Conclusions

A central defining thesis has framed the content of this book; namely that the retail industry globally is in the early stages of a transformation which will be more profound and far-reaching than any which has gone before. This chapter summarizes the key themes explored in the book. It is suggested that, for many, the opportunities in the new landscape of retailing are likely to be greater than the challenges presented. It is also suggested that there is no single roadmap for achieving success in the new landscape. There are, however, building blocks that retail enterprises and their leaders will need to have if they are to be successful. The chapter identifies and discusses five: being truly customer centric; being digitally skilled; embracing innovation; emphasizing strong, clear company values and demonstrating effective leadership.

The New Needs of the Retail Enterprise

All retailers need to revisit the extent to which their skills and capabilities are aligned to the new needs of their enterprises in the very changed landscapes in which they are seeking to engage shoppers, realize new opportunities, and resist much more intense and diverse competitive challenges. This is the focus of Chapter 9, in which we suggest that there are four territories in particular that retailers will need to focus on. Organizational and even ownership structures may need to change also in order for the needs of the enterprise to be better aligned to the new operating landscape.

The Changing Retail Cost Model

This chapter examines the changing retail cost model. As established firms re-think existing business models, most will need to come to terms with a rather different operating cost model than the one they have been used to in a pre-internet era, when retailing was conducted entirely out of physical stores. Equally, new entrants may struggle to achieve sustainable performance without understanding the full implications of their evolving cost base. In an omni-channel world where shoppers are, as we have discussed, showing much more appetite to shop online and across multiple touchpoints, the implications for the cost model of traditional retailers are considerable. The extent to which any additional costs of omni-channel retailing become ‘baked in’ to the model is also up for discussion.

The New Landscape for Customer Engagement

This chapter focuses on the changed landscape for customer engagement. The challenges for retailers—be they long-established or new to the sector—in these very changed shopper engagement landscapes are considerable. They are especially around the risks of introducing into the enterprise more cost, more complexity, and simultaneously more risk of under-delivery to the shopper. But the opportunities are enormous for those that can create truly shopper-centric enterprises that are genuinely equipped to engage effectively and efficiently with shoppers in the ways in which they now wish to be engaged. Many leaders of retail businesses talk of having seen in the last five to ten years change in consumer landscapes on an unprecedented scale. But, even so, we are today still only in the early stages of a transformation which is rapidly and fundamentally reframing the shopper engagement landscape.

Afterword

By mid-2020, it was all too clear that the COVID-19 coronavirus was reaping a terrible toll on the physical health of many people, the psychological health of more, and the economic health of countries, sectors of economic activity, and indeed the world economic system as a whole....

Bringing Order to the New World Order

The retail industry globally is undergoing a transformation that will prove ultimately to be more profound in its impact on shoppers and retailers than any which has taken place before. Such is the scale, pace, and disruptive nature of change that it can feel overwhelmingly difficult to understand, let alone to anticipate, plan, and manage its impacts on an enterprise. Chapter 6, the final chapter in Part 1, sets out an organizing framework for locating the major drivers of change in the new landscape of retailing, according to the extent to which change is an opportunity or a threat; the level of immediacy of change; its anticipated impact on the enterprise; and the level of certainty or uncertainty that the change represents.

The Transformational Role of Technology

This chapter focuses on the transformational impacts of technology both in the hands of shoppers and within retail enterprises themselves. There are, we believe, very compelling opportunities for businesses to develop much closer and more personal relationships with shoppers through the use of technology in customer-facing roles to enhance efficiency, experience, and engagement for the shopper. However, the challenges for enterprises of actually realizing all of the potential benefits from technology, especially in the form of highly nuanced shopper information, are considerable. This chapter is as concerned with the unexpected eddies as it is with the main transformational currents of technology change. It begins with a brief exploration of the main themes of change, then turns to some of the obstacles that have prevented many retailers from intelligently exploring technological opportunities, before considering the most relevant application areas for customer-facing technology.

Introduction

This chapter sets out the central premise of the book: that the retail industry worldwide is in an era of profound, disruptive and structural change. The chapter introduces the major forces of change reshaping the retail industry globally. It then introduces the idea that radically different environments require retail enterprises and the leaders of those enterprises to reconsider the structures, skills, and perspectives that will be needed in order to retain relevance and deliver success. Finally, this introductory chapter sets out the rationale, contents, and organizing structure of the book.

The Emergence of New Business Models

Chapter 4 discusses the emergence of entirely new business models enabled, inevitably, by technology and which challenge long-established notions of what it means to be a retail enterprise. The business models for established retail enterprises are being reshaped by the need to make heavy investments in areas such as logistics and IT that have historically been regarded as support functions rather than as integral to the sustained competitive advantage and success of the enterprise. Moreover, established retailers are competing with aggressive and effective enterprises such as internet-enabled platform providers with entirely different business models. As well as a competition between philosophies of what it means to be a retailer, this is a competition between very different business models.

Reimagining the Retail Store

One of the most important questions that traditional retail enterprises need to address is what is the role of the physical store in a world where retailing no longer needs to be conducted through physical stores and where shoppers live in a ‘digital first, stores maybe’ world. Chapter 8 considers this theme by discussing different ways that retailers can look to reinvent their stores such that they remain relevant and desired. For many, the absolute number of stores may be reduced sharply and the configuration of remaining physical points of presence will change from a network of largely similar stores to a far more diverse set of points of presence.