Secured Supply Chain Network

All of the discussion surrounding Internet of Things connectivity and collaboration and opening the supply chain network in more ways to additional partners and networked technology and tools is exciting for three key groups; the supply chain partners, the consumer and hackers.  The big question generated by these new tools and technology is how do you develop and maintain an open network such as this and still protect the interest of all participants. This is huge task for the security organizations and I’m sure keeps them up at night worrying. These networks open to external access from partners are under constant attack now and the IoT tools and technology opens a new frontier in network security that must also be taken into account.  Network advances and capabilities must now take into account the security demands and risks as at least as important to the supply chain as the expanded capabilities, maybe even more because of the potential impact of a breach.

The security of this network is no small task especially since more and more news is coming out regarding network attacks and network breaches, and this is just what you hear about, there is also a great deal of attacks that you never hear about.  Then add to this level of risk a huge variety of devices that attach to the network under the umbrella of IoT. These new connectivity requirements increase the risk geometrically because of the access to the network provided by these devices along with the unknown risk of the level of security developed within the connected device to protect from hacking attacks.  The simple reality of these connected devices is that many of them simply provide open access, assuming that the network to which they are attached is either secured or takes into account the open nature of the connected devices and segregates them to to secured network node. Either way, the security of the network always falls to the owner of the network and these connection and vulnerability opportunities must continuously be reviewed and addressed.

Security is another continuous support activity that must be taken into account and planned for the protection of the network and most importantly business and consumer information assets.  There are continuous probes for weakness against the network that must be taken into account and these probes lead to assaults on the network. As the network becomes more open from activity such as consumer and supply chain partner collaboration, eCommerce (B2B and B2C), IoT devices and the blockchain the volume and types of risks and vulnerabilities also increases and builds on each other.  These must all be taken into account with a network security strategy and this strategy must be continuously be reviewed in order to identify and plan for new risks and vulnerabilities.

The point is that you cannot block all network access from the outside to secure the network and nor should you want to because this only brings a false sense of security that leaves you open to attacks, even if you wanted to your network would still be open to vulnerabilities from email attacks.  The point is that you must understand the risk and embrace the tools and practices to protect you from the vulnerabilities and attacks that these tools bring.

Retail Collaboration Business Impact

The retail collaboration practices require the retailers and the participants in the collaboration network incorporate enhanced social networking capabilities and social network technologies to support the demands of the marketplace.  While this technology opens the retail collaboration network to increased flexibility and capabilities to allow participants to connect and interact more fluidly and easily, it also opens the network to all of the troubling aspects of the social networking from unwanted participants as well.  This requires the retailer ot also implement networking monitoring and management practices to protect the innocent participants in the collaboration network from the predatory participants. Predatory participants in the collaboration network will quickly cause this network to lose participants if unchecked for too long.

These monitoring and management tools and techniques are a new cost of doing business and must be taken into account and planned as part of the collaboration network base requirements.  The business impact along with the potential legal consequences will quickly shut down the network causing a great deal of reputation and financial harm to the participants. There are too many unintended consequences involved in the collaboration network for the retailer to go into the relationship lightly.  The retailer and other business participants have a great deal at stake if the network is compromised through a data breach and these participants must take measures to secure these assets while still promoting the collaboration. These business participants are in a somewhat of a difficult position; they must protect their business assets, including customer personal information, from these hacking activities while also providing the open networking framework to support the collaboration demands.  

Personal information is probably the most valuable, and most must be the most protected asset that an company dealing with the public owns and the theft of these assets can dramatically impact the business form both a cost and reputational perspective.  This focus on protection requires a continuous and also perfect approach to the protection of their customer personal information. These measures are already part of the base business requirements for retailers so the importance is not new, however the risk is dramatically increased because of the additional social network activities.  This increased risk must be taken into account for the planning, implementation and ongoing maintenance of the collaboration network and the maintenance must be especially focused and robust in order to meet the challenges of a robust and continuously changing social network.

The business participants in these collaborative networks must enter into this arrangement with their eyes wide open to understand the importance and also the risk of attack from hackers and as a result must increase their focus and support efforts to overcome the risk.  This must be a key focus of all business participants and requires a focused and continuous effort as well to first protect and second maintain the protection. There are no options and the business participants must always maintain vigilance. Luckily the participants have an opportunity to partner and collaborate on the maintenance of security of the collaborative network.

