and a poor excuse for not changing and should be attacked every time it is mentioned.  The retail culture, from the top especially, must change to accept and embrace change as it occurs so the course corrections are simple and can be implemented quickly.  

Large retailers must change into more nimble and more imaginative retailers that are asking why not change rather than why change.  The change occurring in the marketplace feels now like massive change and it is a massive change to the market as it stood five or even ten years ago.  Retailers now are forced into massive and wholesale change in their actions and business capabilities to incorporate social shopping and purchasing.  However, this current massive change has occurred incrementally over the years and if retailers had spent the time and resources, and begun to change their culture to embrace the new capabilities rather than fight new consumer shopping trends I would argue their position today would have been dramatically different.  

It is human nature to fight change and that human nature has caused the retail market disruption.  Now retailers must change their strategy and embark on large scale change in order to survive let alone succeed.  Retail leadership must recognize this and embrace and encourage the change going forward.  They must create a culture that encourages analysis and change rather than discourage.  At this point though the hurdle to overcome the market changes will be too great for many companies and the others will survive as a much different entity.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Social Commerce Consumer Collaboration

Collaboration with consumers is becoming more and more critical for the success of retailers going forward and the social shopping and purchasing is a great example of reasons for this importance.  The concept and practice of social shopping is based on collaborative activities between consumers in social networks and utilizing collaboration shopping tools such as Yelp, Foursquare and Retail Me Not.  These social and collaborative shopping tools provide the means for consumers to greatly reduce and even eliminate mall shopping excursions.  Technology is changing the shape of retail and social networking and collaboration tools are at the forefront enabling the changes.  This is difficult to reconcile for many retailers not because of the technology so much but mainly because of the rate and effects of the change.

I think the greatest hurdle for many of these retailers is the loss of control of the shopping experience and the ease of purchasing from other retailers.  We have seen over the years examples of large retailers struggling and fighting trends and I come back to window shopping as a good example.  Window shopping by consumers in brick and mortar stores increased over the years with the increase in eCommerce and retailers fought this practice at when the first discovered because of the perceived impact to their sales.  This was a reaction of a perceived problem that retailers perceived as lost sales and consumers perceived as a relationship impediment.  This short term reaction by the retailer resulted in a long term impact to consumer relationships with the retailer.  

Collaboration with the consumer is a long range action from retailers that can produce a positive impact to the retailer’s success.  This strategy though may be difficult for retailers to maintain through the realization of the long term results because this strategy requires patience and a long term investment before producing continuous and stable results.  Retailers must change their culture to develop a long term collaborative relationship with consumers in order to ensure their long term success.

The retail industry is going through dramatic and discontinuous change in consumer shopping and purchasing habits resulting from social networking and collaboration tools combined with mobile technology.  Retailers must change and embrace these changes in order to survive.  This environment is very difficult to embrace and react to because of the very nature of the changes, however the changes will not stop or slow and retailers must recognize and embrace the change to survive.  Consumers will not slow and the consumer embrace of new and changing technologies must be recognized and accepted by retailers.  

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Social Commerce Data Challenge

Social commerce and purchasing can and should be the most data intensive practice in the retail industry.  The data availability and variety available in the retail industry can be overwhelming causing delays and analysis paralysis in trying to determine what to collect and how to use the data.  This is real a very old problem going back to the beginning of the big data practices and the struggle will continue into the future.  The challenge really is not in the data collection aspect of the equation, the challenge is in how to use the data and what data to use.  Social commerce brings an additional variable to the challenge because the data is spread across partners and even industries that can bring value to the analysis.  

This turns into a bit of a detective challenge to follow the data through the social commerce process from social networks to shopping to the purchase and finally the consumer delivery.  Every step along the way there is a great deal of activity related data that can help the partners better understand and promote their relationship with consumers. The large legacy retailers must replace the data they have been capturing related to consumer shopping habit in the brick and mortar store with the data from the virtual marketplace in order to understand patterns and develop consumer collaboration techniques and practices.  As an example, Wal Mart is a master at product placement in their brick and mortar stores as a result of their consumer shopping pattern data collection and analysis, they are able to determine the best placement for products to drive sales and shoppers through the store.  Now Wal Mart has access to their web site shopping and purchasing habits which can be very helpful however they have a more difficult time determining what shoppers are doing prior to stopping at their web site in the virtual world.  

