After a busy start to the year we finally have a moment to share a few insights from an event we hosted recently for our clients from a number of the UK’s largest high street retailers (including Next, Boden, Phase Eight, Hacket, Zalando) at Google’s head offices.
The discussion about "The importance & evolving power of omnichannel to the consumer” was far ranging and gave a real insight into how the skillset for working in retail is evolving and transforming.
At the heart of the conversation was the need for leading retailers to attract candidates able to innovate and shape in the three key areas below.
The first key area they highlighted was data and digital, an area of our business that has grown rapidly over the last two years. Few businesses are better placed to discuss data and digital than our hosts Google and we were fortunate they were so generous with their insights. There are two principal challenges with data, identifying and collecting the available data and adding maximum value to the business from that data. The amounts and sources of data available to businesses are vast and changing fast. The skills that come under digital and data banner are almost as varied - data analysts, data scientists, developers, programmers, social media etc. Whether these data / digital roles are focused on process improvement, stock management, customer segmentation and targeting or something else, candidates with a commercial mind-set and strong technical skills are in short supply and huge demand.
Our second theme was that, as has been the case for more than a hundred years, retailers are trying to make shopping ever easier for consumers - often leveraging constantly improving data and technological capabilities. Many firms already offer one hour delivery slots even at weekends; ordering before midnight and receiving your goods the next day is now a reality; soon our bank accounts may be automatically debited when we walk out of a supermarket door - no need for checkouts; our fridges will order our milk when we run low; apps increasingly notify us of special offers based on our proximity to a specific store or our search history... Shopping has never been easier but it will be even easier still tomorrow as retailers pursue a perpetual cycle of innovation. Behind the scenes this same process of removing friction is being applied internally with the same ferocious intensity to make companies more efficient.
The third area in which retailers are innovating is transforming shopping from a transactional process where they satisfy a need into a leisure activity where they stimulate the need. Daylesford is an example of a company that has turned retail (farm shops) into the aspirational experience created by magazines. Urban Outfitters nurtures an emotional attachment with their customers providing an environment in which consumers engage with products in a context that relates to their lifestyle rather than simply stacking them high on shelves. The ability to provide shoppers with an environment which encourages them to relate to the product can be transformational for sales. But finding people able to do it is hard which is where we come in.