Retail Collaboration Focus

Every activity, program or initiative requires a focus and the retail collaboration program is no different.  Retailer have been collaborating with their partners for a very long time in a rather one sided collaboration where retailers retained the ultimate control of the collaborative partnership.  Now though the circumstances are different and if anyone in the collaborative network is in control it is the consumer and retailers must shift their focus to a more outward and flexible focus on developing opportunities with and encouraging the interest of consumers.  The collaborative focus has shifted to one supporting the retailer needs to one supporting the consumer needs. This is a simple and yet a very dramatic shift in focus and will be difficult for many retailers to accept and let alone embrace.

This shift in focus will be very difficult for many retailers and especially the large legacy retailers because they will be forced to give up control in their space.  This will require a change in culture and the practices for these retailers to shift their focus from one of controlling their shopping and purchasing practices to one of shared ownership and taking guidance from not only consumers but also from the other participants in the marketplace.  This means that retailers must shift their focus from one leading the offerings and capabilities based on the greatest benefit and best cost structure for their operations to one of flexibility and sharing support of capabilities.

This shift in focus will help the retailer to shift their focus from one of defining and developing capabilities to an open collaborative environment where all partners, including consumers take part in the development and implementation of new capabilities.  This shift to focus on flexibility will allow the retailer to fully engage in the omni marketplace through shared services and capabilities. It is not necessary for any one partner to develop capabilities to support all marketplace requirements, the collaborative practices will allow all participants in the marketplace to share services to offer best of breed capabilities.  The direction and demands of the consumer to develop a social shopping marketplace that is made up of a wide range of collaborative partners to offer services to support the consumer demands and ensure the success of all participants.

All participants in this social and collaborative marketplace will soon find that the sum of the partners, and especially their partners capabilities and specialties will make for a more robust marketplace that can quickly adapt and delivery new capabilities to support consumer demands.  This new capabilities will be put together from a combination of small and iterative changes combined in a flexible distributed platform that grow and flexes with the changing demands of the market. The collaborative retail marketplace will allow retailers, and all participants in the market, to both choose from and by the same token add to a catalog of services and capabilities that can be brought together based not on the limitations of any one partner but based on the collaborative network made possible by the change in collaborative focus.

Retail Collaboration Is The Key To The Future

Retailers must recognize and embrace collaboration practices across all aspects of the supply chain in true partnerships in order to succeed in the future.  True collaboration requires transparency and a willingness to share ownership with key partners, including consumers. This requirement, or opportunity, has been growing for a while now as millennials have grown in number and power in the retail marketplace.  I believe the retail marketplace as reached the point of a perfect storm where the pieces and parts of tectonic change are coming together to fundamentally change the the way in which consumers interact with participants in the retail marketplace. This interaction is based on social network technologies and collaboration practices among equals to meet the changing demands of the consumer.  

Retailers are really no longer in control of the market and the sooner they embrace this new reality the sooner they will be able to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by collaborative interactions across the marketplace.  Collaboration is changing and as a result collaboration is changing the marketplace. Collaboration practices are changing because of consumers newly developed capabilities of choice and communications resulting from their embrace of technology in the first place and then the continuous improvements in technology in the second place.  This dramatic use of technology by consumers allowed them to take control of their shopping and purchasing practices and as a result has also promoted the consumer to a key stakeholder in the retail marketplace thus forcing retailers to fundamentally their attitude and their reactions to consumers.

This change in retailer reactions should be focused on development of extended collaboration practices that treat all participants as equal stakeholders.  This change in the use and execution of collaborative practices flattens the hierarchy and essentially eliminates the ability of retailers to control the types or the levels of collaboration.  This is a dramatic development in both collaborative practices and the retail marketplace and has far reaching implications that will dramatically change the marketplace and the consumer interactions with the marketplace.  Retailers must embrace the changes in order to remain a viable player in the retail marketplace and there is really no time for retailers to waste in embracing these changes. The sooner that retailers realize this change and embrace and participate fully in these activities, the sooner that retailers will be able to fully participate and have the opportunity to guide and form the collaborative practices.  

Collaboration is truly a key factor and tool for the success of retailers in the changing retail marketplace and this factor is not in the control of the retailers, which is at odds with the retailers standard practices.  This direction and change has been in the making for a long time and can be recognized by successful offerings and practices by secondary retailers. The sad thing now is that the retailers that can gain the most from these practices are also the same retailers that have been fighting, or more properly dragging their feet in supporting these changes because of the impact on their control, or perceived control of the marketplace.

