Transition Legacy Framework to Digital Enablement

There has been much talk about ‘getting back to normal’ and ‘new normal’ that I have been thinking quite a bit about because of the continued cycles of lockdowns and now the latest pandemic surge. These disruptions on personal lives are also impacting the business world from a loss of jobs and business closing to the continued work from home requirements. It is past that time now to accept the new reality (I refuse to call it ‘new normal’!), if you haven’t already and take the appropriate steps to live in this new reality. We are already seeing the results of change and we really need to focus now on developing and executing a digital enablement strategy. The pandemic has driven change due to health and safety concerns and these changes themselve are driving the digital transformation. This transformation is beginning to increase in velocity as consumers accept and become accustomed to the new reality and we will never go back.


Any business that directly interacts with the consumer, retail - services, restaurants, for instance, have borne the brunt of the pandemic disruptions to the point of breaking and many have been pushed past that point to failure. Consumers have changed the retail and services markets forever through digital interactions that are redefining the consumer relationship. The changes to the market are not really new, but simply and more accurately, sped up dramatically in a natural progression that has been pushed to the limit by the pandemic. The change here is the ability of consumers to shop, and more importantly, to obtain goods and services without contact, whether eCommerce and delivered to their home or via curb-side pick-up.


Retailers must now take a multi-prong approach to their digital enablement activities; they must focus on a strategy that first defines and then delivers the digital enablement while they also focus on immediate response to the waves of disruption driven in many cases from the COVID-19 transition support requirements. This is difficult for all businesses and especially difficult for the legacy retailer that was already struggling with digital enablement before the pandemic. The change and disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed digital enablement past the tipping point though and this has now suddenly become a key to survival rather than a progressive transition. Now that this genie is out of the bottle there is no going back. It is now a matter of great urgency to define and implement a digital enablement strategy.


This will be an overwhelming task if the legacy retailers treat this as ‘business as usual’ because there just is no time for them to slow-walk the changes through the organization. If the legacy retailers treat this time of disruption the same as other changes in the market they will be left in the ditch, smouldering. This requires quick actions to move forward without an idea of the end result. At this point we don’t have any idea what the end will look like because the end is being defined and redefined through waves of disruption.


These retailers must implement a strategy of continuous change. They must build a flexible framework that is able to sense and then respond to the disruption. This will require a strategy of digital enablement to be able to sense the disruption and quickly respond. Unfortunately these same legacy retailers are also struggling with labeling applications and cumbersome integration between internal applications and their external partners. The first order of business is to build a flexible framework that will support the velocity of change, while also responding to disruption.


In addition to the above, these legacy retailers do not have the time to figure this out, they must act quickly. Fortunately there are two opportunities for retailers to incorporate in order to survive; consultant organizations to help with the strategy implementation and RPA tools to help bridge the digital enablement between legacy applications and partners. The first step is recognition and the support of senior leadership. This is a huge undertaking and requires a great deal of support from many different areas to succeed and this will require support over time to fail and correct direction. Without full throated support from senior leadership this will only end in failure.


Tom Brouillette

Contact: tbrouillette@ncspartners.com

@ncspartners


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Tom Brouillette discusses supply chain trends and provides strategic business & technology advice to his followers and companies.

Disruptive Innovation In Supply Chain

There are so many factors driving transformation and disruption now in the supply chain that we have moved from a model of discontinuous change to a model of discontinuous disruption. The disruptions in the supply chain now are driven by the developments and incorporation of new capabilities that are more and more identified and developed utilizing the information and capabilities delivered by increased capabilities in data analytics and artificial intelligence technologies. The pieces of technologies are being brought together through the immense amount of data and abilities to fully utilize the data that themselves have been made possible by technology. In the same way that technologies have allowed consumers to mold their professional interactions to meet their lifestyle needs, technology is also supporting the supply chain and extended partners to meet the supply chain business interaction and operational needs.




In a very real way consumers are driving the disruption through their embrace of technology combined with increased network capabilities that are blending their interactions across every corner of their professional interactions. Supply chain leaders and partners have embraced growth in data analytics that is made possible by technology improvements in data storage, network improvements to move the data and then most importantly the computing power improvements to drive the data analytics growth in capabilities to analyze the data available to understand and define direction and capabilities required to improve the supply chain to meet the demands. The supply chain supports the consumer demands across all industries and the computing power along with the network capabilities available to every individual across the supply chain is driving the discontinuous disruption.




The pieces of discontinuous disruption have been developed and also been growing in their use in the supply chain starting with the growth of the Internet of Things technologies and tools and naturally expanding in the supply chain arena into automation of processes and then add to this the robotic movement that is growing now, especially in the third party logistics industry and you can see that these pieces required a technology and capability to coordinate and connect the dots. All of these technologies are collecting immense amounts of data for the supply chain to utilize to improve the services and increase their capabilities without necessarily increasing the long term costs.




Supply chain leaders are using these technologies and really driven by their own imagination and questioning ‘why not’ to drive this growth and expansion of supply chain processes and operational improvements and most importantly efficiencies. These technologies are disrupting through the implementation and growth of automated operational and process improvements that are driving efficiencies into the supply chain. The true disruption innovation in the supply chain is the imagination that has been released through the implementation of these technologies that are driven in large part by the improvements in analytics and computing power to release and encourage this imaginative approach to disruption.




