Next Wave For Retail

The next wave for the retail marketplace is the convergence of the internal business networks that include the supply chain partners and the external social network that includes consumers and the variety of social network sites and connections. The consumer is driving this convergence through their use of network services and connectivity as they are building their own network of connections for services and goods along with their connections. The objective for this consumer network services convergence is to connect in their own personal network both retailers and their extended supply chain partners such as transportations services and manufacturers to build a cohesive and service based network to support their own needs. This extended consumer network of services and computing capabilities, especially mobile capabilities, have given the consumer the tools to build their own social commerce network. Many service providers have recognized this and have developed new services that allow the consumer to create their own personalized shopping and purchasing capabilities. Considering the growth and value to the consumer of these social commerce network services I really do not see this trend slowing are expect quite the opposite.

There are two things bringing this together;
- The first is the computing and network capabilities,
- The second is new service providers taking advantage of these changes.

A big part of this next wave is how retailers and service providers utilize localized and personalized services in their practices. These services will provide the secret sauce that will fuel the next wave of retail. This has been growing for a while now through experimentation from both consumer experimentation and service providers. You can also see that some retailers have embraced the wave and are working towards developing the market in this direction.

I see the key aspect to the next wave as the localization of services and especially as it relates to interactions with consumers which in turn will drive the personalization that can grow as a result of the localization. Consumers have been using social networks and technologies for a while now to develop their own virtual shopping practices and even virtual shopping malls of their favorite retailers. They are using the services that are available from mobile app developers and now Google has jumped into the localization with both feet to provide consumer capabilities to search and shop based on their current location and even their destination location.

The Google developments and offerings they are providing through Maps alone will drive the localization of eCommerce to new levels. Retailers, restaurants and entertainment are offered and consumers are providing the personalized evaluations, ratings and recommendations on goods and services. Consumers are already tapping into these services in their shopping and travel decisions and retailers must recognize this and then take actions to incorporate the capabilities into their plans, services and offerings. Google is commercializing these services to expand their apps and services further into the lives of consumers and retailers and other service providers have a great reason to embrace these capabilities in their offerings to support their own sales and services.

Fortunately for retailers and service providers Google, for one, is providing the framework for localization that can be utilized by retailers and they are happy to provide this framework for others because it extends the Google brand and the data Google is able to obtain from this framework. This is an important benefit that should also push retailers into this next wave; the amount of customer data available as a result of this localization and personalization can be immensely valuable to retailers.

What are your observations and experience in this social commerce network? Are you seeing any impact or changes to consumer demands that can be related to these changes?

Tom Brouillette

Contact: Tom.brouillette@gmail.com

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Business Continuity In Extreme Disruption

The coronavirus pandemic is another Black Swan event that highlights the importance of a robust and flexible business continuity plan that utilizes big data analytics technology and artificial intelligence to support a reactive and flexible framework rather than a structured process of recovery. We see a discontinuous river of disruptive events that are impacting the supply chain along with businesses and customers and the reactions to these events must be swift in order to limit the impact. The world will not slow down and in fact will only speed up in the types of disruptive events that must be addressed in creative and flexible ways.

The seemingly continuous stream of Black Swan events speaks to the need to sense and respond to these events to limit or even eliminate the impact. Early detection and response to the pending event dramatically reduces the impact of the event and this should be the goal going forward! It makes no sense at all to develop a quick response system that leaps into action when the impact is upon us. This goal of early detection requires a focus on risk analysis and that allows early detection in order to act before the crisis. I suggest that a key to the rise and frequency in Black Swan events is due in large part to a lack of focus on detection.

This is the reason I have been focused on the continuous improvement practice of sense and response. The supply chain is in the position of canary in the coal mine and the continuous improvement practice including and focused on robust identification, or sensing, analytics to sense the coming disruption early in order to respond early. The goal should be in risk identification and then analysis of the pending impact and most importantly the likelihood of the risk manifesting itself. After the 5th ‘500 year flood’ it's time to understand and take action to focus on risk analysis and early detection!

This increased importance of sensing the disruption requires an increased focus on risk management and especially risk identification as a key area of identification in the continuous improvement process. This is a big change in focus from short term cost control to risk and disruption control. Focus on risk and disruption control will increase supply chain costs however will reduce disruption impact. This reduction in impact will in the long term reduce costs of the impact on the supply chain and the economy.

The challenge for risk management is incorporating the lessons in day-to-day supply chain management and especially the extended supply chain. The correct answer to the global disruption is not eliminating global manufacturing and the global market, the correct answer to global disruption is early detection and risk management plans to address the disruption. This means alternative supply chain capabilities for materials, manufacturing plants and delivery. These all would produce different effects on the success of reaction to the disruption and each of these require focus on risk and cost analysis to identify when it makes sense, financially and production-wise to make the change.

Unfortunately we are in an age of quick and easy answers and this does not work well in a global economy and supply chain. This requires a level of continuous effort to monitor and analyze the risks and likelihood of occurrence. This process of risk mitigation must be incorporated in the regular review and analysis process of the continuous improvement practice. The good news, in my opinion, is that this risk mitigation can be supported more accurately and quickly by embracing data analytics improvements brought about through artificial intelligence technologies. This is a baseline requirement to the effective analysis of the amounts of data available!

Disruption Driving Transformation Of The Supply Chain

 

Disruption displaces an existing market or industry to produce something new and more efficient and worthwhile. It is at once destructive and creative. Disruption in the marketplace is driving a transformation of the supply chain into a more efficient and flexible framework that can support the continuous disrupting forces. This transformation of the supply chain is driven not only by reaction to disrupting forces in the marketplace but also from the enabling technologies developing at a breakneck pace.

Historically, supply chain disruption has been described as a major breakdown in production or distribution nodes that comprise a supply chain. This definition of disruption implies an event within the supply chain that interrupts the normal process and flow that must be overcome to return to the pre-event state. However, technologies, especially eCommerce technology, coupled with improvements in network capabilities that are driven by consumer lifestyle demands have redefined disruption into a break that will never return to the pre-disruption normal, the disruption creates a new normal.

