Omni Market Culture

The disruption currently sweeping through the retail marketplace must be met with both sweeping and continuous process change and also sweeping culture changes from the retailers to meet the increasing velocity of change. The scope and breadth of change in the marketplace have reached a level where change in process cannot hope to meet the demands. The culture must change now to commit the resources and focus to increase collaboration and sharing not only between the retailer and extended partners but also with all participants in the marketplace and especially consumers of the market goods and services. Consumers have always participated in the marketplace in a reactionary mode with shopping and purchasing and now these consumers are becoming an integrated partner in the retail marketplace demanding new interactions and services that can only be met through increased collaboration.




Communications and interactions across the marketplace have eliminated the lines between social networks and personal interactions and as these changes increase in velocity and scope across the marketplace there will be more and more pressure placed on the culture to support and adapt to the change. Marketplace disruption is driven to a large extent by communications and interactions across channels, participants, goods and services. This is significant because it is such a divergence from the past. The interactions between all market participants is required to increase dramatically now in order to support the demands of shopping and interactions across all channels. The lines between the online and the brick and mortar realms are being smashed now by consumer demands and the retailers are scrambling to catch up.




The sooner the retailer accepts this new reality the sooner they can begin the change. Since this requires a change in culture it cannot be purchased and must be built internally starting with continuous encouragement from the top leadership to build and grow the culture from the bottom. This is the most difficult type of change to implement because it is a long term initiative that cannot be purchased and the marketplace is filled with short term demands for change. The trick then for the retailers is to accept the fact of the collaboration requirement that carries through each of the demands and then to engage, encourage and develop the culture that supports these demands for collaboration.




The collaborative culture will help the retailers and partners across the marketplace sense and respond to the demands of the marketplace because they will be plugged into the channels that are developing and changing the demands. This is a major change to the ways that the marketplace participants engage and most importantly, the key participants driving the change, consumers, are driving these changes through the social networking and wireless technology tools already available. There is really no choice now for retailers but to engage and focus on the culture that will support the new collaborative demands and interactions from so many different tools. The signs and are now visible across the market and leaders such as Amazon are engaging in all channels to understand and respond to the demands. Large retailers that do not accept and respond to these new types of demands will be left behind and struggle to survive.