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.