NOTE: The COVID-19 disruption is another example of disruption driven by consumer demands, in this case though there are additional disrupting factors that add to the equation. These factors include disruption in the manufacturing capabilities and also, more importantly, business continuity disruption that has highlighted the brittle nature of the pre-COVID-19 extended supply chain.

This process of recovery into a new normal is what makes up innovation and new capabilities for the market. Rather than a recovery to the pre-disruption state, the disruption produces a recognition of a need for innovation and change based on the market demands for innovation in the process. Disruptive innovations tend to be produced by outsiders and entrepreneurs in startups, rather than existing companies. This innovation cycle is now driven by consumer lifestyle demands colliding with the existing market practices creating an innovation cycle. This innovation cycle disrupted the continuous improvement cycled to a continuous innovation cycle and the market leaders recognized and adjusted to the change.

Currently, the waves of innovation in the market are driven by supply chain participants recognizing and developing features and functionality designed to meet customer expectations, partner needs and financial requirements. Supply chain disruption is the repurposing and realigning of existing capabilities to support changing consumer lifestyle demands. Then, just for good measure, the great disruptors add new supply chain capabilities to enhance the innovation.

The best change agents in the extended supply chain implement these features and functionality before the consumer recognizes the need. This drive to experiment based on sensing a market shift that creates the demand for goods and services is the actual driving force of disruptive innovation in the market. Disruptive innovation in the supply chain is a leading influence in remaking the market to meet consumer demands. Consumer demands are being driven at an enormous speed and this velocity of change requires robust tools and practices to react. I believe the supply chain is particularly ready and capable to develop these required tools and capabilities because of the history of disruption within the supply chain.

Shifting demands from all corners of the market—ranging from product and consumer services to supply chain partners—contribute to supply chain disruption and in turn are driving innovation in the supply chain as a reaction. Consumers as the ‘Great Disruptor’ in the marketplace and are driving the supply chain to innovate in capabilities and flexibility in order to react to the disruption. The supply chain innovators are driven by a spirit of experimentation that in turn allows them to innovate in the face of the discontinuous disruption. The best of the innovators incorporate the continuous improvement (PDCA - Plan, Do, Check, Act) practice to support the innovation cycles driven by the disruption.

This transformation will only increase in speed as disruption drives new disruption. We have entered an age of disruptive transformation driven by the demands of the market that is no longer accepting the status quo. In order to survive in the age of disruptive transformation the market partners must also embrace a practice of experimentation based on flexibility.

Robotic Process Automation And You

Robotic process automation is a capability segment that is growing quickly in large part because of the speed in which it can be delivered with limited risk. This is a natural progression to the growing autonomous automation capabilities including robotics. This next logical step of business process improvements combines business process analysis and improvements with software robots identified and driven by artificial intelligence tools and workers. Combine the potential benefits with the limited risk and the robotic process automation provides a very alluring opportunity to quickly add benefits and efficiencies to processes in the operation.



The challenge in the operation is continuous pressure on improvements in efficiencies; to do more work with less human interaction. Unfortunately for the operation, and logistics in the supply chain, robotic implementation can be very disruptive because of the dramatic change to the operation. This is where robotic process automation can bring value to automate the existing process without dramatic disruption. This will provide the opportunity to improve efficiencies while the disruptive projects can be implemented. In fact, I would suggest that robotic process automation be viewed as the first step in a robotic strategy because it provides the first step to proving the automation.



Within the operation the greatest disruption is brought about by the dramatic and sudden change that is demonstrated by physical robotic implementation in the warehouse operations. Robotics not only disrupt the operation and the process and flow of people and operations, it also disrupts the physical layout of the warehouse resulting from the robotics implementation. While there have been dramatic increases in efficiencies, volume and accuracy this must be tempered, initially at least, with the disruption in the warehouse. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a strong advocate of automation to improve the operation, I am only saying you must go into this with eyes wide open to understand and plan for the holistic impact to the operations.



Robotic process automation allows for a trial at increased automation to improve the efficiencies of the operation without dramatic change. This is a benefit not only to the operation, it is also a benefits strategic planning by providing a point of validation for the automation. This is a critical benefit because of the investment required for increased automation with autonomous robotics. The resulting increased efficiencies delivered by robotic process automation allow for a refocus by the operation to more complicated processes that may be more difficult to automate or require autonomous robotic automation.



Automation is a multi-faceted opportunity for improvement and must be viewed as such in strategic planning and strategic initiatives. The organization and operation especially must evaluate options based on the process and automation opportunity, all processes will not achieve improvement from the same automation tool. This is why it is so important to implement a robust and forward thinking strategic planning process to help identify the improvements.



Automation is another flavor of process evaluation and improvement that brings a new set of tools to the toolbox. It must be remembered that these tools excel in different scenarios and situations and the strategic planning process must be a focus to incorporate these new tools as appropriate. This incorporation of new tools is critical to the long term success of an organization and especially now considering the velocity of disruption. There is no time to wait and see how others use the tools. The key to success is embracing a strategic process that experiments and looks toward incremental change to stay ahead of disruption. Disruption is the tipping point of incremental change, unfortunately it is tool late to react to disruption and best case scenario is creating your own disruption.

Artificial Intelligence - The Common Strategic Thread

All networks, social, business, integration and collaboration, news and extended supply chain networks are all related through a common thread, data and more specifically - how is the data used to drive decisions and execution strategies? The glue then that combines the data in a manner that can be used to sense and respond to the waves of disruption in the market.

I believe that the constant running through all aspects of the market place is the discontinuous disruption that is driven by consumer embrace of technology combined with the market reactions to the consumer demands. Marketplace partners must recognize this new reality and work to incorporate methods to obtain the data necessary to feed the decision making process. The value and the accuracy is based upon the amount and types of data that are incorporated and available to the process. This precept itself drives the need and the value of collaborative analysis and data collection across the partners.

