Omni Channel Collaboration Partners

Robust collaboration partnerships are important to the success of the omni channel retailers in meeting the demands of the consumer.  I think these partnerships can be categorized into three major groupings; supplier, supply chain and consumers.  Each of these partners plays an important role in developing and maintaining the success of the retailer in the new omni channel market.  Retailers can no longer be successful in the omni channel market without strong partnerships from these three categories.  Each of these partnerships provides a different role in the overall omni channel marketplace and their roles and importance depend on the topic and the demand at hand.  

The important factor is that a retailer must change to encourage and grow collaborative partnerships focusing on these categories to ensure their success in the future.  Each of these categories supports the others in ways that enhance the overall shopping experience to meet the demands of the consumer.  The consumer has an obvious role and a not so obvious roll.  The obvious role is sharing their purchasing desires directly with the retailer to improve products and product mix.  The not so obvious role is in developing the social shopping electronic capabilities with the retailer to produce a robust shopping platform that encourages interaction and participation from other consumers.  In order for these roles to be successful the retailer must both encourage feedback and then quickly act on the feedback.  The social shopping platform combined with the purchase platform provide the mechanisms for retailers institute a continuous improvement process of plan, do, check and act based on the consumer interactions.

The supplier and the supply chain will also provide important collaborative roles in this relationship that will drive improvements that will benefit all parties in the relationship.  Suppliers will gain from the improved interaction with the consumer providing direct and precise feedback on the product quality, usefulness and more importantly improvement suggestions.  These direct and improved interactions with the consumer will improve the management of the product lifecycle and reduce the overstock products in that lifecycle.  The supply chain will gain from the improved forecast and planning derived from the consumer feedback to allow more efficient and timely supply of products based on the consumer feedback and purchasing tracking that will improve the forecasts.  The entire chain will improve from the consumer feedback to improve clarity of the consumer delivery demands as well.  

The bottom line in these collaborative relationships is the improved communications will ensure the fulfillment of consumer demands.  These same improved communications and collaboration will also ensure the success of the other partners in the chain from the improved integration and reactions to the consumer demands.  This will fundamentally change the relationships to a partnership from a service provider or more simply an order taker.  The consumer is searching for a relationship and will gladly provide support in return for this relationship.  This in turn will allow the retailer to focus on the long term to develop this relationship rather than the quick low cost offerings that is currently negatively impacting their success.

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 Collaboration

Consumers are expanding and quickly changing their demands of the retailer to support their shopping and purchasing practices in an omni channel marketplace and collaboration is more important than ever for the new omni channel marketplace to meet the demands of the consumer.  Retailers are challenged now more than ever to support these changing demands due to the introduction of smartphones, expanding wireless capabilities and the expanding and growing mobile app capabilities.  A key to the speed of these changing demands is the speed in which new mobile capabilities and apps are delivered to consumers.  Consumers have embraced the mobile capabilities and are incorporating new functionality as quickly as it can be imagined by developers.

Consumers have always experimented with different methods and tools in their shopping and purchasing habits.  Mobile technology and the expansion, simplification and low cost of app development and delivery to the consumer is the driving force to the current changes in consumer shopping and purchasing.  This new twist in delivery and utilization of technology has put a great deal of control in the consumer’s hands to support their experimentation and new demands.  These new capabilities have allowed and encouraged consumers to collaborate in their shopping and purchasing in ways that were simply never available to provide a means to shop any time and any where.  While retailers have been focused on the purchase and have been segregating that purchase to a channel consumers have been focused on shopping and collaborating with other consumers.  These consumer shopping practices have had a tremendous impact on the omni channel retailer in ways that retailers are only now beginning to realize.

Retailers must now focus on collaboration across the entire marketplace in order to meet and maintain their abilities to continue to meet consumer demands.  Major retailers must focus on the shopping and the relationship with consumers and other partners in the supply chain in order to sustain their sales and retain consumers.  Retailers must focus on new tools and opportunities to retain the customer for life.  Retailers are realizing now that a focus on the lowest cost to draw and retain customers is a losing strategy that cannot be maintained.  The key to consumer retention is collaboration and a focus on the social aspect of shopping that will encourage the consumer to return to social with the retailer and other consumers and can be supported from any platform.  

Retailers will succeed by developing the relationship with consumers and providing a place and methods for consumers to congregate and collaboration, a social shopping platform.  This platform requires collaboration across all partners related to the retailer supply chain to support the changing demands of the consumer.  Providing this type of social shopping platform will allow the retailer to replace their losing low price strategy with a strategy that will support their long term success.

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 Logistics

The omni channel retailer has been very fortunate in the supply chain and logistics support of the changing demands of the omni channel marketplace.  All carriers from international, intermodal to local LTL and parcel carriers have recognized and risen to the challenge of the demands placed on the logistics services by consumers and the retailers that support the purchase demands of the consumers.  The competition and the creative response to the demands has provided retailers with a dependable, flexible and most importantly cost effective means to support the consumer demands.  This is a great example where competition across a large and lucrative marketplace provides the fuel to achieve improvements in service and cost on a continuous basis.

These capabilities will allow retailers to expand the omni channel offerings in a manner that will eliminate the differences between the channels.  Consumers are searching for services that will improve their shopping and purchasing experience, this is the reason why mobile technology and capabilities have been embraced so quickly and wholeheartedly.  This is where the supply chain can also play a part in the experience and encourage retailers and consumers to extend the ‘any time and any where’ concept to the purchase delivery.  The retailer simply needs to open up the delivery options and allow consumers to build their own combinations to support their needs at the moment of purchase.  

As an example, Starbucks has embraced the concept of purchase online and pick up in the store via their mobile app to shorten or eliminate the delays in the order and pickup process.  This has opened up a host of opportunities based on the imagination and needs of the consumer.  One of the most effective options utilized by the consumer is to use the app to place and pay for their order when they see a long line at the counter.  I’ve spoken to many people that love the way they can walk up to a Starbucks and see a long line at the counter, so they simply open their mobile app, select and purchase their drinks and their order is delivered before they would have made it to the register to order.

The inclusion of the supply chain in the retailer’s collaboration improves the entire experience for the consumer and this is what is important.  Open up options and opportunities for the consumer to interact and collaborate with the retailer and the retailer will in turn experience an increase in retention and sales.  We are in an age now where the consumer is comfortable and demands the ability to use their imagination in shopping, purchasing and delivery and the supply chain provides the ability for consumers to meet the their needs at the time to deliver any time and any where.

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?