This requirement for data and especially consumer collaboration increases based on the type of products and retail outlets.  For instance a retailer such as Neiman Marcus would have a much greater demand for consumer touch point ability and consumer collaboration while retailers such as Sears or Wal Mart do not have the same requirements,especially when commodity type products are involved.  As the requirements for data increases the requirement for collaboration and partnerships also increases.  This is because the value of the data increases as the span and range of data increases.  The Internet provides a great opportunity to understand consumer shopping patterns based on consumer touch points and this value can only be unlocked by collaboration and partnership.

There is a question of consumer identify security involved in this discussion as well.  Consumer identify must be protected at all costs and this must be taken into account when tracking activities.  I would be a catastrophic problem for retailers if there was a consumer identity data breach that could be tracked back to the big data collection and analysis.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Social Commerce Strategic Direction

Strategy is many different things to many different people and retailers run the gamut of strategies now in their struggle to maintain success.  In my opinion a strategy combines culture, current capabilities, strength and a vision of the the future that is desired to define a direction and steps to make the vision reality.  These ingredients to the strategy provide important building blocks to achieving the vision of the future and the basic objective of strategy is achieving the vision of the future.  Every retailer has a strategy and a vision of the future and they struggle every day with maintaining this strategy in the face of changing consumer and market demands.  As a result of changing demands I believe that retailers must fundamentally change their strategic definition to incorporate the consumer changing demands.

Retailers must focus their strategic support tools on a flexible foundation and the tools to support analyzing and understanding consumer and market demands.  In addition, and most importantly, retailers must change their culture and especially leadership to support a long term vision and drive for these strategic support tools.  The market is changing to quickly for retailers to expect to maintain the rate of change under their current framework foundation, processes and procedures, tools and culture.  In order to meet these quickly changing demands retail leadership must focus on a strategy that can support the rate of change and a culture that can recognize and embrace the changes.  In other words, retailers must develop a long term strategy for change that support incremental changes to support changing market demands.  

This change requires collaboration as a foundation in order to listen and learn quickly and efficiently.  I see this as a major challenge for most retailers and especially the large legacy retailers.  These retailers have embraced and internalized a strategy of low cost and operational efficiency to support the low cost.  This encouraged a cumbersome command and control structure that was difficult to change and is now a hindrance to success due to the impact of the Internet on the consumer market.  This strategy worked in the past where consumers had limited choices in retail outlets and allowed the retailer to focus on efficiencies delivered through size.  The Internet changed all of that and as the offerings and improvements in usability grew the consumers moved to this market.  

A social commerce strategy requires as a foundation collaboration across all partners and treating the consumer as an equal partner at the table.  This is a dramatic change to the retail culture that requires the support and guidance of the retail leadership.  Retailers must embrace a social commerce strategy that dramatically shortens the change cycle and also provides for a means to collaborate and seek guidance from consumers and other partners in the types of changes that will meet the consumer and market demands.  This all requires a foundation framework of flexibility that supports change easily and quickly.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Start With Social Commerce Big Data

Social commerce will create a huge amount of information as part of the consumer interaction and collaboration and this should be planned for by the retailer and their extended partners.  The data and relationships cross partners and so it is very important to be able to interact and access the data across multiple partners.  Since the interaction is across partners, the data access and analysis must also be performed across partners.  This now adds a great deal of complexity to the challenge to capture and utilize the data across multiple partners.  This is why it is so important for partners to work together to first develop a cohesive strategy and data structure framework that supports the objective of sharing data and analysis across multiple partners.

Big data initiatives of this nature are very complex and require a very high degree of collaboration in order to bring value to all partners.  I would expect there to be varying degrees of acceptance and integration by various partners depending on the perceived value by those partners.  This does not mean that the initiative should wait while the various partners negotiate involvement and participation practices.  Each partner in the extended chain have specific pieces of information they collect to analyze flow, consumer acceptance and costs of transactions and this should not stop.  The collaborative data analysis provides value by supporting  a framework that allows and encourages analysis across partners by combining data available from the different partners that will enhance the understanding and improve the research results.  

This type of initiative is a long term investment in collaboration and technology across partners and the value attained from this collaboration and data access will grow as the collaboration and questions grow.  This does require a rather large investment in both capital dollars to fund the development and research along with a rather large investment in the concepts and even changing the cultures of the extended partner as guided by the results of the analysis.  This investment in culture and time is the greatest hurdle because it requires a leap of faith until the benefits begin to be delivered by the analysis.