This model is especially important to the retail marketplace where the market is continuously buffeted by changing demands from consumers that are themselves driven by changing technical capabilities. These reactions and impact from technology has been a fact of life for quite some time within the extended supply chain and the pressure of reaction to disruption combined with the demands of cost containment and reductions are driving collaborative partnerships in the extended supply chain. These partnerships along with the resulting data collaboration can be used as a model for the marketplace as a whole. This is a key reason for the importance placed on the supply chain by Amazon and others would benefit greatly by embracing this practice.

In addition to the importance of collaborative data, the marketplace partners must also take into account the level of accuracy changes that occur during the life cycle of the analysis. The accuracy of the decision goes through a measurable life cycle:

• Infancy starts with sensing the potential reactions to the demands. This is an unclear time where many options can be taken in reaction to the data and the analysis. This is the beginning of experimentation to test the options.
• Mid-term or decision childhood where the options are narrowed based on additional data analysis based on the results of experimentation from the infancy stage. This is the refinement of decisions and strategy based on the results of experimentation. This is marked by refinement and addition of experiments to support analysis refinement.
• Maturity or decision adulthood where the strategy is fully formed and executed based on the refinement resulting from the data analysis. This is also where the next disrupting concept begins to form and requires the continued analysis of results from the strategy to form the new concept and strategy.
• End of life of old age where the positive results of the strategy decline and the consumer and market are driving the new disruption. This is end of the strategy value and it is equally important to be able to sense the decline of the strategy as it is to identify the beginnings of a new disrupting factor.

You can see that the process I described above follows the PDCA, continuous improvement process, which is a standard practice of the supply chain. This provides a solid framework to sense and respond to the disrupting factors and has been incorporated across a wide range of marketplace practices. The disrupting factor that drives improvements to this process is the collaborative data collection and analysis that allows the process to sense potential changes earlier and then through AI analysis provides the guidance for experimentation and validation to formulate the change to react to the disruption.

Social Networks Driving Supply Chain Disruption

Social network collaborative technologies have left a mark on the personal communications world in the way that the technologies encourage both immediate connections and in the communications capabilities between connections. You can see the impact across all areas of interaction and these tools and the new collaborative capabilities they enable have disrupted not only personal social interaction but also the retail marketplace and the extended supply chain network. The disruption in the supply chain network can be seen in all aspects of the supply chain that thrive on collaboration and interaction, in other words these capabilities have disrupted the supply chain network practices. The resulting waves of discontinuous disruption will continue to be felt across the supply chain network for a long time to come.

Social network technologies and the resulting collaboration technologies are founded on open and efficient communications through networks and across technology platforms. The extended supply chain and partners processes and procedures require open and efficient communications through networks and across technology platforms so this has been a match made in heaven. This embrace of technologies was simply waiting for the right moment of technology and extensions of network technologies and frankly imagination to rise and disrupt the supply chain.

The pieces and practices have been in place in the supply chain for a long time and really waiting for someone with the imagination and will to define and deliver the potential. The tools for communication between have been available through EDI technologies, for instance. These technologies have been enhanced though to support extended connectivity demands via improvements in network and wireless technologies. The Internet of Things (IoT) has played a key role in the disruption of the communication. These technologies continue to disrupt process and practices as capabilities are developed to support the demands.

The areas of focus and disruption change based on reactions to demands and imagination in delivery and capabilities. The LTL market, for instance is in the throws of a major disruption now based on shared ride technologies. This has flowed into freight forwarders and also customization demands to support inventory management for last mile deliveries. This is a great example of consumer demands driving the market to incorporate social technologies, in this case ride share technologies, into the business process to improve the practices. Another example of technologies and network capabilities impact on supply chain is the Iot tools and capabilities utilization to improve tracking and planning capabilities that has been a continuous improvement process for quite some time.

Blockchain tracking and tracing capabilities are incorporated to support demands of lot trace and date management for food products to provide historic product pedigree information accuracy. These capabilities were initially slow to acceptance and now the combination of market demands (read consumer demands), regulatory requirements to support recalls and improvements in technology and network capabilities are driving this to mainstream usage. Blockchain technologies already provide a great deal of benefits and while already delivered significant impact in the supply chain it is really still in its infancy and I expect the capabilities and usage to expand with new imaginative demand.

Retail disruption has combined with technologies to produce a discontinuous disruption in supply chain to support changing consumer demands. Disruptive forces have always been around and the big difference now is the speed of the disruption. This speed has been increased as a result of technology and network capabilities available to the consumer more than any other factor, the key factor to the discontinuous disruption is the embrace of technology by consumers. The technology, combined with the improvements and growth in networks allowed the consumer to drive change into the market. Then social networks and social network technology encouraged the spread of consumer and business use of the technology. Putting technology into the hands of consumers is driving the rate and size of disruptions.

The challenge for the market and the supply chain is the identification of important and key disruptions, in other words what disruption will have legs that allow the disruption to grow and expand in usage. Unfortunately, there is really no way to determine the winners and losers and so the supply chain must act on all. This is where social networks and collaboration really show their value. Social networks provide the means to sense the disruption and measure the speed of growth along with clarification of the disruption. Collaboration and collaborative development allow the supply chain to respond and react to the disruption.

Disruption Driving Transformation Of The Supply Chain

 

Disruption displaces an existing market or industry to produce something new and more efficient and worthwhile. It is at once destructive and creative. Disruption in the marketplace is driving a transformation of the supply chain into a more efficient and flexible framework that can support the continuous disrupting forces. This transformation of the supply chain is driven not only by reaction to disrupting forces in the marketplace but also from the enabling technologies developing at a breakneck pace.