This is the amazing thing in my opinion, that the consumer is at the center driving the disruption into the supply chain industry based on their demonstrated imagination and use of technologies to put together their own solutions. This has driving the basic need in the supply chain to understand and maintain the velocity of disruption in the supply chain processes and operations in order to meet the business partners that are now driving the same types of demands into the supply chain.

Remaking The Retail Supply Chain

While the retail marketplace is remaking itself through the collaboration and cooperation of all partners involved, the retail supply chain is also in the midst of a tumultuous reimaging of the supply chain services and interactions of the supply chain partners.  The challenge with the supply chain is helping their supply chain partners in the retail market to catch up with the supply chain capabilities in not only service offering but most importantly in their collaboration practices and capabilities. The retail supply chain as a whole is really far ahead of the curve of collaborative networking to support the demands of the market and the retail supply chain must help their partners in the retail market to build a robust network to support the demands.  This extension of the retail supply chain network will drive a remaking of the entire retail supply chain to extend services and capabilities seamlessly across all partners.

The supply chain has been embracing the technology and practices of technology capabilities and services for a long time as a means to support the demands of supply chain partners and most importantly to as a means to address cost and transparency pressures from the supply chain market.  The supply chain and supply chain partners are now in a position where they can guide and support their retail market partners in their initiatives to develop and support a similar collaborative network. This would include a maintenance program that incorporates a robust continuous improvement program that reviews and analyzes the demands and the capabilities to address the demands of the marketplace efficiently and quickly.

The retail supply chain has been continuously building out the collaborative network foundation and the capabilities to communicate transparently across the supply chain for a long long time.  This supply chain has developed and embraced a process of continuous change that has supported the pressures and demands for improvements in efficiencies and transparency for years. This foundation now will be used to extend the supply chain capabilities and services across a wider spectrum of partners and outlets.  The supply chain foundation of services and technology will first help their extended retail partners to quickly plug in and take advantage of the services and technology and then to follow on with support and guidance in developing and supporting new services and capabilities.

This is how the retail supply chain will remake the network, not a rebuild but a continuation of the collaborative and continuous improvement practices across a wider network.  The retail supply chain has reached a level of capabilities and practices where they can spread the benefits deeper into the retail marketplace. The retail supply chain brings the benefits of technology and a continuous improvement process to the table to help incorporate these processes that embrace the change process rather than ingnore or fight the change process.  This is where the change will occur in the retail supply chain, and extension of the network deeper across the partners.

The supply chain will be encouraged to take a leadership role in the growth and remaking of the retail marketplace from the perspective of implementing and growing the collaborative network that can support a continuous improvement process from end to end of the network. This will require perseverance and patience in the supply chain partners to continue to push and it will require the retail marketplace to change themselves in both culture and practice to embrace and encourage change.

Retail Supply Chain Disruptors

The retail supply chain is certainly going through a disruption period now for a while from a few factors including the Internet of Things and changes to consumer delivery practices.  There are many other results of this period of disruption and it certainly seems at this point that we are entering into a period of continuous disruption in the supply chain. There are many factors driving these changes and is see the latest ones as coming from Amazon and third party logistics providers and the collaborative network.  Amazon is a continuing disruptor that has developed a culture of disruption in the retail market that people have been chasing since it entered the marketplace. Third party logistics providers and the collaborative network are the new players in the continuing disruption and it will be interesting to see how this plays out in the future.

Third party logistics providers have been around and developed a strong catalog of services and capabilities to support the retail market that have allowed retailers to outsource their needs effectively and quickly.  The 3PL market enables their partners to quickly achieve capabilities that would have cost a great deal of time and effort to develop on their own. The 3PL provides the service and takes on the risk of fulfillment for product types and demands and the retailers can take advantage of the service for a fee.  This type of fulfillment model is ideal for this disruptive retail market to provide the services to retailers based on their demands at the time. The benefits to the retailer are speed to market and reduced risk. This is delivered by the 3PL through their network of locations and services that the 3PL has been developing for many years.  This model was an early precursor to the collaborative network and essentially proved the concept and the benefits of the collaborative network.

This brings me to the collaborative network and the growing and potential benefits of the network to support and drive the continued disruption of the retail market.  Similar to the third party logistics partners, the collaborative network provides the foundation and the framework for the partners in the network to collaborate to develop new services and also supports the extension and growth of niche service providers to flourish and quickly support the changing demands of the retail market.  These services and demands are the result of both market demands and the experimentation of partners in new services to support the retail market, very similar to the 3PL providers. This collaborative network provides the benefits of the services and capabilities from partners in the network without the efforts and time to develop the services themselves.  This network provides the environment that encourages and supports experimentation while sharing the cost and the risk across a broad spectrum of partners.

The combination of 3PL partners and the collaborative network provides the basis for a continuous disruption pattern and delivery across the retail market.  In the past this type of disruption was driven by large players such as Amazon and they were very successful for a long time. Now though the collaborative network partnerships present this same ability and potential that Amazon developed internally for the partners in the network.  This is no small feet and the potential and relative risk to the partners in the network negligible as it relates to the potential rewards.

