We’ve written a white paper which we think will be of interest to all retailers. It speaks to some of the changes being experienced by retailers around the globe. While the focus is grocery retailer the paper is applicable to all retailer verticals. The paper has also been published in Spanish and Portuguese.
Here are some thoughts from the introduction:
COVID has changed retail almost overnight. Today’s grocery retailer could be forgiven for wondering ‘what just happened’?
To emerge successfully, retailers will need to greatly enhance their analytic capabilities to understand how and which of today’s changes will determine the future. They will need to understand the key dynamics to shape the future allowing them to best meet the needs of the ever-changing customer.
Three Dynamics to Consider
The Speed of Change
The pace at which change is occurring has accelerated and demands even greater effort for retailers to respond. What used to be a trend over 3 to 5 years is now happening in 3 to 5 months.
The Demand for Digital
Digital is now permeated across the business! From Ecommerce and supply chain to loyalty marketing and operations, customers are demanding their needs be met with greater response requiring digital capabilities.
The Investment by Competition
The largest retailers are investing to keep pace with customer demands. They are acquiring and partnering to get the capabilities they need. Walmart has invested in and partnered with Microsoft and Google to greatly enhance capabilities. Amazon continues to make bold moves in funding their grocery model and narrowing the divide between brick and mortar and online shopping. At the same time, they are using advanced analytics and monetization to better understand customers and to fuel growth. Retailers will need to embrace these realities with focused priorities, proper allocation of resources, and measurable action plans to win. The opportunity brought on by the crisis will yield success stories from those retailers who make decisive, immediate moves to deliver on the dynamic needs of today’s digital customer.
We’ve written this white paper for senior executives of grocery retailers who seek to understand how analytics and insights around shopper behaviour can be leveraged for business advantage in the post-Covid era, with a particular focus on the implications of omnichannel. While focused on grocery retail, the concepts in this white paper have broad applicability to all retail verticals.