Mens Et Opera - Reloaded

For readers who might be interested, I thought it would be useful to gather together in one place links to various posts on Omnichannel and customer-centricity. On to the posts. It's the customer, stupid! The "relational gap" in the Australian Retail sector  The misleading Omnichannel...thing Business as a Calling: How Catchoftheday and Tinyme fulfill their call Omnichannel doesn't necessarily mean customer happiness Does Product-Centricity conflic with Customer-Centricity? Drop Shipping: the competitive advantage of pure players over bricks and mortar What's customer experience, anyway? "The Company is like a verb whose subject is the customer" Enjoy!

I recently came across an interesting executive summary of a report conducted by Capgemini involving 62 global leading online retail and consumer products (CP) companies in the grocery category (it’s a bit dated but I think still pertinent). The aim of the research was to “evaluate how visible and consumer driven the product data is in retailers’ and CP companies’ digital channels.” The research finds that in many cases the “digital product information provided to shoppers is inaccurate, incomplete or missing entirely” which doesn’t perfectly square with the need for rich consumer-oriented product data, driven by the explosion of digital channels. According to the report, the key step to provide better information and enhance the dialogue with shoppers is to “improve the visibility of product data in digital channels.” This resonates with me greatly. However, the question is “how?” That is: How to make product content relevant and consistent* across all channels?   The fol...

I recently had a chance to briefly speak with Adam Jacobs, MD and founder of The Iconic .  He’s a young and bullish entrepreneur who is doing a great job at cracking the serfdom of Australian shoppers created by the likes of David Jones and Myer. I asked him how he manages his “free three-hour same day delivery” service for those products that are on demand, i.e. not physically stored in the warehouse but still available on the website. I admit the question was thought-provoking because it brings up one of the challenges retailers face when they have a drop shipping program in place. But what's drop-shipping anyway? Imagine the possibilities for retailers to display a product on their digital channels without having it in their inventory. Exciting? Welcome to drop shipping! What has it got to do with The Long Tail? For those who have missed out the debate on ‘the long tail’, this is my capsule summary: retailers can grow sales in two ways, a) selling fewer popul...

  Paul Greenberg is an inspiring and committed individual. He is stimulating the retail industry in Australia is such a strong direction, it would deserve him a trophy. For example, rounding up a crew of fifty people from various industries and backgrounds on a bus tour was a great achievement. I was part of the crew in Melborune and I literally enjoyed the opportunity to see how StarTrack , Gabby Leibovich and Mike Wilson are running their businesses. I must admit that I was moved by seeing how ideas - often simple ones - translated into reality become source of prosperity, self-fulfillment, and common good. This brings me at once to the very point I'd like to make. I am persuaded that each person is involved in a life-task of human flourishing to realize in community with others. I have drawn this idea from Aristotle and the Christian tradition, more specifically from St. Thomas Aquinas. Regardless, I firmly believe that every man has a sense of calling that...

An IBM study found that 90% of customers want better personalisation, and are willing to spend 20 minutes to set up their information to help retailers give them a better experience. However, the same study discovered that less than a third of retailers are able to make the most of this. Interestingly, a recent survey conducted by Capgemini reveals a thorny truth that many Australian retailers won’t like to hear. Few excerpts: Relationship building (Relational aspects) is the most under-utilised dimension. The potential for generating customer intimacy and brand loyalty is currently unexploited by Australian retailers and has created a Relational Gap. The true power of relational digital commerce lies in combining established web personalisation techniques with advanced big data analytics to create effective, scalable solutions. Since it is impossible to scale a business model that relies on one-to-one human contact, digital mass personalisation aims to both individua...