Crowdsourcing Retail Solutions

The collaborative network provides an opportunity to leverage the network partners to build and roll out solutions which should not be overlooked as a benefit of the network relationships.  The collaborative network allows the partners to effectively crowdsource solutions and and new features in a manner that allows these new features to be delivered more quickly and cost efficient and most importantly more robust than if the individual partner were to release on their own.  In a world of change at a high velocity that regularly disrupts the market the speed to delivery and flexibility are critical factors to meeting the demands. We have reached a point in the market where services and capabilities are delivered at an overall breakneck pace across the market and it can be very difficult to maintain the pace of change without continuously reviewing and changing with the market.  

The concept of competitive advantage takes on a new meaning though in the collaborative network model because the solutions are partnered and the collaborative network benefits from them as well.  This is not a bad thing because as a result of the collaborative network the partners should never fall behind the curve of change, requiring massive investment and delays in completing. In effect, the collaborative network becomes the market competitive advantage.  This is a very important concept and one that will carry the partners in the collaborative network to the next level in the retail marketplace.

The power of collaboration will deliver on the crowdsourcing promise to produce higher quality solutions faster within the collaborative network.  The network provides the connectivity and the means to support niche solutions that bring value to the network and the market that would require an unreasonable amount of research and development if any one retailer attempted to deliver.  There is no secret in the fact that retailers as a matter of course now will follow the leader and then use the solution in their offerings and this collaborative network provides the technical framework and the partner relationships to deliver on these specialty solutions more efficiently and quickly.

If you were to compare the actions taken by retailers over the last three or four years you would see that retailers have spent a great deal of time, effort and capital to acquire the eCommerce solutions offered by specialty providers.  Based on the common practice for these retailers to acquire the capabilities through acquisition or licensing you can see that the collaborative network partnerships could eliminate a great deal of the current activities and dramatically speed the solution delivery.  This, in a nutshell, is probably the greatest value to be achieved through the collaborative network partnerships.

The retail marketplace now is going through dramatic changes at an amazing velocity, driven by thought leaders and market disruptors such as Amazon.  In order for retailers to survive they must also increase both the velocity and capacity of change. The market disruptors have left a series of failed retailers in their wake as a result of either incapacity to maintain the change, or the market changes making them unnecessary.  It only makes sense now for retailers to take the next step to developing a collaborative network that will allow them to navigate the changes and disruptions successfully.

Crowdsourcing Impact On Purchasing

Retailers are challenged to adjust and incorporate new methods and features demanded by consumers to encourage and ensure consumer retention and sales.  These demands are especially challenging because they require a level of collaboration and open cooperation across partners and consumers at greater and greater levels.  These demands are coming faster and faster as millennials have entered into the marketplace bringing with them increased integration and collaboration demands.  Retailers have displayed a history of fighting consumer demands for collaboration and support of new shopping methods.  Unfortunately for retailers this hesitation has not slowed consumer change however it has hurt consumer relationships with retailers.

Retailers have struggled with incorporating consumer demands into their shopping and purchasing capabilities and as such their relationships with consumers.  I see the impact of the millennial generation directly on the demands and retailer relationship with consumers.  Millennials have taken the technology available to mash together in ways that support their demands and bypass retailer efforts to control purchasing.  Consumers now have shopping options supported by technology that are highly flexible and support their changing lifestyles.  Retailers now are struggling to in their attempts to control rather than building collaborative environments that can engage the consumers in their new demands.  

Consumers have recognized and embraced the tools available to improve their shopping and purchasing capabilities to meet their lifestyle needs.  There are thousands of outlets from online to brick and mortar that consumers can utilize and consumers are beginning to embrace the tools that will allow them to shop and purchase in the most efficient manner.  The large retailers must now recognize and adjust to these demands if they are to survive much longer.  I see large retailers struggling to adjust and control changes in shopping and purchasing when they should be collaborating with partners and consumers to develop new shopping practices that support consumer demands.

The large retailers have been stuck in the past in their practices and must incorporate dramatic change into their capabilities and relationships with consumers and their supply chain partners.  There is a dramatic change coming and retailers must change in order to survive in the future.  Consumers are in the beginning stages of taking control of their shopping and purchasing in ways that were not available a year ago and in addition, a year from now the changes in the environment will be even greater.  Retailers have no choice, they must change or die and change does not mean a focus on the lowest price, free shipping or purchasing any time, change means collaboration and developing new relationships with consumers and other retailers to support consumer lifestyles.  This holiday season will see a greater shift to online purchasing and retailers must adjust to this in creating a virtual environment that supports the consumer shopping needs.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Omni Channel Community Shopping Tools

Consumers will return to a shopping site based on the tools that are offered to support the networking and the community atmosphere of a virtual mall.  The challenge in selecting and embracing the tools that interest and are in demand by the consumer is complicated by the changing demands of the consumer.  Technology is moving forward and changing the capabilities of networking on what seems to be a daily basis with new capabilities delivered every day to divert the consumer’s attention.  The challenge, it seems, for the omni channel retailer is to maintain awareness of the changes so the appropriate tools and practices can be incorporated into the virtual shopping home page.

