Pick a Good Strategy To Drive Value From Existing Assets
As local retail businesses wrestle with rapidly changing market conditions and the arrival of new competitors, increasing numbers are pushing strategic innovation to the forefront.
Many are being forced to shed their business-as-usual approach in search of effective and efficient ways in which to make their operations more competitive and leverage new Digital Technology, which creates both opportunities and challenges. Digital innovation and successful strategies and tools are allowing business processes to be redesigned driven by the necessity to initiate business improvement.
Strategy has many definitions, but generally involves setting goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions.
One of the trends highlighted in a recent report, suggest that businesses, especially in retail are looking to capitalize on our love of online shopping and finding out that a smart, smooth check out process is key to keeping customers and finding new ones.
‘Add to basket’ and ‘Purchase now’, play a vital role in each consumer’s e-commerce experience. The ability to pay for a product or service via a fast, intuitive platform ensures customers will return to a site every time. Lest not forget the buy now, pay later check out process. Customers are just looking for a seamless experience, none of this promotional add-ons prior to clicking the final button or survey pop-ups post purchase, promising you a chance to go into a draw to possibly win the cost of your purchase back – frictionless checkout is what they want.
The key will be to use time saving and innovative e-commerce technology to make purchasing easier and more efficient.
Businesses seem to be spending a lot of time, money and effort on integrating and implementing platforms which are basically just replacing what they have today rather than scaling or looking for future innovative SaaS business solutions.
Gone are the days of old school marketing techniques, businesses are investing heavily in SEO campaigns or partnerships, there’s a lot of marketing money and strategic planning that goes into getting people to visit an online site.
There’s been a great deal of work in the last 10 years to understand emotions and how people emotionally respond to stimulus, not just in advertising, and how those emotions create memories. When you’re standing in front of the shelf choosing a product, it’s those memories, whether they’re conscious or unconscious that moves your hand to the left or to the right to choose the product or brand, leaving you bewildered when you get home with more products you originally went in to purchase.
For far too long some businesses have been focused on what or how to innovate without actually doing anything definitive, which has allowed a shift in attitude for the North American big boys to look towards Australasia.
As is often the case, the broader conversation around the technology industry in the U.S. is vastly different to what is going on in Aus/NZ. Everybody is focused on AI, machine learning and the cloud, and of course the abundance of data which a lot of local retailers are susceptible to not knowing how to use it analytically to their advantage and still remain within the compliance of privacy policies.
Now is the time that digital strategies should be emphasized by senior management and communicated to all employees in order to drive future business improvement and ultimately success in the market place. To have any chance of capitalizing on the benefits on offer, they must focus on putting new ideas and intentions into action. It is not to say that Aus/NZ is any different from anywhere else in the world, some businesses or doing it well, others moderately and some less than half-measured.
The size, scale, problems and successes evoke the same challenges wherever you go. It is extremely vital to have strong buy-in from employees, business leaders and stakeholders at every level within the business.
The key, especially in the food sector will be newly established warehouse and distribution centers, run by the major food retailers. It’s a smart spend for these local retailers if they want to survive the foreign invasion and be viable. These warehouses will need to be established close to key locations and enable retailers to meet desired delivery times, at least within two hours for online purchases, that is.
The cost benefit analysis would need to be used to determine options that provide the best approach to achieve benefits while preserving savings. Strategic partnerships among the major retailers would need to be established without the hint of price collusion, merely sharing the centralized cost for warehousing and distribution. They have to keep in mind that it is only time before Goliath comes and he isn’t taking prisoners. He’s well structured, well branded and willing to take it to the edge.
Consumers will have the upper hand, using Amazon to pressure local food retailers to improve quality of home brands, prices and delivery times on all online orders. I believe that food retailers will need to move away from collection and focus more on the delivery part of the business. Consumers want convenience, not to drive around a car park looking for parking so that they can collect their groceries in person. The delivery and collection processes are the ongoing flaws of e-commerce, where out of the box thinking is required.
Foreign retailers looking to break into emerging markets have shown their willingness to invest millions of dollars in their digital transformation programs.
The challenges that we encounter down under is the fact that overseas retailers have a strong e-commerce presence and possibly the capability to dominate the online space. Retailers here in Aus/NZ don’t only need to leverage the strategies learnt from offshore retailers but instead go further and re-invent themselves and implementing out-of-box ideas in a way that benefits their customers and still remain competitive.
Providing outstanding customer service is always without a doubt, imperative for any business success. So to establish the whole customer experience, you need to look at aspects from marketing to sales to post sales care.
Loyalty begins with first impressions, establishing that all important rapport. Then it comes down to the product or service you sell. And whether you are big enough to write off the loss and regain customer loyalty, should there be an issue with the said product or service. Good word-of-mouth is a great marketing tool.
Don’t just wait for customers to tell you what they like and don’t like about what you sell and how you sell it. Ask them. If customers can see that you take steps to improve, they are more likely to recommend your business to others.
Big businesses are moving with pace and making the right moves, but too many mid to smaller retailers are putting their heads in the sand and looking for reasons why foreign retailers won’t succeed. Small businesses will need to realign there pricing to remain competitive with overseas websites, changing and adapting to better meet the market.
Customers who shop online are doing so mainly for convenience.
The world’s biggest retail and tech companies all had to overcome ridiculous, seemingly intractable odds to get where they are today. But we are increasingly affected by those from America, big businesses that have become the biggest and most powerful companies we have ever seen. That’s not to say that they are untouchable. If we have learned anything from the past year or so, is that once something enters the realm of politics, outcomes can be highly unpredictable.
The key to driving productivity growth down under will revolve around businesses that are focused on thinking outside the square and constantly innovating and investing in research and development.
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We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
-Winston Churchill-
