Retail Continuous Transformation

There is definitely a lot of potential benefits to the collaborative market and that is why you see the forward thinkers and trend setters such as Amazon in the retail marketplace moving in this directions, its a natural next step to transformation of the retail marketplace to a collaborative marketplace.  There is also a great deal of planning coordination and change required to realize the benefits of the collaborative marketplace, including technology, process, partners and culture. Becoming part of the collaborative network and realizing the benefits from the collaborative marketplace will take planning, coordination and patience and the results will not only deliver the benefits, it will also prepare the market for the next iterative change that will come.  The collaborative network is the next step in the retail market transformation and there is no shortcut through and you cannot simply buy a solution, it still requires culture changes to integration the collaborative practices and capabilities into the retail market.

There is a common theme flowing through each of the changes in the retail transformation and that is the continuous change of the retail culture.  This continuous change in culture requires an open and transparent relationship with partners and also the consumer. The retail market has been moving towards the collaborative network based on social network concepts and practices since the early days of eCommerce and this continuous transformation to the collaborative market is the next logical step in the realization of the market to support the consumer.  The consumer is the driving factor in this transformation and the consumer is driving the change in a continuous manner to incorporate technology and social capabilities to reshape the shopping experience. This should be an accepted pattern now for retailers and the culture must be one that can sense and respond to the changes as they occur. The learning for the retailer is that it is no longer acceptable or even feasible for these large retailers to wait for the direction and the process because the direction and process is changing at a rate that cannot be ignored.  

The retail culture must now realize that the velocity of change will not slow and that there is a continuous, and rapid, change culture that is driven by consumers that must be met with change in the shopping and purchasing capabilities.  The drive to the omni market was driven by consumer demands to shop across channels to meet their changing lifestyles and consumers drove disruptive shopping and purchasing practices such as showrooming because it met the consumer requirements.  These changes for a large part were driven by smaller retailers and service providers and especially mobile technologies and apps. While the larger retailers fought many of these changes, the consumer and therefore the marketplace ignored the attempt to limit the shopping practices.    

Retailers must quickly come to the realization that the can no longer control the shopping and purchasing of consumers and must embrace the collaborative network and retail market in order to meet the changing demands.  The demands come in discontinuous waves via consumer changes in practices and the retailer must be plugged into these changes in order to sense and respond to the demands and the direction. The retail market is going through a continuous transformation that is enabled by technology and retailers must plug into the collaborative network in order to understand and react to the transformation.