Maintaining this awareness is a full time job that requires an open and inquisitive disposition in order to experiment with the tools and collaborate with consumers to determine how to integrate the usage in the shopping site.  This is something that must be actively monitored and maintained because of the changing demands of the consumers.  There are basically two groups of consumers that utilize social networking tools in very different ways and because of this the retailer’s requirement to maintain an awareness and incorporate these tools can be especially difficult.  The two groups of consumers consist of:

1. Millennial consumers that are continuously experimenting with new technology and social networking tools.  This group is pretty exclusively focused on the new tools and technology and are quick to move on to new technology as it becomes available.
2. Mainstream, or older consumers that are more ingrained in mainstream social networking tools and technologies.  This group is the vast majority of shoppers and the least fickle in both their social networking and their shopping habits.

These two groups are important to each other and especially important to the retailer because of the way that they work together.  The millennials are the early adopters and the experimenters that identify new trends in both technology and networking tools and then other consumers will adopt the new technologies as they expand into the mainstream and are accepted by the majority in their daily usage. Each new social networking tool has followed the same trajectory in usage where the millennials experiment and build practices to integrate the technology in their lives prior to the mainstream even realizing there is a new technology to use for networking.

In order to succeed retailers will need to accept and support both types of consumers and and a variety of social networking tools.  The difficult aspect for retailers will be the necessity, willingness to encourage and embrace social networking technologies that will fail.  There is no way for the retailer to predict success in any technology and for this reason they must accept the need to embrace new technology quickly and then accept the fact that much of the new technology must also be dropped just as quickly.  

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Consumer Chain As Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing the selection and marketing of retail goods is an additional area that can be provided by the consumer chain and especially the consumer community that supports the eCommerce purchasing channel.  Viewing the consumer community as a crowdsourcing outlet for product selection and marketing is the next logical value added opportunity provided by the consumer chain.  This provides the retailer the direct channel to request and analyze consumer suggestions in a near real time manner and without the filters of marketing surveys or satisfaction surveys.  The results from the community and the resulting activities in the eCommerce sales channel provide real and direct feedback to utilize to crowdsource the product selection and presentation decisions.

Crowdsourcing is generally thought of as a means to fund projects or new companies which is not what I am suggesting, in this concept I am defining crowdsourcing as a means to improve products and shopping methods.  This is basically a new method to obtain the consumer input as a replacement to consumer surveys and focus groups.  The consumer chain provides a means for the retailer to collaborate with the consumer openly and subconsciously through the consumer community and the eCommerce channel.  This allows the retailer to try out concepts that are both internally generated and also externally generated by the consumer.  This collaboration allows and encourages hybrid concepts in marketing shopping, sales and products that would not be possible through the previous methods.

This method of crowdsourcing brings dramatic benefits to the retailer through shorter development cycles and also shorter validation cycles.  This crowdsourcing process implements a continuous improvement process that will benefit the retailer with increased customer retention along with improved sales while reducing the cost of development through the consumer collaboration.  The retailer can encourage the consumer to participate via a couple of straightforward methods; special offers and simply asking for and then acting on their feedback.  Simply acting on the consumer feedback can be a very powerful encouragement for the consumer to participate and then return on a regular basis.  This is after all a key objective of the retailer - the more a consumer returns the greater the number of sales they will complete.

This type of crowdsourcing is very low cost process for the retailer, however the retailer must also be very careful to follow through on the execution and implementation of consumer suggestions.  Consumers are happy to collaborate and provide their suggestions.  On the other hand, consumers are also very sharp and unforgiving when they feel they have be played and the retailer ignores their suggestions.  The bottom line is that the retailer must commit to the long term collaboration with the consumer in order to reap the benefits of this type of crowdsourcing.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Consumers And Technology

Technology has become a dual driving force in relation to consumers and this force is driving and changing the consumer social practices which in turn is also driving changes into their shopping practices.  I have come to think of it as an infinity loop where technology manufacturers develop and market new technology to consumers and then the consumers use that new technology to simplify their shopping habits with all other retailers.  Mobile technology is currently the key driving force to these changes however this is simply the latest tool in the technology world.

In the initial wave of Internet technologies the desktop computer was the driving factor and the capabilities basically doubled every two years, driving consumers to new purchases to obtain the new technologies.  Next these new capabilities and cost reductions were driven by laptops which also drove consumers to replace the desktop workstations with laptops which allowed them mobility inside and outside their house.  We finally reached the point when the advancements were not so dramatic and wireless capabilities started to lead the capabilities improvements which allowed mobile technology to flourish.  

We are now in the mobile technology wave and by comparison we are seeing the same dramatic advances in mobile technology that we saw previously in the initial wave of Internet technologies.  Unsurprisingly we are also seeing the eager consumer adoption of this technology which is now driving dramatic changes in consumer shopping practices.  In this current wave the combination of technology tools, improvements in wireless availability and bandwidth and the mobility of the tools have come together to drive increasingly dramatic changes in consumer shopping habits.  The key to this current wave is the impact of the mobile software; there’s an app for everything now.  

These new capabilities are in essence pitting one retail sector against another; the success of the technology retail sector is directly impacting the other retail sectors from CPG to apparel to entertainment.  New software mobile apps are now encouraging and supporting these new shopping habits that allows consumers to shop prices and products from all stores while standing in one store.  This is why I compared these practices as an infinity loop.  