Historically, supply chain disruption has been described as a major break down in production or distribution nodes that comprise a supply chain. This definition of disruption implies an event within the supply chain that interrupts the normal process and flow that must be overcome to return to the pre-event state. However, technologies, especially eCommerce technology, coupled with improvements in network capabilities that are driven by consumer lifestyle demands have redefined disruption into a break that will never return to the pre-disruption normal, the disruption creates a new normal.

This process of recovery into a new normal is what makes up innovation and new capabilities for the market. Rather than a recovery to the pre-disruption state, the disruption produces a recognition of a need for innovation and change based on the market demands for innovation in the process. Disruptive innovations tend to be produced by outsiders and entrepreneurs in startups, rather than existing companies. This innovation cycle is now driven by consumer lifestyle demands colliding with the existing market practices creating an innovation cycle. This innovation cycle disrupted the continuous improvement cycled to a continuous innovation cycle and the market leaders recognized and adjusted to the change.

Currently, the waves of innovation in the market are driven by supply chain participants recognizing and developing features and functionality designed to meet customer expectations, partner needs and financial requirements. Supply chain disruption is the repurposing and realigning of existing capabilities to support changing consumer lifestyle demands. Then, just for good measure, the great disruptors add new supply chain capabilities to enhance the innovation.

The best change agents in the extended supply chain implement these features and functionality before the consumer recognizes the need. This drive to experiment based on sensing a market shift that creates the demand for goods and services is the actual driving force of disruptive innovation in the market. Disruptive innovation in the supply chain is a leading influence in remaking the market to meet consumer demands. Consumer demands are being driving at an enormous speed and this velocity of change requires robust tools and practices to react. I believe the supply chain is particularly ready and capable to develop these required tools and capabilities because of history of disruption within the supply chain.

Shifting demands from all corners of the market—ranging from product and consumer services to supply chain partners—contribute to supply chain disruption and in turn are driving innovation in the supply chain as a reaction. Consumers as the ‘Great Disruptor’ in the marketplace and are driving the supply chain to innovate in capabilities and flexibility in order to react to the disruption. The supply chain innovators are driven by a spirit of experimentation that in turn allows them to innovate in the face of the discontinuous disruption. The best of the innovators incorporate the continuous improvement (PDCA - Plan, Do, Check, Act) practice to support the innovation cycles driven by the disruption.

This transformation will only increase in speed as disruption drives new disruption. We have entered an age of disruptive transformation driven by the demands of the market that is no longer accepting the status quo. In order to survive in the age of disruptive transformation the market partners must also embrace a practice of experimentation based on flexibility.

Market Technology Transformation

Disruption in the market is now being driven to a very large extent by technology and this technology transformation is being led by the demands on the supply chain from consumers on the market. In all aspects of the market we are seeing a transformation that is being driven by the changing lifestyles of consumers. These changing lifestyles are, to a very large extent, enabled by technology that is available to consumers in every aspect of their daily activities. Consumers have embraced technology in every aspect of their daily activities and the impact on their lifestyle has been dramatic in the opportunities to meet their changing demands. This presents a challenge to the extended supply chain partners to support the market transformation that is driven by changing technology.

The most obvious example of technology that has dramatically impacted consumer lifestyles is the smartphone. Consumers have embraced the smartphone in every aspect of their daily activities to enable them to meet their changing lifestyle. These demands have transformed the methods in which they communicate, shop, pay bills and share experiences. The smartphone, in combination with improvements in wireless network technologies, are key factors in the market transformation and this transformation is only increasing in velocity. I know in my own activities that this technology has transformed my ability to meet the daily demands of family and career to allow me to blur the line between all activities; I can shop any time and then plan for delivery to meet the immediate demands, I am available for response any time the need arises whether personal or work related and the technology allows me to react based on the demand.

Technology has become pervasive across all activities and this has transformed the consumer market into an expectation of 24/7 shopping and delivery to meet the demands at the time. These demands have required the transformation of the extended supply chain to quickly and efficiently address the demands first and foremost. Most importantly this has required the transformation of the extended supply chain to develop the methods and processes to quickly and efficiently sense and respond to the changes. The transformation requires not only efficient response to new demands but experimentation with capabilities to create new consumer demands. The velocity of transformation has reached a level where the ability to react to demands is not enough to maintain share in the market participants must anticipate demand before consumers realize in order to maintain share.

Experimentation can be frustrating because of the potential for mistakes and failures. However, the market is changing at such a velocity that there is no choice but to experiment with creating future demands. This is especially difficult in the retail market because the culture and accepted practice is at odds with leading edge experimentation. We are seeing now though especially with Amazon and niche eCommerce retailers the rise of experimentation as a key capability. This transformation has dramatically impacted large legacy retailers causing failures and a struggle to keep up with the changes. The market is now seeing early signs of leading retailers such as Target or Walmart finally transforming their practices to leverage the multi-channel marketplace to transform their business.

Change has been supercharged into transformation and consumers are driving the retail market into continuous transformation that requires new methods and processes to anticipate demand rather than react to the demands. These processes must support faster and more flexible adjustments that are driving continuous transformation of the market. We have reached a point with technology where the speed of change requires anticipating and adjustments rather than sense and respond. This will further shake out the market and drive transformation in the supply chain.

Shift Retail Focus

As the marketplace shifts and the velocity and impact of changes disrupt the retail practices across all channels retailers must now shift their focus from an internalized focus to an external and extended collaborative focus in order to help them sense and respond to the changes. In addition, retailers must not only focus on sensing the changes early on in the market, they must also shift their focus from reaction to action and drive the market change through experimentation. The two practices of extended collaboration to sense the change and experimentation to react to and even drive change must then be combined with a culture change that encourages experimentation and exploring the leading edge. Retailers that are ‘good enough’ will struggle to survive while retailers that push the limits and are not afraid to fail in experiments will succeed and drive the market disruption.