Retail Collaboration Cycles

In order to increase the success of your collaboration program you must understand and expect a series of cycles that move the program forward in fits and starts.  There will be good cycles and there will be not so good cycles and you must take the ups and downs because they all move your program forward. The one thing you will need a great deal of is stamina to maintain the pace of change and most importantly to deal with the cycles of positive and negative response.  One of the key challenges with collaboration is the stamina required to maintain a program with a cycle and velocity of change that will exhaust many organizations and leadership teams. The benefit though of developing the collaboration program will renew your retail organization and prepare you for the future.   

Collaboration is changing just like the retail marketplace is changing and they are now tied together in a marriage of activities that drive cycles of change supporting collaboration activities that in turn drive changes in the retail marketplace.  We are getting to the place in the maturity of the retail marketplace where collaboration with the consumer and not just an oddity practiced by a few offbeat retailers. The retail collaboration practice is becoming an integral part of the retail marketplace and retailers and the other participants in the retail marketplace must recognize this requirement and embrace the practices to required to produce results.  This is becoming a necessity in the retail marketplace since the consumers have pushed their demands on the marketplace and wrested control of shopping and purchasing from the individual retailer.

Collaboration across the retail marketplace provides the means to develop a stickiness factor that will ensure the consumer has a reason to return.  There are too many options for consumers in the marketplace and retailers must embrace these practices to succeed in this changing marketplace. The fluid nature of the marketplace produces cycles for success and failure in for the retailers that drive the market and the collaborative opportunities in this marketplace.  It is important to realize that failure is a big part of these collaborative cycles and even failure helps to move the ball forward from a growth perspective. The very nature of human interaction almost guarantees the cycles of failure and the challenge for retailers is to learn from the failure to improve the collaborative practices and results.

The marketplace changes in fits and starts and the collaborative practices will help retailers to overcome the failures and down cycles to grow and change.  Remember that the retail omni market developed over many years and many changes on top of one another. There were a great deal changes and failures over the year and I see the collaborative cycles following a similar trajectory and also expect similar results in changing the market.  The retail omni marketplace was produced through a combination of tools that simplified shopping and purchasing, now the collaborative practice and engagement with consumers will provide the human aspect to this marketplace for which consumers have been searching.

Retail Relationship Collaboration

I am convinced, and have been for a long time, that collaboration in the supply chain environment and among the extended partners is critical to the success of the supply chain and all the partners within the supply chain.  I have seen evidence now of the extension of these collaboration practices extended by supply chain partners to the end consumer. The best example is parcel delivery of orders where the major carriers have developed collaborative tools to interact directly with the consumer to plan and re-plan parcel deliveries.  This example shows the benefits that can be achieved by all parties in the transaction when they are open to the suggestions and comments of the other participants in the transaction. This example can, and must, be extended throughout the retail omni marketplace to proved reasons for the consumer to return.

Retailers and especially the large legacy retailers fell into a trap of chasing the lowest price offerings for the goods and services in the hope of encouraging consumers to return when in fact the practice created a monster that required continuous feeding in order to survive.  The fact of the matter is that consumers only returned and purchased when the retailers offering was the lowest price and this drive to the bottom created an almost overwhelming need to continuously reduce costs and expenses. Rather than a continuous improvement program this created a continuous cost and expense reduction process that may have produced sales but the sales could not be expected to support a vibrant business offering.

In the meantime leaders in the dCommerce marketplace such as Amazon were focused on developing the collaborative relationship with the consumer because they realized early on the importance of the collaborative relationship with consumers.  Amazon came into the market realizing they must develop a relationship with their customers and as a result they focused on collaboration and continuous improvement of their relationship with their customers. Now, I agree and understand that Amazon came into the market with a huge cost advantage that it leveraged to provide the lowest cost offering for so many of their products that consumers gave them a chance and placed their orders.  Amazon also focuses on technology to enhance the consumer experience. These a big differences than the viewpoint and direction of the legacy retailers who moved into the eCommerce channel as a means to reduce the sales transaction costs and open another sales channel.