Each iteration of this loop now is delivering more power to the consumer and with the new mobile apps the consumer is able to harness this new power to increase their leverage with retailers.  As I have previously discussed retailers have been fighting these improvements in consumer capabilities but they must soon realize that they cannot hope to fight this wave when there is another member of the retail market that is realizing new success and sales increases with every improvement in this new mobile technology.  This is why I have promoted the continuous improvement cycle to allow retailers to react to the changes.

Omni Channel Social Strength

A specific strength of the omni channel shopping culture is the social networking capabilities that the channel and practices support.  Omni channel was born of technology and can be utilized to embrace the social networking capabilities of technology to enhance the consumer shopping experience.  This capability will also enhance the relationship between the consumer and the retailer to encourage repeat shopping and also word of mouth promotion.  I find that the most interesting aspect of the omni channel customer experience is the ability of the technology to humanize the shopping experience.  The social trend and impact is expanding into the commercial aspect of the consumer and market by demand of the consumer and this is changing shopping habits along with the retail direct to consumer channel.

Technology is having an interesting impact on the retail and social market as a culture enhancer and expander.  What I mean by this is that technology is being used by people as consumers and also in relationship building and management as a means to enhance the social interaction.  Rather than technology de-humanizing relationships it is being used by the public and consumers for the exact opposite capability to humanize the relationship.  This can be both encouraging and intimidating to the retailer.  It is encouraging because the consumer is using the social networking capabilities to help in their shopping which will reduce the sales clerk (human) interaction from the retailer. It is intimidating because the technology allows the customer to take more control in their shopping and increases the external influences on the consumer shopping that is outside the control of the retailer.

As I’ve discussed previously, the best course of action for the retailer is to embrace these extensions of technology and the related modifications to the consumer shopping practices.  Embracing these practices will in turn increase the consumer loyalty and sales.  On the other hand though, fighting these practices will cause a backlash from the consumers and will not change the practices.  Take for instance the practice of window shopping where the consumer goes to a store to look at and try a product and then purchases the product from another outlet for less cost.  Retailers were at war against this practice and reacted through various means and tactics.  The result is that consumers are still practicing window shopping and the retailers with brick and mortar outlets have only upset the consumers with this fight and caused them to shop at other outlets.

My advice is to embrace and encourage the new practices because it will in the end increase the customer loyalty and repeat purchases.  I would argue that Amazon’s strategy to forgo the drive for profits early in its life was ingenious because the practice created a whole generation of consumers loyal to the brand and a whole generation of repeat customers.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

What types of cross channel services and offerings would you like to see to enhance your shopping experience?  Retailers are focused on maintaining sales volumes through reductions in pricing rather than expansion of sales, or even maintaining sales through creative utilization of eCommerce services. Did you shop over the Gray Thursday / Black Friday period?  What was your experience in stores and malls?

Omni Channel Priorities

I was shopping in at Verizon Wireless in the last week and experienced a very positive example of the potential for omni channel shopping that was really quite impressive.  There are many retailers right now that are utilizing multiple channels for marketing and sales that while they may be utilizing multiple channels, they are not supporting truly omni channel shopping and marketing.  I have been saying this for a while now in my discussions because it is a truly important factor in the omni channel discussion; omni channel shopping is not just utilizing multiple channels, omni channel shopping is actually linking the channels, and supply chain across multiple channels to create a truly seamless and single experience to the consumer.

The results of the omni channel shopping implementation can be dramatic to the consumer; both positive and negative.  Execution is critical in fostering the omni channel experience and this is why Retailers must be focus on the execution and developing the seamless shopping experience.  I think that it may be better to not enter into a channel until you have validated and proven you ability to execute in that channel.  In this case I strongly believe in the old adage that you can only make a first impression once.  The consumer experience is very much influenced by that first impression and must be nurtured to ensure a positive experience.  If you as a retailer start to develop your capabilities in omni channel shopping simple to reduce costs or because you are following the market you will have a very high likelihood of failure.  

Consumers as a group have dramatically increased their sophistication and utilization of technology in their shopping habits.  The age of the Internet is not just a catchy phrase but a concept that describes embracing the technology in all areas of day to day life.  Because of the advanced technology available to consumers in the form of both hardware like smartphones and tablets combined with advanced software capabilities delivered by third party and Internet leaders consumers have come to expect a level of capability in their life which crosses over all aspects and especially shopping.  For this reason it is important for the retailer to flawlessly execute these capabilities to ensure the repeat business from consumers and also the word of mouth promotion of their capabilities to other consumers.

Another benefit of the age of the Internet is in the social capabilities and potential capabilities delivered through technology.  The interesting point here is that as the world and access expands through technology and the Internet, the social applications provided via the Internet are at the same time expanding the consumer interaction.  What this means is that everyone can provide immediate reviews and reaction which will influence their sphere of contacts.  This provides an electronic party line that can drive consumers to a retailer and just as easily and quickly drive consumers away from the retailer.  This is why execution is critical to the success of the retailer.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

What types of cross channel services and offerings would you like to see to enhance your shopping experience?  Retailers are focused on maintaining sales volumes through reductions in pricing rather than expansion of sales, or even maintaining sales through creative utilization of eCommerce services. Did you shop over the Gray Thursday / Black Friday period?  What was your experience in stores and malls?