The greatest challenge for retailers in this climate is the ability to mount and maintain a long term strategy in any practice.  Retailers have been buffetted by consumer change and have jumped from one practice to another without seeming to maintain a long term strategy.  I believe that it is critical now for retailers to develop and maintain a long term strategy that focuses on collaboration and flexibility and a change in culture.  Without this strategic plan retailers will continue to flounder through the capability of the day and will simply draw out the slow death spiral.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Big Data In Social Commerce

Retailers and their partners require a method to understand consumer actions and interactions in the social commerce world and this requires big data techniques and tools to support the level of detail required for this analysis.  Considering the number of social outlets, channels and mobile apps involved in social commerce the level of data required for analysis is immense.  This requires a thoughtful strategy and implementation in order to achieve value and develop the analysis practices to understand the consumer interaction and support and react to the consumer demands.  These consumer interactions cross channels and outlets from eCommerce to social networks and this requires a very thoughtful and continuous analysis of the outlets and the data in order to achieve and most importantly maintain a value chain from the data collected.

Retailers must engage their extended partner chain to develop and maintain the steady stream of information that can be utilized to support shopping and purchasing demands of consumers.  Without this strategy to collect and analyze this data retailers and their extended partner chain will flounder from one new consumer demand to another.  This cannot be maintained and hope to succeed without a robust strategy and the tools to monitor and maintain this strategy.  This strategy must cross and include all of the extended partners through the chain and must be maintained and provide value across all extended partners in the chain.  This requires an extremely high level of collaboration and flow of information across the partner chain which itself requires a high level of commitment and participation across the partner chain.

The good news is that the tools are currently available to support these needs and the bad news is that it requires an investment across the chain that many partners have not anticipated or planned to engage.  This requires leadership and engagement in order to begin.  I do not think this necessarily requires any one partner to start the process but it does require a champion that can articulate, engage and encourage participation from other partners.  This requires someone to start the process by beginning with a definition of their objectives and then an analysis and definition of requirements and steps to meet the objectives.  

This initial start does not require participation from any one partner in order to begin, the social commerce practice and methods touch all partners in the extended chain and each partner will gain from the collaboration.  This ‘simply’ requires at least one of the partners to begin the exercise and then to begin their engagement with other partners to develop the methods and capabilities.  The one key to the success of this exercise though is investment and participation from partners.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

eCommerce Frontiers

I have noticed in a new WalMart TV commercial that the focus is on consumables and prominently displayed a laundry detergent brand.  Then I noticed an article that explained that the retail marketplace may not have identified the eCommerce penetration in retail because the retail market statistics include grocery and consumables. I find the article a little hard to believe simply because it seems to me that everywhere I look I see ads promoting the convenience and ease of purchasing consumables and groceries online.   These points started me thinking about eCommerce frontiers and where is the marketplace going.  This is especially germane because of the dramatic growth and impact of millennials on the retail market.  I believe that when thinking about frontiers we should focus on market expansion in eCommerce and the changes brought about by social shopping and purchasing.

The market has shifted dramatically based on the demands of the consumer along with a great deal of apps and of course the mobile technology market to blend virtual with physical shopping.  This has dramatically changed the apparel, electronics and even home marketplace already.  As the millennial impact on technology, processes and social networking and shopping grows these areas will also continue to change.  There is one area though that has been a new frontier in th eCommerce and that is the consumable market.  Consumables, of course, are home products and groceries that have not been greatly impacted by eCommerce and virtual shopping in the past.  There have been services and virtual shopping capabilities available to consumers for many years, since the first wave of eCommerce shopping in fact.  The services though have been, and continue to be, focused on grocery store shopping activities that allow the consumer to either pick up their order or have the order delivered.  I used to use a service called PeaPod for grocery shopping and found it very convenient.