The large legacy retailers must now extend their focus and their efforts towards developing a collaborative relationship across the marketplace as a means to survive.  This is a huge shift in focus and effort and most importantly a shift in culture for these large legacy retailers to collaborate in decisions that will benefit all participants and engage with the participants.  While this is extremely difficult it is also absolutely necessary activities for the large retailers in order to survive. This is not a project though, it is a program that requires continuous effort to engage and collaborate.  This will be difficult at first however when they begin to realize the benefits it will encourage them to continue and grow the collaborative relationships. This has been a great area of success for Amazon and there is no reason that the large legacy retailers cannot also gain from these activities.

Retail Relationship Program

Encouraging and maintaining a personal business relationship with consumers must be viewed as a continuous process that requires continuous care and feeding to ensure success.  This requires a focus and a program to ensure that continuous review and changes necessary to engage and react to the changing demands of consumers and the marketplace. This is definitely not a ‘once and done’ project but a program that requires continuous review and updates in order to succeed.  This requires a program because the personal business relationship must be viewed from a long term perspective that will touch and change all aspects of the retail marketplace including the retailers and the methods that retailers interact with consumers leading to a collaborative relationship model build on social networking practices.

The first step for a relationship program is to understand and embrace a collaborative model that encourages communication and interaction across all participants in the retail marketplace.  This collaborative model must be built on the social network interaction model that support peer to peer connectivity in what I would call a honeycomb model that support direct interaction based on relationships without a hierarchical relationship to hamper the communication.  This communication model in itself will go a long way to encouraging a flat collaborative model that discourages a hierarchy viewpoint that is at the heart of the command and control model. This relatively simple first step is probably the most difficult concept to maintain over the long term.  The large legacy retailers have lived for years in a command and control organization that has bread a strong culture supporting the command and control model. This collaborative model of peer-to-peer relationships is very easy to employ for a short term, however it will be difficult to maintain a robust collaborative model of the long term while the retailer culture changes.  

The second step is to engage the partners in this model and begin to develop the social network connections and processes that will support the relationship program.  This is relatively straightforward, as long as there support from each of the partners, and the implementation requires a commitment to engage and develop new methods to interact rather than any specific deliverables.  This is where the continuous change model comes into play and will support the process to analyze, change, measure and react to the changing demands of the market and the consumers. There is no better model fo rhis than the continuous improvement model especially when coupled with a robust social network interaction to support the trial and error changes.  

There is a key requirement to the success of the relationship program and that is persistence.  The success of a relationship program requires persistence to maintain the program and not get discouraged from setbacks along the way.  Persistence will carry the day when setbacks and failures are encountered. The team must focus on collaboration and solving the problem at hand in order to move forward.  As long as the program moves forward the consumer will remain engaged and will return and that is the goal of the relationship program for consumers and all partners in the marketplace to return.

Retail Relationship Development

In the past the eCommerce retailers were at a distinct disadvantage as compared to their brick and mortar competitors from a business relationship aspect with customers because of the sales associates opportunities and abilities to interact directly with consumers.  Over time though this advantage was essentially eliminated with the realization of the retail omni market when the brick and mortar retailers focused on low cost product sales. This focus on cost forced the large legacy retailers to reduce the sales associates in the stores and this combined with eCommerce channel elimination of direct human interaction with consumers left a serious hole in the business relationship and even the capabilities of the legacy retailers to develop the relationship that consumers are still in search of.  

Retailers are now beginning to realize the necessity to develop these business relationships with consumers and also the partners supporting the retail marketplace.  This is truly the next phase of the retail omni marketplace. Part of the reason for the new realization is the practices developed by the initial pure play eCommerce retailers like Amazon to build business relationships with their customers.  I believe that Amazon, for instance, has shown an almost single minded focus on delivering a consumer experience that not only saved money for consumers but also the development of consumer relationships and social interactions with consumers to create the stickiness that would continue to encourage consumers to return.  Granted, Amazon took advantage of the fact of the extreme cost savings presented by the fact that they had no store network to support and increase the overall costs.

For Amazon, the cost savings drew customers and then the social network capabilities and interactions encouraged consumers to return.  Amazon has a huge lead and advantage in their business relationship practices and capabilities because of their continuous focus on improved relationships and there early commitment to provide a positive customer experience at the expense of profits.  This strategy paid off quite handsomely and now Amazon has replaced the legacy retailer as the leader in the marketplace providing continued leadership developing and implementing new capabilities to build on their relationship development practices.

