Innovation Chain

The collaborative network provides the foundation and the framework to support an innovation chain that will drive the continued retail marketplace transformation.  The market must address develop and maintain a means to interact directly with the entire chain of partners and consumers in order to react and direct the change demands from consumers.  Consumers have the means through technology to take a major role in these new developments and the retail market transformation. This collaborative network is the best vehicle to integrate emerging technologies and new services into the retail marketplace in an efficient and effective manner that supports the transformation without a great deal of disruption.  This is an important concept that the the partners across the marketplace must be aware and account for in the transformation so that momentum is not lost to address disruption and the transformation.

Consumer technology has been driving the transformation for a while now and in many cases during the initial days of eCommerce channel sales the retailers maintained control of the market and the shopping and purchasing.  During this time retailers were at the center of the marketplace and controlled the shopping and the purchasing, For all intents and purposes the early eCommerce offerings were electronic catalogs that provided consumers another channel to make purchases of the same products. During this time though the consumer technology and network technology were changing and consumers started using the technology for shopping and purchasing practices that supported their lifestyle changes and these changes really started pushing the transformation of the market.  

The center of innovation now has shifted from the retailer to the consumer and omni market service providers with the retailers now taking advantage of the services and capabilities that can be provided by the collaborative network.  The collaborative network is still in the conceptual phase of the transformation and there are still many areas for improvement along the way. The key though is the focus on the social network aspect of the collaborative network that provides a means to communicate and connect with partners and consumers through the social network framework.  This provides a great boost to the innovation chain in that it provides the framework to easily change with the consumer transformation of the retail marketplace.

The key benefit to the social network framework is the distributed connectivity supported by the framework that supports and encourages distributed connectivity that does not depend on any single centralized network connection routing.  This is a bit of a mouthful but the concept is simple; the distributed network encourages and supports non-centralized connectivity that allows the network partners to build and utilize connections based on the demands at the time and not based on centralized network connectivity requirements.  The challenge for the retailer is breaking the habit to control the activities and relationships as the center of the market and center of innovation. The shift now is to the consumer and the specialized service providers that are developing and supporting new services. This shift will only increase in velocity as new innovations and the new specialized service providers join the collaborative network based on consumer demands.  This innovation chain requires acceptance and support from retailers and one of the key benefits of this model for retailers is that the retailer can take advantage of innovation without a huge investment or risk of failure to deliver change.