Omni Channel Impact

As I previously discussed, I believe that Amazon and Google are poised to change the consumer shopping experience and they will not wait for any retailer to catch up.  I explained through example my reasons for coming to this conclusion based on technology and Internet impact on other markets.  These types of scenarios that are brought about when a new player enters the market with game changing new services, products or delivery methods is not new to advances in technology.  However technology can and does have a major impact on the potential velocity and discontinuous nature of these game changing services, products or delivery methods.

Let me start with another perspective on omni channel retailing; this is not a new concept however the services and delivery methods have been dramatically impacted by advances in technology.  One hundred years ago retailers, Sears, Montgomery Wards and Spiegel entered the retail scene and forever changed the market with the new catalog technology.  As a result of their new concept in retailing, and the initial omni channel retail market, these retailers changed the marketplace and as a result drove many competitors out of business.  The new technology in this example was a paper product catalog mailed to customers and sales through consumer orders sent through the mail.  In other words, the new service was the catalog and the new delivery methods were paper based orders and the US Postal Service.

In today’s market the new technology is the Internet for the catalog and then the consumer interacts with the catalog for purchases via a computer and mobile smartphone technology.  The current leaders driving these new game changing services and methods are major players such as Amazon and Google as the giant slayers.  This current environment has changed in another key manner from the advances in technology and that is the cost of entry and the tools to present services and products to the consumer.  In this market the technology has allowed small retailers to compete effectively.  This expansion of competition really increases the velocity of change and speeds the market impact.

In the current market, the impact of herd shopping habits is even greater and the technology embraced by consumers increases the speed and impact of this habit.  This is where it ties again back to the impact of culture where the consumer has less leisure time available and therefore is more selective in how they spend this leisure time.  Why should a consumer spend hours and days shopping for a product and then potentially spending even more time searching for availability of the product?  You  can spend short bursts of time researching and searching via the Internet at any time that you please, saving time and money you would spend commuting from store to store in your search.  The winners will embrace this practice to support the consumers’ and build the repeat business through technology.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

What types of cross channel services and offerings would you like to see to enhance your shopping experience?  Retailers are focused on maintaining sales volumes through reductions in pricing rather than expansion of sales, or even maintaining sales through creative utilization of eCommerce services. Did you shop over the Gray Thursday / Black Friday period?  What was your experience in stores and malls?

Omni Channel Culture

I believe that omni channel retail should be view as a reflection of the consumer’s culture.  Afterall in the United States shopping in malls and outlets is a social event and for many people a form of entertainment. The retailers have always thrived on this practice to the extent of adding entertainment outlets such as theater and event amusement parks in the malls and outlets.  This practice however may be coming into conflict with another cultural change, the increase in the amount of time spent focused on careers and jobs in general.  This second event of increased professional, or work, focus and a seeming decrease in amusement focus may be starting to impact the retail consumer and changing the way the consumer purchases.

There have always been catalogs; they started with the paper variety from Sears for instance or Spiegel.  The catalogs have evolved now into electronic media as eCommerce online sites that provide more timely and dynamic listings.  The basic foundational concepts of direct to consumer sales channel apply, however with the customer order entry revised.  Consumers have become much more comfortable with eCommerce shopping now to the point where it is really making in-roads in the retail sales totals and become a major channel that is expanding each year.

This all ties back to the decrease in leisure time and the current and future impact on the shopping experience.  I see a change beginning in the retail channel that is shifting the importance of eCommerce and this I believe is due to a few factors, one of which is the decrease in leisure time that then translates into a reduction in consumer brick and mortar shopping.  eCommerce shopping provides the convenience of shopping any time for anything and allows the consumer to focus their limited leisure time on activities that bring additional value to their life, such as family activities.

This change in the consumer shopping habits may take some time to evolve and settle, however in this time of ever increasing discontinuous change I think it would be wise for retailers to increase their utilization of technology to provide the consumer the types of convenience and ease of shopping that will make them return to the retailer for more of their shopping needs.  Retailers should promote a strategy of ‘Try Everything’ to encourage the consumer to think of them when shopping.  This strategy should include expanding collaboration with what may have been viewed as competitors in the past because the consumer certainly will.  Unfortunately, I don’t think that the retail market has much of a choice in this matter, Amazon and Google are poised to change the consumer shopping experience and they will not wait for any retailer to catch up.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

What types of cross channel services and offerings would you like to see to enhance your shopping experience?  Retailers are focused on maintaining sales volumes through reductions in pricing rather than expansion of sales, or even maintaining sales through creative utilization of eCommerce services. Did you shop over the Gray Thursday / Black Friday period?  What was your experience in stores and malls?

Omni Channel Tools Potential

The capabilities and expansion of commerce tools will be driven by third party software developers based on experiences with other market channels like music, travel and entertainment.  This includes Google and Amazon which both already provide an eCommerce sales channel.  This prediction is based on history and human nature, all recent industries that have undergone great change have been dragged kicking and screaming into the future.

The music industry is the greatest example of this type of fight against the future taken to the extreme where they took their fight out to the people with lawsuits.  That was the perfect example of a futile fight and the industry could have spent its money and efforts on preparing for the future.  The industry really should have seen the movement with the introduction of Amazon and the Kindle on the literature industry.  Its really kind of humorous if you ask me because the people in the music industry all took advantage of the improvements delivered through technology but for some strange reason just could not give up the dying sales channel.