The large legacy retailers have been focused on developing purchasing options to grow their omni market presence and this is allowing them to slow the market loss, however these retailers must expand their focus into the business relationship development methods with consumers and other market partners in order to enhance the customer experience and encourage the consumer to return.  The legacy retailers were starting with a distinct disadvantage because all of their business relationship development was based on direct customer interaction with the sales associate and their focus on low cost pricing forced them to essentially eliminate their sales associate staff and redirect their efforts to stocking. They really have not learned the value of the relationship with the customer because enter into a relationship with the attitude that they are the center of the universe and this does not work when developing a strong relationship.

The legacy retailers must now focus on developing and encouraging relationships with both consuerms and other partners.  The market will not wait and consumers can be rather fickle if your only offering is low price. Retailers must also realize this relationship development is not a once and done practice but a long term journey.

Collaborative Continuous Delivery

The retail omni marketplace requires a continuous delivery of new content, features and functionality that would best be supported by a collaborative control tower framework.  This is what I refer to as a collaborative continuous delivery cycle which extends and combines the continuous improvement cycle process with a robust marketplace collaborative process to support the plan and check processes in the improvement cycle.  The extension and combination builds a robust process that institutionalizes the consumer collaboration to not only support the business and quickly identify areas of improvement, it also builds the relationships with consumers. These relationships with consumers have been lost, or at least a dramatically reduced focus by the retailers causing a reduction in customer loyalty.

Consumer relationships is a critical factor in any successful retail operation and requires the retailer in the omni marketplace to expend resources in technology and support of the process that was previously supported by sales associates in the store.  The large legacy retailers started in eCommerce focused on the potential to reduce the cost of the sale and also to open a new sales channel to increase sales. These retailers, and eCommerce in general seemed to have gotten stuck in this focus on cost, to the detriment of the consumer relationship. Amazon came along then and blew up this model by adding the consumer relationship maintenance and development tools to their eCommerce model which encouraged not only purchasing but interaction and relationship development with consumers, creating a new expectation of consumers.  This entry of Amazon and their interactive approach to eCommerce and the explosion of wireless and mobile technology created an environment that spawned the retail omni marketplace.

Now we have multiple partners with greater interaction and collaboration opportunities not only across the retail supply chain but across the entire retail marketplace, including, most importantly, consumers.  This brings two demands on this marketplace; a means to coordinate the collaboration and support the social networking demands of this collaboration and a process to incorporate the changes resulting from the increased collaboration.  There are too many connections, partners and moving parts to be able to effectively support the demands and deliver the potential with the legacy contained improvement process. The demands have been increasing into a breakneck velocity and they have also been demanding the support of more partners to deliver results.

This brings us to the collaborative continuous delivery process that supports the development of the relationship and will improve loyalty along with the process to support and enhance the delivery of the change across the marketplace.  The continuous improvement process is not new and has been a staple of the industry for a long time to great success. The change however is large and very impactful to the marketplace and the success of the retailer. This change should be planned and executed as a continuous improvement program itself to support the demands of the consumer and the collaboration with the consumer.  Collaboration with the consumer is not a project that is ‘completed’, it is a process that must be incorporated and integrated into the culture of the organdition.

Collaboration Control Tower

The control tower framework is perfect for the many interactions supporting the supply chain from manufacturer to the the end consumer and this same framework concept can be used to support the demands of the retail collaboration efforts.  Retail omni market collaboration also crosses over from the retail supply chain through the retailer and then out to the consumer and this collaboration requires the same ability to connect across disparate networks including social and commercial and in the case of the retail omni market support the objective of developing and building out the consumer to business relationship.  This is especially critical in the retail omni market because of the reduced, or non-existent, human interaction between consumer and the retail omni market. A collaboration control tower framework should be developed to support the consumer relationship in place of the human interaction.

In the past the collaboration across and between consumers and the retail supply chain was obscured because the human interaction between consumer and retail sales associate made this unnecessary.  The human interaction allowed the retailer the outlet and direct communication between retailer and consumer to provide the information and most importantly, the planning and coordination to ensure the product was delivered to the consumer in the event of an out of stock position.  This human relationship came as second nature because of the sales associate interaction with the consumer. On the negative side of this relationship from the current technology perspective is that this interaction was never really codified into a process that could be used to develop the virtual relationships.

