Food Forum: Fueling a Culture of Innovation

As a springboard to the Global Market Development Center's annual General Merchandise Marketing Conference, we launched a Retail Tomorrow Advisory Board to leverage innovation in the marketplace through development and advancement of unique and first-mover products, services and technologies for members. 

A new website created as a hub for the Retail Tomorrow initiative, retailtomorrow.com, helps accelerate the retailer “next practice” process for the fast-paced change of consumer shopping habits. 

Not surprisingly, consumers—and even the industry itself—demand ideas, products, services and technologies that are truly revolutionary. While many companies, and even other associations, are talking about innovation, Retail Tomorrow will deliver opportunities and open pathways of discovery for provocative, product- and process-changing solutions in the marketplace. 

In addition, the force of change that Amazon is driving, is not only deep into the retail industry, but is also reshaping the minds and expectations of consumers around the world. It is begging the question: “is the country over-stored?” That question deserves an appropriate and strategic answer for all of brick-and-mortar.

While e-commerce continues to disrupt traditional retail, shoppers continue to expect a great experience inside their favorite store. That can work to a retailers’ advantage. Online cannot deliver an experience through well-informed associates, innovative merchandising, immersive aisles or a store-within-a-store selection of relevant products for a niche lifestyle that brick-and-mortar can offer. So, while the market is changing, brick-and-mortar stores must transform at the pace of this change, not just to survive, but to thrive, and look well into the future.

From 2010 to 2015, U.S. online consumer packaged goods sales experienced a compounded annual growth rate of 25 percent. To keep up with this growth, marketers are searching for new ways to modernize companies and engage more digital shoppers. Retailers must capitalize on what e-commerce is not capable of doing. 

These dynamic changes in the digital shopping realm have led to the emergence of “clicks-and-bricks.” Consumers are more tech savvy and deal-seeking than ever, especially Millennials, and their driving force is the mobile device. For many younger consumers, mobile devices have become the primary source for product discovery and acquisition. This means transparency across all channels is not only needed, but also required to move business forward and retain customers. 

GMDC is dedicated to harnessing this changing consumer dynamic with new initiatives that will increase trips and boost destination shopping to new levels. The key to that kind of success is spelled: I-N-N-O-V-A-T-I-O-N.

That is exactly why Retail Tomorrow is committed to “the store of the future.”

Companies focused on driving innovation understand that creativity thrives when it becomes woven into the cultural fabric. Today, many people inside companies do not believe they are tasked with bringing good ideas to the table, but instead are encouraged to be “efficient” more than they are “innovative.” That is why discovery is at the intersection of lucky and good. We have all heard the adage “I’d rather be lucky than good,” but the questions I ask are, “why is it an either/or?” and “can’t we be both lucky and good?”

As innovative thinking becomes decentralized, nimble decision-making takes over, and the entire illusion of rigidity within an organization dissipates. From that point, good becomes lucky, lucky becomes good, and both—in harmony—can drive sales growth and ROI. 

Retail Tomorrow will fuel tomorrow’s trends today. It is where innovation meets opportunity.

Members of the Retail Tomorrow Advisory Board include co-chairs Mark Ciccone, industry consultant and pioneer for the Innovation Center at Procter & Gamble; and Trey Holder, principal at Propeller Retail – a venture capital and private equity firm; Tom Duffy, vice president of industry services for Nielsen; Mark Deuschle, president of Navajo Incorporated; and Scott Shillington, vice president of sales and business development at Tile, a wireless tracking app innovator.

“Today’s sellers have to navigate physical and virtual consumers, from Millennials to Boomers in a seamless, smart and differentiated way,” says Holder. “Retail Tomorrow brings together years of experience to provide new and established companies with insight and guidance that will help them recognize and connect to the evolving shopper and store of the future.”    

Patrick Spear is president and CEO of GMDC. He can be reached at [email protected].