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.