This shift in focus will be difficult form many of the large retailers and will require investment and perseverance to succeed, however, there is really no choice in the matter, the large retailers must change or die. We have seen over the recent years large retailers struggling and failing in large part, I believe, because of their hesitancy to change the culture. The key to this round of market change and disruption is the velocity of change and the discontinuous spurts of change pushing the market disruption. This is is why it is so important for these large retailers to change their culture in order to drive the change in practices required to meet the demand. Rather than reducing spend and closing outlets as a result of lowered sales the retailers may need to close outlets but they should redouble the spend to change and recoup the sales lost.




This is something that I see with JC Penney, they have been pummelled by sales reductions after having tried new strategies and now they have changed their focus to spend on leaders to change their focus in reaction to the market changes. This is probably the best chance for JC Penney to turn around and survive with this change in leadership that brings with it a change in culture. This will only be confirmed though with some time. There are others that have changed leadership that have only continued with the legacy culture with new some new faces. This is basically a retailer experiment in real time that will provide proof of concept for meeting the demands of the new retail marketplace disruptions.




Amazon is still at the heart of disruption and they continuously demonstrate the reasons they remain the leader. Many of the major disruptions continue to be started with Amazon, such as Prime, or the acquisition of Whole Foods, have shown the focus and culture of experimentation demonstrated in real time. This culture of experimentation and collaboration must be encouraged and implemented with other retailers now in order to meet the disruption.

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.

Omni Market Strategy

Two of the largest players in the retail marketplace are now in the process of rebuilding their strategies to form the retail market in the image that meets their vision and the two strategies are very different because of where these retailers came from in their growth and development. The origins are driving their strategies to allow them each to leverage their base and also to leverage their customer base practices and expectations. Amazon and Walmart are these two giants in the market and they each bring a very different perspective and direction to their actions and capability delivery. These differences in perspective bring different strengths to their practices and this really sets the tone and the direction based on where the consumers are coming from; whether an electronic focus that bleeds into the brick and mortar or the opposite.




You can see from the differences in strategies and focus that were driven by the base customers allowed these retailers to build their strategic capabilities and now they are each trying to re-imagine their omni market strategy incorporating these baseline strategies and capabilities. This is an extremely difficult challenge for both because it pushes them outside of their comfort zone. This is easy to see when viewing the sales and marketing strategies; they both purchased capabilities in their expansion target channel to help move them ahead and they both are now working to integrate these acquisitions into their omni market strategy. These challenges and reactions by these two leaders showcase the value of experimentation and the willingness to fail forward. They both show a great deal of courage in these reactions and their willingness to spend to experiment.




You can also very clearly see where each of these retailers started and their base comfort zone, whether brick and mortar or eCommerce, and each of these starting points are driving interesting interactions and focus based on each of their starting points. As I mentioned earlier, the most encouraging aspect of these results is the willingness and even the excitement to experiment. Each of these retailers realize the importance of their actions and each have truly embraced the value and concepts of this experimentation to develop the new retail model. Each of these retailers realize they are building the the future and they see the value to being first in the development and delivery of this future.




There is no substitute for this experimentation and each of these retailers has embraced the challenge. They both realize that this experimentation is pushing the boundaries forward in the only manner that can be successful, they must experiment to determine what works and what will be accepted by the consumer. They must experiment in this manner because the market is moving so fast and the forward movement will more than pay for the failures and will provide the lead to allow them to maintain a healthy lead on the competitive advantage. There are many other retailers attempting to focus on their omni market strategy and they are facing these challenges in historical manner where these retailers are taking the safe path of change, waiting on the changes to be a little more solidified. This shows the legacy culture that generally waits for the change to solidify. This culture though will fail this time because of the velocity and breadth of change in the market, the retailers that wait run a significant risk to waiting too long to change and then being too late for success.

Retail Renewal

Spring brings a sense of renewal and the current disrupting forces in the retail marketplace should be viewed as a type of retail spring renewal. Rather than a focus on cutting and reducing expense as a reaction to this disruption retailers should be looking at a renewal of the marketplace into an image and ability to efficiently and effectively support the changing demands of the consumer lifestyle in shopping and purchasing demands. Renewal provides an image of positive change and improvement to deliver on the imagination of the marketplace and this image is important to foster and encourage as opposed disruption that brings the image of cuts and reductions to address a downturn is sales. It is important to view and engage as an opportunity to grow rather than a requirement to cut and wait for some magical upturn in sales to appear.




There is a wide variety of purchasing capabilities that can be utilized to support the consumer lifestyle that have been developed over the years and there does not seem to be a limiting factor from the purchase capabilities. The limiting factor seems to be the transparency and combinations of shopping and purchasing and delivery capabilities available to the consumer from all channels in a true omni market view. This is where the retail disruption, or renewal, is focused and this is the key challenge to the larger retailers. These large retailers must overcome their natural tendency to fall back into the reaction methods from the past. They must overcome their reaction to reduce costs when faced with a downturn and must instead focus on the renew and an analysis to determine the reason for the downturn and then how to react to the downturn to recover the sales. This reaction spells the difference between success and failure in this new retail marketplace.




I saw a report that for the first time online sales have surpassed in store, brick and mortar, sales. This would seem to add weight to the retail marketplace disruption that should be driving renewal activities in the larger retailers. This news should be a little intimidating to retailers because it confirms the forecasts and the direction that has been assumed by many for a while. You could see the coming changes with the large players working to blur the lines between channels to support the omnimarket capabilities that are now coming together. You could also see the coming changes with the extended supply chain service offerings and especially in the drive to simplify the delivery based on the consumer lifestyle.




I see the differences coming together now in many ways and one of the ways is manner in which Amazon is experimenting with omnimarket retail. Amazon is playing their brand across channels and retail market segments to bring a shopping and purchasing experience that focuses on meeting consumer needs across product commodity. This is important and the only other american retailer with a similar type of market coverage would be Walmart and Walmart has been focused on growth in omnimarket to meet the Amazon challenge.

