Collaboration Culture

A little collaboration can go a long way and for most retailers this has really been the extent of their collaborative efforts over the years.  Their efforts have really been focused on internal collaborative practices and with key supply partners in an effort to streamline their supply flow.  Their focus now must shift to an external one that includes not just their key supply partners but also their customers as well in an effort to expand their reach and interactions to include the end-to-end relationships to support their abilities to support the market and consumer demands.  Retailers must reevaluate their relationships and methods of interaction and most importantly their cultural focus in order to then meet the market demands in the retail omni market. This requires a change in focus from what I would call an internal focus on the interactions that will support the the retailer to an external focus to develop a relationship with consumers.

Most retailers over the recent past have been highly focused on the operational side of retail, in other words, the support fo consumer purchasing and delivery coordination and improvements.  These are requirements to support the retail omni market however on the other side of the coin the consumer relationship also demands a higher level of focus because of the recent retailer changes focusing on cost reductions and operational improvements.  This is especially true of the large legacy retailers playing catch up with online retailers like Amazon to meet the purchasing and delivery demands. I see the demands of consumers to develop an interactive type of relationship as a relative blind spot to many of the large legacy retailers simply because these retailers have always utilized sales associates to support the consumer relationship.  

This is the challenge of the retail omni market for these large legacy retailers. They must now develop methods to develop virtual relationships and these virtual relationships will require a change in the retailer culture to a more open and collaborative culture that shares information and works openly with partners to deliver solutions that are beneficial to all partners, rather than a command and control culture that focuses on their internal needs.  This is perhaps the one weakness in the Amazon methods where Amazon likes to control and drive the direction based on what Amazon believes to be the demand or more importantly the need of the consumer. This has worked very well in the past for Amazon because of the focus on the consumer and has allowed Amazon to lead the marketplace in many offerings in both services and products.

Amazon now has the power to create markets for products and services where there are really no other retailers with the ambition or drive to do this. Other retailers can compete though in the marketplace through a collaborative relationship with all partners in their marketplace.  This will allow them to develop the virtual personal relationship with the consumer that is lacking with so many retailers and this relationship will ensure that consumers return and participate in the retailer marketplace and this increased participation will also drive increased sales.