This collaboration control tower would provide the means to define and support the connections across the participants in the collaboration network to allow them to communicate and develop the relationships that will both help the relationship grow and also allow non-linear interactions between the participants based on the needs at the time.  Both the connection and the participants can, and will, change based on the need at the time and the social network concept supported through the collaboration control tower framework would need to support these relatively random type of connections and interactions. The collaboration control tower framework must be flexible to support the social communication to support, and grow, the virtual relationship between consumers and the retail omni market.  

The communications and actions resulting from the collaboration can be complicated and require a great deal of thought to develop a process flow for each type of communication or action.  This is why it is critical for the business relationship to develop the collaboration control tower framework that will provide the framework to support the connectivity and collaboration process flow based upon the need at the time in a fluid, robust and more social type of handling and process.  A social network such as Facebook is a good example of the compelling power of the retail omni market collaboration control tower. Facebook has extended the social network platform to include methods to both sell and advertise products. They have done this through a continuous delivery process and the large retailers must begin to develop their own social network methods to enhance the relationship with consumers.  These must be done over time through a continuous delivery method that is supported through a collaboration control tower framework.

Retail Collaboration Capabilities

Collaborative capabilities and practices have been a part of the retail environment for a long time focused on business aspects such as transportation and logistics.  Now consumers are pushing these practices out into the interactions between retailers and consumers and consumers to consumers. In addition, the logistics partners are extending collaboration capabilities out to the consumers as well through delivery coordination and secured drop points to store deliveries until the consumer can pick it up.  There are definitely many things that retailers have added and continue to add to increase consumer opportunities. These are all great capabilities and functions that improve the shopping and purchasing experience up to now and then the next phase of the retail omni market experience and consumer experience is definitely the ability to collaborate with the entire marketplace to put these pieces together in ways that allow the consumer to mix and match to support their needs at the time.

Collaboration and social retail practices are going to come to the forefront in the coming years in shaping the retail marketplace.  These practices are not new, in other words these practices are currently available and being used by consumers in their everyday interactions with retailers.  Retailers have focused more on functionality and even continued cost savings and have not really focused on the consumer relationship and this is going to be a problem in the near future.  Social commerce is the next wave and retailers begin now with initial steps and planning for integration and collaboration in the marketplace. Hopefully retailers learn from initial eCommerce mistakes and begin the dialog with consumers and other partners in the marketplace.  

The marketplace is changing again as a result of consumer use of technology, Internet of Things tools and functionality to increase transparency and tracking and communications.  The technology allows for quick integration and flexibility in building and shaping capabilities. The key change is the capabilities are changing based on tools used by consumers and the technology that is increasing and forming a continuous improvement chain that his changing the market.  The continuous improvement needs to focus on defining capabilities and then the most important aspect is to create the ability to combine capabilities as necessary to support changing consumer demands.

The social connection is based on the connection at the point in time of demand so these social network connections will change fluidly with the type of shopping, the type of purchasing and most importantly the consumer needs or requirements at the specific time of execution.  The time of execution is the new guiding factor in the capabilities requirements, the type of shopping and purchasing and then the social collaboration demands or capabilities of the consumer and the partners involved in the transaction. The capabilities necessary at the time of execution will shift and contract and grow depending on the consumer needs and type of shopping.  These capabilities must be build on a framework that supports flexibility in the extreme in order to meet the changing demands.

This collaboration framework must support the ability to quickly and efficiently add new capabilities as well as combine capabilities in new ways to support consumer demands and experimentation. The collaboration aspect is key to success and requires eliminating friction across silos more than ever in order to support consumer demands.

Consumer Collaboration Integration

Consumer collaboration practices must be integrated into the fabric of the retail omni market in order for retailers to succeed going forward.  The retail omni market is growing and expanding across all aspects of consumer interaction and consumers are demanding simplicity and functionality in the collaborative capabilities.  One of the key contributing factors to the expansion of the omni market reach and capabilities will be the ability for consumers to collaboration among and across all aspects of the omni market including retailers, suppliers, transportation and delivery coordination and scheduling.  The consumer has taken control of their shopping and purchasing and they are utilizing technology in new and ever changing manners to help them in their drive to shop and also improve their ability to support and enhance their lifestyles.