I see the same tendency from major brick and mortar retailers to fight the trends and the new developments embraced by customers.  The recent war against ‘window shopping’ is a great example.  Window shopping is the practice of customers to go to the store to touch and try the product and then order online to take advantage of a lower price.  The retailers initial reaction was to fight the practice and to a very large extent they are still fighting the new practices that are introduced by customers.  I have said before that the way to grow and and expand business is to encourage and embrace innovations and especially from the consumers.  

Amazon and Google are poised to change the omni channel experience by extending the services and capabilities they’ve learned through eCommerce sales and marketing.  Both have a dramatic head start in this area and it will be difficult if not impossible to overcome.  This head start was built over time with a great deal of investment in technology development and hardware.  This head start will allow both Google and Amazon to fashion the industry for a long time to come.  If the retail industry continues to fight the innovations, they will do nothing but perhaps slow them.  Instead of fighting they must embrace in order to influence and help to guide the impact of the innovations.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

What types of cross channel services and offerings would you like to see to enhance your shopping experience?  Retailers are focused on maintaining sales volumes through reductions in pricing rather than expansion of sales, or even maintaining sales through creative utilization of eCommerce services. Did you shop over the Gray Thursday / Black Friday period?  What was your experience in stores and malls?

In previous discussions I have mentioned some apps and other tools that I find useful in my holiday shopping so I thought I would  take this time to bring together the tools that I have found most useful.  As a general strategy for incorporating tools into my shopping I find that I work best with tools that work just as well on my smartphone as a computer.  This is important to me because shopping is best I think when you have the options to see and touch some of the merchandise, I don’t require this for every purchase but I do find it works best for some products.  

All that said though I try to limit my in person shopping to short bursts, I follow a purchase method rather than shopping when I go to a store.  What I mean by this is I’ve determined what I need, I go in, purchase and then get out.  I bring this up now because it is a guiding force for the tools and my utilization of the tools.  I use the tools for two things:

1. General shopping and narrowing the search for my purchase.
2. Pricing comparisons to determine my method of purchase.

Frankly I find that email is one of the most valuable tools in my shopping.  I have configured my email to fill all shopping type messages into one folder.  This allows me to quickly review, and ignore, any commerce type messages without ‘junking’ up my important messages.  This practice allows me to quickly and easily review messages as necessary, during the holiday season I pay a little more attention and then during the off season I frequently just delete everything.  This also allows me to manage mail lists and create filter to manage the mail.

There are three services that I find very useful; Groupon, Crowdcut and LivingSocial.  Each of these provide great deals in both eCommerce and in person shopping.  I like these frankly for impulse type purchases rather than looking for specific products.  They are also good for gift ideas year round, I frequently find a great deal and then save the item for a future gift.  Crowdcut and LivingSocial are similar services and together all three provide great options for a wide variety of items.  These services also provide apps for your smartphone to allow easy access when you are not near your computer.

I have found a new app this year for use on my smartphone called RetailMeNot.  This is a very handy app that will alert you of sales and specials from a wide variety of retailers and you can utilize this for price comparisons and specials.  This app is more focused on eCommerce channels and specials.  I find this useful though even when shopping in malls because the direct shipment to my home is very convenient.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

What types of cross channel services and offerings would you like to see to enhance your shopping experience?  Retailers are focused on maintaining sales volumes through reductions in pricing rather than expansion of sales, or even maintaining sales through creative utilization of eCommerce services. Did you shop over the Gray Thursday / Black Friday period?  What was your experience in stores and malls?

Omni Channel As Personal Shopper

The greatest potential of Omni Channel shopping may be the ability to support a virtual personal shopper and the age of Big Data is bringing great opportunities to the Omni Channel market for supporting a virtual personal shopper.  The key opportunity I believe is for a tool that will track your shopping from all retailers to help in guiding a personalized search engine.  I understand that this is a stretch opportunity right now and I think if I were to select the one thing that would generate the greatest value to both the consumer and the market this would be my choice.

There are retailers, like Lowes Building Supplies, that have introduced this type of frequent customer tracking for their customers for purchases in the store and online.  You may belong to this program, every time you make a purchase at Lowes they scan your card and the purchase is tracked.  This information can then be used later, for instance if you need another can of red paint you can look up the exact tint that you purchased for replacement.  Grocers are another good example of these frequent customer programs and they specialize offers and coupons based upon your shopping habits.  Most companies are using your purchasing information already to help in developing their marketing strategies and sales forecasts, you should be looking to take advantage of this information yourself to help in your shopping activities.  

The only retail company that crosses a broad spectrum of products that I can think of is Amazon.  Amazon has made a mission of developing the community aspect to humanize the online store through rating products, requesting customers answer other customers’ questions and then a scary-accurate product suggestion algorithm to promote new products.  Apple and Google are getting into the electronic wallet business which will give both an option to collect information about your purchasing habits.  

Samsung has partnered with BeepnGo which is an app that will store all of your frequent shopper cards and can be used to search for promotions.  I think this is a great concept also and provides some great benefits such as not carrying around all of those obnoxious cards, keeping track of sales and offers for easy search.  I see the next step in this would be to provide the customer with advanced search capabilities based on previous purchases and searches.  It could save size and color choices along with styles to refine suggestions.  