Collaboration Officer

Collaboration has become increasingly important over the years and this importance and increased in depth and breadth of collaboration partners and activities to the point where it is important to create the role of a Collaboration Officer to ensure the necessary focus within the organization. At this point collaboration coordination and activities are much too important to leave to the individual participants and requires a focused and coordinated strategy for both internal and external partners. The marketplace and demands are changing at such a velocity now that no single participant in the market can hope to support all of the demands, driving the types and volume of collaboration activities across the market in order to deliver and maintain new capabilities and services at a rate that supports the demands.




Collaboration as a concept has been in vogue for a very long time and it's been one of those concepts that everyone agrees on the importance while at the same time being challenged in living the concept. Many have talked the talk and found it difficult to walk the walk because collaboration, at least in my opinion, requires a partners to give up some control and this can be very difficult for some leaders. Control for many leaders has been key competency and allowed them to build the concept and brand that has been successful. Now, however, while the concept has not lost importance the implementation of the concept requires flexibility and collaboration to deliver.




I see a cycle in the maturity and success trajectory where the initial concept development requires a focus on the development that is driven by the leader to deliver on the concept. This cycle continues while the concept take hold to ensure the vision is maintained and the concept gains acceptance and traction in the marketplace. This changes though relatively quickly though after a wider acceptance though to require collaboration and new partnerships to retain the success trajectory and also ensure the continued growth of the concept. This change requires a shift in focus to partnership and collaboration and most importantly a shift to a shared success plan utilizing increased collaboration and partnership to continue the success trajectory. You see this type of collaboration and partnership in small businesses and support of the small businesses with a good example being the American Express initiative to support small and local businesses.




This is much different though for the large retailers and legacy partners where they must focus on change to meet the new demands. These entities must out of necessity focus on the collaboration and partnership concepts to maintain their own success trajectory. This is important because these retailers must realize they must sense and respond to support the changing demands on their offerings, shopping and purchasing practices which requires increased and robust collaboration with partners to meet the demands.




The retailers must pivot the majority of their focus on collaboration and partnerships and must build the capabilities utilizing these practices to develop new products in order to maintain their success trajectory. These retailers would do well to support a concept and type of skunk works that encourages and feeds new programs, products and capabilities in a lab type environment that allows and encourages failure in a manner that supports a concept delivery cycle. The large retailers have wasted a massive head start in both creativity and building the delivery cycle by focusing on reductions rather than identification of the next big thing.

Supporting Discontinuous Change

The current retail marketplace experience of discontinuous change causing disruption and in some cases extreme challenges to react should not be a surprise to anyone. In fact, I think the big surprise is the continued dependence of major retailers on historical reactions such as cutting costs to react to the market disruption. This type of marketplace disruption requires a new way of reacting and not just retrenching into more of the same tactics used during market downturns. We are not experiencing a downturn in the market, we are experience an overhaul of the market shopping and purchasing while the market is expanding. These are the most difficult conditions to address and requires investment in rebuilding the retailer business model.





The level of discontinuous change in the retail marketplace has disrupted this marketplace demanding of participants a transparent and cohesive shopping and purchasing experience. The waves of demands have not given the large legacy retailers much of a chance to catch up with the demands and the bad news is that these waves of demands and change will only increase in velocity and impact as they build on the previous changes. This requires a new paradigm from the retail marketplace of participants and partners to support both the level and velocity of the change.





This paradigm change requires a focus on increased and improved capabilities to sense change and, probably most important, a new increased focus on experimentation, especially in meeting change. What has become abundantly clear though is that this new paradigm requires a high level of collaboration across not only partners but consumers as well. This is requires as an integrated plan and partnerships to support not only the necessary activities and practices to sense change, it is also required to support the reaction to the change. Every single change and and especially change leading to disruption requires requires a coordinated response across a multitude of partner to react and support the demands.





In looking back and looking around I do not really see any marketplace disruption that required only one organization to drive, yes there was one leader that recognized the opportunity for change and market disruption, however, that leader then partnered with other participants to support and enable the disruption. The key issue that is see that absolutely must be overcome in order to survive is supporting a robust collaboration model and unfortunately this is the one issue that requires a culture change in the large legacy retailers to enact. In looking around I see many companies that speak about the importance of collaboration and are even taking steps to improve collaboration with their external partners, the issue that I see though is that many of the same larger legacy retailers are still hung up in internal silos that are slowing change through the controls to maintain these silos.





In order to truly support the discontinuous change and the market disruption that will only increase in velocity I believe that the market must create chief collaboration officer that is empowered to seek out and expand collaboration across internal silos while also seeking out and expanding collaboration across their market partners. This is a culture change that will require support of the organization leadership and the best way to broadcast the support and importance is through the creation of a chief collaboration officer that is empowered to make change. This chief collaboration officer will be charged with sensing and supporting the change and disruption in the marketplace and this officer will also be charged with the authority to experiment and the encouragement to fail.

Conversational Commerce

For a very long time the brick and mortar retail could be considered what I would call conversational commerce in that there was a give and take type of interaction between the consumer and the sales associate. This was disrupted with the entry of eCommerce bringing online sales and also a push towards cost savings in the the brick and mortar market that all but eliminated the give and take. Recently though I see a resurgence in in the conversation in the omni market between the consumers and starting to see an increase in the virtual personalized service which leads me to believe that the retail marketplace is on the cusp of a return to the conversational commerce practice. I see the entry of the 5g wireless network capabilities and the growth of the unlimited data as two driving factors that will push this over the tipping point.




In the last few months I have experienced a semi-personalized retail experience with an online retailer that made me rethink the potential for conversational commerce in this omni marketplace with the growth and expansion of consumer utilization of technology. This online retailer uses a combination of email that was personalized based on the service and the potential sale and then continued follow-up using both personalized email with special offers and targeted text messages with special offers. These are not uncommon things by any means, however this retailer used the combinations of technologies to try to create a direct and personalized message. This made me think about the potential available from tools and technology in combinations to create direct and personalized messages to create a conversational shopping and sales experience.