When the Internet sales started and Amazon was in its infancy these Internet retailers were viewed as a fad that would never have a huge impact on the retail business.  Now these retailers have completed disrupted the retail marketplace and consumers have lead the disruption through technology integration. This technology integration includes social network technology that consumers embraced as a means to stay connected and now this technology has turned into a powerful collaboration tool that allows consumers to share and collaboration on shopping and product purchases with the technology providing consumers a means to both shop and socialize at the same time.  The social network technology such as Facebook has embraced the consumer’s experimentation with types of technology and technology capabilities to provide new methods of shopping and purchasing that would have been thought to be impossible ten years ago.

Now the Internet of Things technology is poised to drive a new wave of disruption through technology tools and capabilities that expand reach of the consumer and also provide new means and opportunities for collaboration.  The velocity of change driven by this technology is breathtaking and the imagination of consumers and all aspects of interactions across all aspects of not only the retail marketplace but also the consumer lifestyle and daily routines.  This new technology is going to push the disruption again into the retail marketplace and this time I am afraid that the Internet retailers will push a new marketplace that will only marginally involve brick and mortar retail.

This next wave of technology will push the disruption further across everyday life and will also blend all aspects of the consumer lifestyle further blurring the consumer life interaction.  This will disrupt work, leisure and very likely eliminate retail as we know it, except for the small specialty retailer. It will be interesting to see how the technology disrupts the real estate market.  I see this Internet of Things technology as the next new wave disruption and it will ripple across all interactions as consumers and businesses use their imagination to develop new method to interact and live.

Consumer Retail Collaboration

The retail omni market has changed the way that consumers interact with retailers and retail leaders such as Amazon is fueling these new consumer interactions to develop relationships with consumers in new ways that allows the leaders to develop a lasting relationship.  Retail is a relationship business model and while the market and the methods of interactions changes through the use of technology the simple fact of the matter is that retail is still a relationship business model that is changing from a model of direct person to person interaction to a virtual interaction supported by technology.  This interaction method is being driven in many ways by the new generation of shoppers that have brought a very high level of comfort with technology to drive the change into the market.

Sometimes I think that retailers make much more out of the omni market than is necessary.  Retailers always seem to be focused on the technology and enamored with new technology rather than how to use the technology to improve the relationship.  I think this is because technology can desensitize people and cause them to forget a critical goal of technology which is to allow people to interact in a manner and at a time that is convenient to them.  Technology is meant to improve the human capabilities and provide for an improved lifestyle. This means that technology is meant to enhance capabilities and one of the key capabilities technology can improve is interactions which is a key factor in retail.  This is the key reason why technology has moved to such an important place in retail.

The retail market is probably in the forefront of the technology integration because consumers are driven to change the way they shop as a result of their lifestyle changes and their need to shift activities to support their lifestyle.  The embrace of technology by consumers and the capabilities provided by high speed Internet access provided the catalysts that drove the changes in the retail market and the development of the retail omni market. The third ingredient driving the retail omni market is social network and social technologies such as Facebook and Pinterest for instance.  The social technologies delivered the relationship aspect of the business model and more importantly provided a key tool to support consumer and retailer interactions.

Now it almost seems that retailers have tipped the scales too far in the direction of impersonal retail and eliminate personal interaction.  Retailers unfortunately are driving this impersonal direction as a means to reduce costs and not as a means to improve consumer relationships.  Granted retailers are focused on simplification of the shopping and purchasing process to allow consumers to streamline the process, however these retailers in some ways are missing an opportunity to develop the relationship that will ensure shoppers return.  Retailers must be careful that they don’t simply add an impersonal simplification of purchasing to the strain of a low price merchandise strategy.

Retailers such as Amazon seem to understand the benefits of consumer relationships and have included this in their focus on changing the retail marketplace.  I see this as a key reason for their success and also a key reason for the continued struggle of the large legacy retailers. Retailers must stop focusing on a lowest price strategy and impersonal simplification of the shopping process, these are flip sides of the same coin and start focusing on the relationship business model.

Retail Collaborative Practices

Most retailers have developed and maintained collaborative partnerships for many years to support their business needs and provide extended services and capabilities.  This has served both sides of the collaborative partnership very well over the years in a mutually beneficial relationship. Like so many other aspects of the retail marketplace I believe the collaborative practices behind much of the retail marketplace are also changing quite dramatically.  These collaborative practices are changing from one on one partnerships to a cross partner collaborative relationship that shares benefits across many partners and more importantly delivers benefits to all participants while focusing on the benefits of the entire chain rather than a peer-to-peer relationship.  The relationship is loosely coupled rather than direct partnerships that benefit the entire network rather than any peer-to-peer partnership.