The challenge though with these services is they only focused on one chain and did not support sale shopping across chains and outlets.  This is changing now with more shopping outlets offering such services to provide broader perspective and availability of offerings.  Added to the selection now is commodity sales from Amazon and most recently Wal Mart.  I think Amazon especially is developing the next frontier of shopping capability though by combining services for one-click orders of commodities and the Prime delivery service.  This allows consumers to order single products at the point in time when they notice they are starting to run low and they can use their phone, tablet, laptop or even the Echo to order.  This is going to revolutionize commodity shopping shortly, especially as the millennial generation grows in the market.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Retail Marketplace Adaptation

One of the major factors in retailers success in the future is their flexibility and ability to adapt to changing demands of consumers. This flexibility is provided by a technology and cultural framework supporting the flexibility to adapt to changing demands along with a culture of collaboration that supports the practice of collaboration with all partners in the marketplace, including and especially the consumer.  I think this concept of including the consumer as a partner in the marketplace is critical to the understanding of the consumer demands.  It seems to me that a key point of struggle for many retailers is the understanding and acceptance of the changes that millennials bring to the marketplace and one of the big changes is the demand and assumption of collaboration across the marketplace and the inclusion of consumers in this partner collaboration.

Retailers must incorporate a robust continuous improvement cycle that includes people, processes and technology to support continuous adaptation.  The large legacy retailers have maintained a process of identification and grouping of many changes in a major release and implementing this large release to address the changes.  After this implementation though the retailer then begins to group the next set of changes into a subsequent large release.  Retailer must shorten the timeframe of these releases and then incorporate the robust continuous review and improvement cycle to ensure they identify and are prepared to adapt to the new changes driven by the market partners in a much faster cycle.

It is the velocity of change along with the breadth of change that is unnerving retailers and causing them to struggle.  Retailers historically have been slow to change and have been even slower to change their culture.  In the past these practices allowed the retailer to maintain a steady growth and now these practices are hindering the retailer from adjusting to the market demands.  In this age of the millennial shopper along with social shopping and purchasing the retailer must collaborate and adjust quickly to meet the changing demands of the consumer.  The large legacy retailer focused for so long on gaining and maintaining market share and cost reductions through size that they are now struggling to change that practice to a method that is flexible and supports changing practices.

Millennials are curious and embrace experimentation that creates a high velocity of change.  Millennials are also adept at creating new capabilities by combining capabilities in new ways.  These two practices do not fit very well with a stoic practice of stability and a slow and plodding rate of change that is practiced by the large legacy retailers.  Due to the very nature of the millennial generation the large retailers must change their culture to one of nimble collaborative and iterative change, they cannot purchase this culture shift and must encourage and develop internally through practice and demonstration.  Millennials are changing the retail marketplace to support their adaptive and collaborative practices and retailers must change or die.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Retail Social Marketplace

There is an upheaval in the retail market now driven by the growth of millennials in this market and especially their comfort in crossing between the virtual and physical shopping and purchasing channels.  The term ‘omni channel retail’ seems to be a term that no longer describes the market and I think now that ‘retail social marketplace’ more accurately describes the current state of the retail market.  We must look to the social network arena to see an accurate trajectory of the change that the retail market is going through right now.  Retail is changing in ways that were not foreseen 10 years ago or even 5 years ago and this is the direct result of the entry and growth of millennials in the retail market. Millennials are turning the retail market into a retail social marketplace that blends channels to support consumer shopping and purchasing choices and now it is also on the cusp of an upheaval of the consumer delivery practices.

Most retailers are chasing changes using a variety of brute force methods to support the changes.  This practice can be sustained for a short time however it cannot be sustained over a long period.  In order to be successful, retailers must implement a flexible framework that can quickly support changes with a limited and short term amount of brute force.  What we are seeing now in many of the large legacy retailers is the result of chasing these changes and not changing the underlying framework to support the long term need for flexibility to support sustained discontinuous change.  In addition, retailers are also acquiring companies that already are proficient at some of the new practices with the intent to buy the capability and improve faster.  This practice can only work if the acquisitions are used to drive improved flexibility into the underlying framework.  My suspicion is that this capability acquisition strategy is simply another type of brute force method to support changes and without the follow-on activity to incorporate the acquired capability and flexibility into the their framework it will also fail in driving long term capability to support change.  

Retailers must fundamentally change their culture and their foundational framework including people, process and technology in order to survive and sustain their place in the market.  This means they must embrace the retail social marketplace and work with both internal and external partners to build and maintain this social marketplace.  The rate of change is increasing and each new change is built upon a previous change, retailers must increase collaboration and flexibility in order to support this new model.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?