The goal of the eCommerce retailer is the customer return and the ability to keep the customer on the site for a longer period of time. This goal is necessarily expanded for the omni market retailer to encourage the customer to not only return to the eCommerce site but also to return to the store for shopping and purchasing. This enticement to return is much greater when customer is engaged in a personalized conversation with the retailer that is continuously reaching out for reaction and interaction with the customer. This conversation requires a strategy plan to utilize the social networking tools, email and texting in a coordinated manner the engages the customer cohesively across the tools and the channels. This requires an increase in focused customer service human support to both identify and coordinate the conversation topics focused on individual customer shopping and purchasing habits. This is where the big data and AI technologies play a critical role to help the retailer identify the these conversation topics and then to track and revise the conversations based on the responses.




I see this conversational commerce as a coming major disrupter in the retail marketplace and the retailers that have been focused on AI and data analysis will be the retailers that are best prepared. This is another development that does not require a great deal for the initial entry, however the retailers that invest early in the technologies and participate in the early discovery aspects of the conversational commerce will be the retailers that thrive in the coming years. This will also be the retailers that are best prepared for the next wave of change and disruption.

Consumer Change Agents

Consumers control the velocity of change in the marketplace and they are continuously pushing the velocity as a result of change and developments in the wireless and Internet capabilities. Consumers learn quickly to take advantage of the gains in wireless technologies to push the changes in the marketplace to support their lifestyle demands. Now we are on the cusp of another major advance in wireless technology with 5g wireless networking to be delivered in the next year. This new wireless network technology brings the potential to dramatically change the networking and capabilities in a dramatic way and the retail marketplace must prepare to embrace these new demands and capabilities. There is simply no time to waist in preparation for this change because the velocity of change will only increase with the extended networking capabilities.




Consumers have used technology to become leading agents of change in the retail marketplace and the coming wireless changes are going to shift this role into high gear for a period of time. Understand that there is always a difference between the hype of new technology and the reality and this new technology will be no different. The change though opens the door for change that will start with a trickle in the market as the technology forward consumers experiment and will quickly increase to a rush when the new capabilities are flexed and niche vendors deliver trial capabilities. Technology forward consumers and niche vendors will very quickly drive the change into the marketplace and this technology, just like the release of the 4g wireless technologies, will have extreme disruptive impact on the marketplace as consumers quickly embrace the capabilities to support their lifestyles.




The consumer acceptance of the new 5g technologies will be must faster than the 4g technology. Of course it will take some time for contributors to roll out enhanced 5g capabilities, however, the consumer is now prepared and anxious for the change. This time around there is a much larger market of technology savvy millennials that will quickly push the capabilities of the technologies and and also the marketplace. The demands and the consumer capabilities will build quickly pushing the marketplace into another round of disruption.




The market must prepare and brace for this new wave of disruption because it will come with a breathtaking speed that can overcome those that are not prepared. This means that partners must increase their collaboration across all channels. This means that partners must improve and increase their interactions and collaboration with consumers. This means that partners must improve their integration flexibility to support new niche partner integrations quickly and efficiently. The change will start slow but it will grow in volume and velocity very quickly and this will require imagination, collaboration and flexibility from all partners in the market to meet the challenge.

Age Of Disruption

We have entered into an age of disruption in the market and this disruption is fueled by the consumer embrace of technology and especially the explosion of wireless technology. The technology has allowed consumers to reshape their interactions with retail to support their lifestyles and the velocity of this change has been increasing past the point of market disruption. The market partners must realize now and accept this as the new reality. The velocity and volume of change will not slow and will continue to disrupt the market for a long time. This disruption, though, can be addressed through a robust continuous improvement program, or more appropriately, a continuous disruption program. It is more critical than ever to implement a strong process that can sense the direction of change, or disruption, and also identify the most flexible and robust method to address the disruption.




As change velocity and magnitude increases the market disruption also increases to the point of reaching a continuous disruption model that remakes the market on a regular basis. The tensions of this model have been building for a while now and it seems that the technology advances and especially the wireless technology advances have provided the foundation to deliver the disruption that as been in the wings of the market. Market participants can no longer wait for the change to settle an then implement the new standard because the new standard is changing at a breakneck pace. This continuous disruption will require that market participants increase their rate of change to meet the demands or they will be left behind on the periphery if they are lucky. You can clearly see the results of the disruption in the retail marketplace by the increase in the number of bankruptcies.




This requires the market participants to step up their game, especially in the ways that they are collaborating and developing partnerships to meet the demands. The supply chain is leading this integration and partnership drive and has been developing the tools for a while now. The extended supply chain has developed a strong model for implementing the type of network that will allow the entire marketplace to sense and respond to the demands and even help to create the disruptions in the marketplace. The supply chain extended network supports speedy and efficient integration of new partners and encourages specialized service providers to bring new point solutions to support the supply chain demands.




The way to succeed in the age of disruption is not through harder work but through AI technologies to sense change and then a strong collaborative network to react to the change. No single organization can hope to bring the resources and the flexibility of capabilities to address the disruption (maybe Amazon, but that’s another story). This is where the flexibility and capabilities of the extended supply chain network can be viewed as a model for future direction.

Market Repurposing

The market is changing at a breakneck pace an impact on participants in ways that never would have been imaginable just 3 years ago. This is the result of breathtaking advances in technology and especially the network and connectivity of the technology and tools across the marketplace. I live in an urban area and can just look out the window and see the impact of the technology and the connectivity. Add to this the promise of 5g wireless technology and this pace will only increase and the disruption based on the technology will increase as well. This all leads to a focus on market repurposing of technology capabilities and more importantly of real estate and the use of physical locations to extend and provide new capabilities to the brand. There is really no telling right now how the market will look in the next 5 to 10 years but I think it's safe to say that the retail brick and mortar location will be completely re-purposed.