The point to retailers is that consumers have shown in the past they have no problem taking advantage of new advanced capabilities, there is really very little loyalty in the retail market.  These changes will either happen ‘to’ the retailers or ‘with’ the retailers.  

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

What types of cross channel services and offerings would you like to see to enhance your shopping experience?  Retailers are focused on maintaining sales volumes through reductions in pricing rather than expansion of sales, or even maintaining sales through creative utilization of eCommerce services. Did you shop over the Gray Thursday / Black Friday period?  What was your experience in stores and malls?

Omni Channel And Collaboration

There can be no success in omni channel shopping without collaboration from the manufacturer to the end customer.  I think the missing link is asking and then acting on the responses from the end customer.  The shopping experience is the customers’ experience and the customer should have some say in their experience, don’t you think?  The key hurdle in this suggestion is the collaboration with the customer to define and clarify that experience.  This means that your should be both asking the questions and then confirming your response, a classic continuous improvement cycle.

Consumer shopping is not the first market that experienced the game changing impact of technology on the commonly held perceptions and practices.  Just look at the impact of the literature market and the music market as examples of the impact and resulting changes to the industry.  Amazon changed the literature market and left a trail of dead businesses in its wake.  The iPod and electronic music sharing changed the music delivery and sales industry and also left a trail of dead businesses in its wake.  The common denominator is that both of these industries refused to listen to the message there customers were giving them.  

Cyber and cloud technologies give a very impactful tool to the consumer and over the years the consumer has shown that they will use this tool in ways that may not be in line with the current and accepted practices.  By the same token, consumers are more than willing to share their preferences if the market will only listen.  This time though it seems that the retail industry may be trying to listen, although in my opinion they have slowed in their reactions and changes to the consumers’ preferences.  

This is where collaboration and a continuous improvement program will prove extremely valuable.  It is time to listen to the voice of the consumer in the shopping experience in offering new shopping options.  This is where online shopping can really show value by providing options and suggestions.  The consumer wants what they want when they want it.  They may not have a clear concept of the exact product and that is where technology can provide support with options and suggestions.  I suggest that most consumers are looking for the personal shopper experience, as an example, and this is where technology can support the desire.  In my experiences retail outlets have been reducing costs by reducing sales clerks and then without sales clerks consumers are left to wander the store looking for products.

Web sites provide something of a  personal shopper experience search engine and big data capabilities to provide suggestions and comparisons to the consumer.  I suggest that the retail outlet that combines the online capabilities with the in person experience will change the shopping experience and significantly grow their sales.  This is the type of collaboration with the consumers that will help the omni channel market grow sales and meet the consumers expectations.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

What types of cross channel services and offerings would you like to see to enhance your shopping experience?  Retailers are focused on maintaining sales volumes through reductions in pricing rather than expansion of sales, or even maintaining sales through creative utilization of eCommerce services. Did you shop over the Gray Thursday / Black Friday period?  What was your experience in stores and malls?

Omni Channel Future

I have mentioned that the future of omni channel will change our shopping habits to allow us to focus on the strengths of the channel.  The strength of the brick and mortar channel is the ability to look, touch and try on, while the strength of the online channel is comparison, purchase and delivery.  In my own most recent experience on Gray Thursday and Black Friday I can say that we probably purchased more online than in the store.  The reasons for this were convenience, price and frankly, Amazon Prime; why should I purchase a vacuum cleaner in the store and haul it out to the car and then continue shopping when I can purchase it with one click and have it delivered to my door for free?

The future of omni channel is segmenting the shopping experience to take advantage of the strengths of each channel.  So for example, the store channel will provide the showroom for selection, then online will provide the sale and the delivery channel.  I realize that there will be a great deal of blurring of lines between the channels, the store will still have a great deal of sales from the impulse purchase to the customers that want to take the product home with them.  On the flip side there will also be customers that exclusively shop online.  This is just the natural habits of people based on their comfort level, or preferences with the shopping channel.  However, the shift is coming, whether the retail market is ready or not.

I remember when Amazon came onto the scene and the question then was how could it be successful when there were so many great bookstores and people wanted to touch and browse the the shelves prior to purchase?  Well there are no more questions about the success of Amazon and this is due mainly to vision and execution.  Now, Amazon is the online version of a vast super department store where you can search and purchase anything from groceries to clothing to books to any other type of merchandising.  Amazon single handedly changed the consumer shopping experience and introduced a new standing for shopping experience at the same time.  

I see the omni channel market as being in the same position as the large bookstore change from years ago,the retail brick and mortar channel has been king for so long there is no conception of a different world.  I see though in the near future a very different world where online shopping provides convenience and options that cannot be matched by the brick and mortar channel.  Will the brick and mortar channel disappear?  Absolutely not!  There will always be a place for independent stores to offer specialized and craft items.  However even these outlets will achieve greater success through embracing online potential.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

What types of cross channel services and offerings would you like to see to enhance your shopping experience?  Retailers are focused on maintaining sales volumes through reductions in pricing rather than expansion of sales, or even maintaining sales through creative utilization of eCommerce services. Did you shop over the Gray Thursday / Black Friday period?  What was your experience in stores and malls?