Retail collaboration is must change to meet the demands of consumers and other participants in the marketplace in a manner that is similar to social networks and networking where the relationship and participation changes based on the requirements and demands of the moment.  These demands and opportunities will continuously expand and change as participants expand and change. This colloborative networking will include equally all participant in the marketplace including consumers, retailers, transportation, manufacturers and value added service providers.  These collaborative networking practices and participants will benefit a great deal from the changes and improvements in technology to expand reach and communications. The nature of the collaborative network itself will change, expanding and contracting, with the changes in participants and their use of technology.

You cannot get away from technology in this new retail marketplace supported by the collaborative network.  The market demands reduced friction and increase connectivity and capabilities in a manner that only enhanced technology can support.  The retail marketplace is obviously no stranger to technology and this symbiotic relationship with customers and other participants in the retail market can only be enhanced through the growth and expansion of collaborative networks and enhanced technology capabilities.   

These are exciting and intimidating times that we are living through and progressing to a new world that promised tremendous opportunities for the retailers with enormous danger from not accepting the challenge.  Unfortunately I do not believe that retailers have choice in this new world because quite frankly, not participating in the collaborative network practices means that the retailer will simply whither and die. There is simply no way that retailers, at least retailers outside of small niche retailers, can survive if they do not embrace the social network.  Consumers are driving these changes through their embrace of technology and the promise of technology and these consumers are not turning back from the changes.

Retailers can succeed in these practices simply by embracing the concept and starting, it does not matter if they start small, in fact I would recommend starting small with an open mind that embraces the opportunity.  Simply participating in the collaborative network will encourage the retailer to embrace the technology and develop the practices and capabilities that allow them to participate in their own speed and level of comfort.  This is a journey and the end is not planned or foreseen and in fact it changes with the participants and the demands. Retailers must start though and there is no better time to start than the present.

Changing Retail Collaboration Practices

Success in the retail omni market demands increased level of collaboration across the board and this means changes in practices not only for retailers but also all partners and participants in the marketplace.  These heightened demands will only increase as the technology and the consumer practices and demands change. These changing collaborative practices require not only changes from each of the partners in the manner in which they interact with consumers and participants in the market, the collaborative practices also require changes in culture for the participants to support the changing demands.  The changing demands and especially the changing technology supporting and driving these demands require the participants in the market to increase their collaboration and openly share more than ever before.

Collaboration has been an increasingly important practice in business and the retail marketplace is no different in the respect of expanding importance and breadth and depth of the collaboration.  The focus on depth and breadth of the collaboration requirements has been increasing and has gotten to the point of almost a geometric progression because of the combination of consumer demands and technology capabilities.  The driving factor of these changes are driven by the consumer embrace of technology in combination with the connectivity and interactive shopping and purchasing capabilities across the market. Consumers have come to the point in their interaction with participants in the retail omni market where enhanced interaction capabilities is expected and a baseline requirement of the market.   This baseline interaction capability crosses over to touch and impact all participants in the marketplace and all participants have stepped up to meet these demands as well.

This progression of interaction with participants in the marketplace started with individual interactions based on the activities of the participant; for instance parcel carriers interact with the retailer to update shipment tracking information.  Keeping with this example though the interaction of the carriers has expanded dramatically and continues to expand almost exponentially through direct interaction with consumers to coordinate and change delivery information and additional services such as delivery lockers to support consumer schedules.  This is just one example of the changing demands and each partner has their own examples based on services and offerings.

Consumers have come to expect the enhanced interaction abilities and in fact consumers are driving the development and implementation of these enhanced capabilities in many ways through the consumer expanded use of technology and their imaginative combination of these technologies and services.  This is the natural progression of technology and consumer practices that can be seen in practically every interaction with consumers. Just look around and you see the level of importance and most importantly the level of comfort and acceptance of consumers in this technology. Its just the next step in the progression that consumers are building and enhancing their collaborative interaction with participants in the retail marketplace.

Participants in the retail marketplace need to change and expand their collaborative practices to include other participants in the marketplace.  This will quickly become a base requirement for the marketplace and requires the active participation across all of the participants. If the marketplace participants don’t step up to increase and expand their collaborative practices with other participants, consumers in the marketplace will create these relationships themselves and edge out the individual participants.  Retailers especially will need to stand up and accept and embrace the demands of consumers to participate and succeed in the market.