Retailer Digital Disruption: Why An Organizational Shift Is Needed Now, Part 2

digital disruption, organizational shift, ecommerce, digital retailing, data analytics

Part one of this series, Retailer Digital Disruption: Why an Organizational Shift is Needed Now, was featured in Total Retail's Fall print issue.

As difficult as it can be, traditional retailers must re-architect their organizations through the lens of their customer’s complete user experience, embracing a seamless cross-channel point of view and reorganizing to serve the customer, not to maintain outdated practices that are most likely hamstringing growth. They must move swiftly to first develop a long-term strategy, ideally with someone at the helm who is empowered to make tough decisions and understand the business from a holistic, digital perspective.

Next, they must gain organizationwide buy-in, starting at the top. The new road map could be painful if it entails dissolving and re-engineering merchant teams, store, warehouse and inventory management processes and breaking down silos in an effort to meet current customer expectations to breed and nurture long-term customer loyalty. It may even be determined the technology teams are working under outdated, time-draining waterfall methods, and learning and overhauling these areas to work in an agile method is required.

In this second of the series on traditional retailers adapting to digital disruption, I discuss a road map to reimagining and building a current, digitally sustainable retail organization that will survive well into the future.

Posted by Linda Mihalick on: 
Nov 4 2017