Omni Market Sustainability

Sustainability is important in any endeavor and the retail omni market is no different.  I thought that it would be important to start with an understanding of sustainability in biology in order to better understand the demands and potential requirements and objectives that could be required for omni market sustainability.  The biological definition of sustainability from Wikipedia is  “the property of biological systems to remain diverse and productive indefinitely.  In more general terms, sustainability is the endurance of systems and processes.”  I think that the retail omni market definition and objectives of sustainability relates more to the biological system definition because the retail omni market is a continuously evolving and improving diverse system of partners, participants and the processes that bring them together.  This is important to start with the appropriate definition because it influences and informs the activities of the market.

The omni market has many pieces and parts required to sustain the services and capabilities and support  these services in the support and growth of the omni market.  It seems to me that the market sustainability is very much like a biological system that requires diversity and the endurance of systems and processes to remain viable and productive.  The systems involved in the omni market are social, technical and physical operational systems that come together to meet the demands of the customers.  A failure in any one of these systems has a dramatic impact on the retailers’ ability to support the market and retailers must remain focused on the maintaining and supporting these systems to remain successful.  The measurement is straightforward, even though the support requirements can be complicated,  the measurement is the success and continued viability of the retailer.

Key factors in in the sustainability of the omni market are collaboration and engagement, technology and processes will continuously change, however the glue and the fuel of the market can really be broken down into these two ingredients.  However these are probably the two most difficult factors to maintain because of the ever changing demands and the tools used by all of the partners.  The control and direction of the market are really driven now by consumers that have embraced technology.  These consumers are continuously changing and trying new technologies to improve their shopping and purchasing capabilities.  

Millennials have grown in the omni market and have made a significant impact in the requirements for sustainability.  These changes and demands are very much list a biological system because of their continuous changing and growing practices and capabilities.  There is a high level of experimentation that is causing mutations in the marketplace practices and these mutations are impacting the market sustainability.  The ability to meet these demands will be supported by the retailer collaboration and engagement practices to sustain 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?