Is agile fulfillment the solution to retail’s renaissance?
Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from the TXT Group blog.
Clearly, it’s not the best of times for a traditional retailer. The stock market is at a new high, unemployment a new low – normally plenty to warm a retail heart. However, the upward trend is store closings and pity parties. Worse, if you didn’t move early and quickly to online, has that high-growth opportunity passed you by? Amazon.com wins about 50 percent of every incremental online dollar and just welcomed their 50 millionth apparel customer.
As in any other structural change, there will be winners and losers, as Darwin insures only the strongest (smartest) survive. Some will win by gaining market share from failed competitors, most need to adopt new business practices and operationalize significant changes in shopper interaction. The picture of the “new normal” is still hazy but there are early indicators of the types of capabilities that retailers should understand and align with to insure they are renaissance ready.
Firstly, you (still) need great product, ideally an exclusive brand that you control. Also, a quick adaptive supply chain, fast-fashion technique will spread to more industries, so hone your skills at designing or acquiring more products with shorter life cycles.
Secondly, you need to master the “fulfillment chain.” Unlike the supply chain, this is about planning and placing product and information along the path to purchase that your shopper will utilize — researching and ordering on the web, while leveraging the multi-function store, (a showroom, a shop and a fulfillment/return center). A high functioning fulfillment chain is the mixed mode successor to the pre-renaissance model of buy in store, or on the web, with chaotic and expensive intersections in between. A modern fulfillment chain needs to make sense for your customer, organization and bottom line.
Retailers have thrived in the past by creating repeatable, high-scale, low-cost, hardened processes built on monolithic systems that supported a (formerly) profitable business model, but destroyed agility. Thriving in the future will involve turning that model on its head and creating high-scale, maybe not so -low cost but highly-agile capabilities.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Do you agree that retailers will need to focus on agility over scale around fulfillment to manage retail’s ongoing shifts? In what ways can retailers achieve a cost-effective fulfillment chain?
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12 Comments on "Is agile fulfillment the solution to retail’s renaissance?"
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Strategy Architect – Digital Place-based Media
When manufacturing capacity far exceeds buying capacity consumer preference must dominate the operating principles of the supply chain. This is Amazon 101, which physical retailers are fundamentally wrestling with. Boutique retail understands this and brands are adjusting to this new survival reality. Agility calls on more stock refreshment, shipping and promotional planning but the rewards are in the increased traffic that comes with a desire for discovery and conversion related to more unique products. Being nimble in merchandising pays big rewards.
Principal, Retail Technology Group
Retailers will need to increase their focus on agility of fulfillment. That agility will be supported or provided by a combination of computer systems that integrate all the fulfillment locations and permutations seamlessly, in real-time, combined with the ability to procure product — down to the SKU level — more quickly than had been possible more than three or four years ago.
President and CEO, Stealing Share
Is this a choice between two values? Clearly retailers need to have both. If survival of the fittest is real (as you describe) then agility and scale need to join forces.
CEO, One Door
I disagree that retailers will need to focus on agility over scale. They need to do what modern, digital, organizations manage to do — focus on both. And it isn’t something they “will need” to do. If they’re not doing this already, it’s too late.
I know that “digital transformation” is a term that gets overused, but the retail supply chain is a poster-child candidate for the definition of this term. At virtually every step in the retail supply and fulfillment chain today there are incredible opportunities to leverage digital tools to increase agility without limiting scale.
Strategy & Operations Delivery Leader, Capgemini
Founder and CEO at Orkiv.com
Agile store ops are a necessary strategy within the retailer’s roadmap. More and more the stores need to consider how to use their stores as miniature, real-time fulfillment centers, enabling smarter use of the space. Consumers want quick and efficient shopping experiences. Understanding this and integrating frictionless checkout experiences not only helps the consumer but the retailers.
This also creates valuable data which allows retailers to automatically improve their ability to target customers and increase purchase frequency.
Global Retail & CPG Sales Strategist, IBM
All businesses, not just retailers, need to become more agile. In fact all business partners in the retailer’s ecosystem must be able to respond in almost real-time to the ever-evolving operational landscape that is driven by consumers, competitors and external forces. I believe that many retailers will actually continue to operate their fulfillment functions five years from now the same way they do today. The trouble is these retailers will not be growing profits at the same pace as the agile innovators will be. It’s as simple as that.
Managing Partner Cambridge Retail Advisors
Vice President, Strategic RelationsHamacher Resource Group
Achieving a cost-effective fulfillment chain requires that retailers stop trying to force fit an approach into their existing framework. I envision a FaaST (Fulfillment-as-a-Service Transaction) model where focus is on the entire consumer experience and speed of execution and not solely focused on pick, pack, and ship. I’d love to see how we can work together to transition to a FaaST end-to-end process and replace the outmoded, product-centric model.
Chief Amazement Officer, Shepard Presentations, LLC
Should agility be given more weight than scale? The best retailers have that in balance. And, those best companies run on highly refined repeatable systems that scale. That said, the old saying is: “The only constant is change.” The best companies know this, and their systems, while consistent, have room for flexibility. The solution is for a retailer to forecast using different models. Planning for what is most likely to happen without considering these other possibilities can be dangerous, especially as competition heats up and innovative companies disrupt the retail industry.
Founder, Grey Space Matters
Agility over scale works for small, it won’t work for large. Agility is a strategy and implies a recognition that not all customers are on the same journey nor do they have the same wants, needs and expectations. To embrace agility but not in a scalable manner is a fail unless you’re a small merchant.
Scale is relative to which customers a retailer is serving. Part of loyalty marketing is the recognition that not all customers are equal (in value) and thus scale might not be the same thing as being able to do everything for every customer. Loyalty marketing discipline says this is likely a mistake. For example, Amazon scales its expedited shipping for Prime members, not for all customers. This is simple in concept but gets more complex in determining what services – fulfillment or otherwise – need to be developed and executed for all customers rather than select ones.
Retail Transformation Thought Leader, Advisor, & Strategist