We all love a buzzword because they create a sense of excitement or a point of difference. They make us feel that something complex may be more straightforward, and what we think of as probably unachievable is in fact within our grasp. Retail loves a buzzword, from ‘clicks and bricks’, to ‘smart retailing’, and of course the grandaddy of them all, ‘omnichannel’. These words or phrases seem able to trigger a collective anxiety in the industry about the need for change and how failure to take appropriate action will mean you become another statistic of the ‘retail apocalypse’.
Whilst buzzwords are mostly based on meaningful terminology, the underlying detail is always stripped away. Whether this is to make them easier to understand or just increase sales is appoint of conjecture, but what’s for sure is buzzwords are fashionable, they are high impact, but there’s always a shelf life. Today’s game changing initiative is soon superseded by something bigger, better and newer.
Technology is often the catalyst for a new buzzword being created. Now nobody can deny that technology delivers a great opportunity for retailers. Financial investment is significant and growing as a percentage of turnover year-on-year, but sustainable business success is only achieved 10% via the capabilities of new functionality, and 90% by the way the retailer reacts to it and uses it in their business. If you believe that you can complete ‘digital transformation’, you can’t. There is no start, middle or end, transformation is an ongoing process, and you must continually evolve what you do and how you do it. It must be something you take as seriously as product development and customer engagement. Furthermore, it’s not a technology project. Remember the 10/90 rule. If you fail to achieve the business benefits you want, the last people to blame are your tech team.
Retailers need solutions that can respond quickly to change, they always have. But the development and implementation of ‘quick fix’ solutions over many years has created a labyrinth of different technologies and applications loosely connected by bits of code to create the illusion of integration. Some refer to this as a ‘technical debt’ that has to be paid back before progress going forward can be made. But replacing ‘legacy technology’ with ‘state of the art’ is not something that retailers want to hear. They can’t afford it financially, and it will take far too long. But it can’t be ignored.
At Retail247 we have been working closely with several retailers that are busily positioning themselves for the future. They are redefining their processes so everything they do is aligned to achieving their new business goals. They are using some new technology to achieve their objective, but they are protecting their existing core systems too. This approach means that they can move forward without feeling restricted by their old technology. This can be phased out over time as part of their ongoing transformation program. These retailers are not tagging their work with buzzwords. Instead, they are focusing on achieving their business objectives realising that they are not in project mode, instead they have adopted a whole new way of working where change is a constant, speed is a factor, and success is judged by measurable business growth. There’s no ‘rocket science’ here, but this approach could be what ‘flies them to the moon’. So how many buzzwords will it take to save retail?