We are in the midst of almost complete market disruption where many of the largest historic retailers are failing in new ways as result of the digital retail competition coupled with consumer embrace of the technology and the opportunity to reshape their shopping and purchasing to meet their lifestyle needs. This change has reached a level of velocity that is most difficult for the legacy retailers to maintain as a result of their need to redesign their services and practices to support the new digital demands of consumers to support their shopping. Another result of the digital disruption is the impact on the brick and mortar stores and malls. You can see the results everywhere with empty malls and store fronts and as the larger retailers are fighting to survive they are also shedding real estate. This leaves new opportunities in the market to address other demands of the market but it will take imagination to re-purpose to meet the digital demands.




Repurposing is an important method recycle and reuse processes systems and most importantly physical structures. Retailers have been very adept at adding new processes and systems to meet the market demands and now these retailers must also become adept and re-purposing processes and systems to quickly and efficiently adapt to the market change. Frankly I don’t see a way that retailers especially can survive the velocity of change and market disruption without re-purposing. Repurposing becomes even more valuable when you extend your capabilities through enhanced and increased collaboration with network partners.




Repurposing is also becoming important in the brick and mortar side of the omni market as well. Real estate re-purposing presents and allows the market to reuse the real estate to better support the changing market demands. As the real life shopping decreases it leaves more time for life style enhanced activities and drives the re-purposing of the real estate landscape. For instance, with the increase in eCommerce sales, the demand for big box stores and brick and mortar outlets is changing and decreasing which provides the opportunity for retailers and malls to repurpose building, perhaps converting large big box stores into direct to consumer fulfillment centers, for instance, or even entertainment centers or even living spaces.

Disruption Includes New And Obsolete

Market disruption, and especially the current market disruption, must include two side, the new and the order or obsolete. This is an extremely important concept for the long term success in meeting the change and in my opinion should be viewed as an opportunity to replace legacy inflexible processes and interfaces with a more flexible and robust framework that can support the velocity of the change. The key to success is in reduced reaction time and this means reduced time to sense the change and then reduced time to react and respond to the change. One of the key limiters to the reaction and response to the change is the technology infrastructure and framework of tools and processes supporting the framework. The actions taken to address obsolete functionality and processes will be large factor in the ability of market partners to react and respond to change from within and outside of the organization.




In my experience, every company or organization is enamored with the new and this is especially true in the social commerce marketplace and you see examples over and over again of organizations acquiring new technology in the omni market space to allow them to provide new sales and delivery options. This is all well and good however these organizations also must obsolete and retire services as well. Again, in my experience, there is less of a focus on the obsoleting process than there is on new service development. This weight of the maintenance for support and also more importantly the cost and effort to take into account the obsolete services and technology required for implementation of new capabilities will quickly overwhelm the organization. In the past, an organization could conceivably implement new capabilities and just stop using the legacy capabilities without much of an impact. In this current market environment though the level of change is only increasing and this will require the retirement and removal of obsolete capabilities and services in order to support the velocity of change.




The challenge now for organizations is how to balance, or include, the effort to retire obsolete capabilities while implementing new capabilities. This can be a bit overwhelming at first because the level of effort required to obsolete and retire capabilities is not included in the organization effort plans and schedules, at least initially. These organizations must quickly overcome these issues in order to incorporate the retirement as part of the new capabilities delivery. This can be addressed by updating the capabilities delivery process and procedures to include the questions initially when reviewing the new capability to identify the legacy services and capabilities that should be reviewed for obsolescence. In my opinion this is the best place to evaluate and also enforces the process and procedures in new development.




Traditionally large legacy organizations focused on the new initiatives and this focus tended to leave at least remnant technology and services after the new product delivery. This practice did not impact the organization when change moved at a slower pace. Now with the increased change velocity turning into market disruption, these organizations must focus on the process to obsolete technologies and services because of the impact these unused legacy technologies have on the ability to delivery new change in the manner and speed demanded by the marketplace.

Disruption Culture

Culture plays a large role in the acceptance and the reaction and support of disruption in the marketplace in the ways that change is recognized and the reaction to the change in both the cultural reaction and the reaction to the change. The culture guides the organization in reaction to change and some organizations have a culture that seeks out change in the marketplace to lead in the reaction to the demands and some cultures ignore the change and try to maintain the status quo. In these times where the velocity of change and disruption is increasing it is important for the organization culture to seek out and embrace change. In these times the culture must also change to embrace change and encourage reaction and change into the organization capabilities to meet the demands.





A disruption culture not only encourages change, it also encourages review of the existing environment to identify process and functionality that can or should be retired. It is important for the organization that the leadership develops the culture to seek out and embrace change because of the need to change in order to succeed. Organizations can no longer wait for someone else to drive the change and wait until the change is generally accepted because before the change is generally accepted the next wave of change is already in cycle. I cannot impress enough the importance of developing the culture of change in the continued viability and success of the organization.





This second point of retiring functionality is just as important as embracing change because without the retirement and elimination of unnecessary functionality the weight of the obsolete functionality will quickly overwhelm. The effort and work arounds required to support the change will delay and potentially stop the ability of the organization to incorporate change. At a very minimum the obsolete functionality will complicate the requirements and efforts to incorporate new change as demanded by the marketplace.





I understand the challenge of change on the market and also on the partners in the market to meet the demands of the change and realize that initially the culture and the focus must be on the change and embracing the change. This, however, is another point of contention and struggle to support the change. Organizations must very quickly focus on the identification and retirement of obsolete functions. The market is never going back and this must be viewed as an opportunity to eliminate functionality that cannot be changed as easily. This elimination of obsolete functionality will allow the organization to put into place a robust framework that allow and encourages change integration to allow the organization to support and react to the market disruption quickly and efficiently.





It is important to understand that the disruption culture has two facets; embrace change and embrace retirement of obsolete functions. This two sided coin view of the organization culture is important to succeed in the growing market disruption. Anything other than this approach will simply delay the inevitable decline to reaching the inability to change and then failure. I do not think this is being over dramatic and this decline will be slow but the speed will be dictated by the rate of change and disruption in the marketplace.