Want an efficient, 21st century retail organization? Well, a good place to start might be by blowing up that antiquated 19th century Industrial Age organization chart. Do you agree that most retailers’ organizational models are unsuited to keeping up with the challenges of new platforms and channels?
Conventional wisdom holds that second-tier manufacturers won’t survive the ongoing tsunami of industry consolidation. Yet many of the firms perennially found on capitalism’s endangered species list have managed to defy the laws of commercial Darwinism. What advice would you give to second tier grocery brands looking to best position themselves in a consolidating marketplace?
Looking out over the next 10-to-20 years, one thing is clear. The primary value proposition of the convenience store industry will have to be radically redefined or the industry will become obsolete. How do you see convenience at retail being redefined in the years ahead?
It was this week in 2003 when RetailWire posted a story and discussion on Wal-Mart’s decision to sell McLane Company to Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway. Members of the BrainTrust weighed in with opinions on the future of food distribution and what Berkshire Hathaway’s ownership of McLane would mean for the company going forward…. What has being a wholly-owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway meant for McLane Company?
Successful new food product development is the result of taking two basic steps, according to Dr. Mieke Weegels of Unilever’s Consumer Perception and Behaviour Department. “First, you have to come up with a very good idea – usually based on a good consumer insight,” she said. “Then you have to translate this insight into something consumers want to eat – over and over and over again.” How prevalent is the “make and sell” approach to new product development versus the “sense and respond” path?
RetailWire Commentator Ron Margulis returns from this week’s NGA convention with renewed optimism over the future of the community-based supermarket retailer. “The unifying message of the convention was creating differentiation,” he writes. Can community-based supermarket retailers still make an impact on the industry as a whole?
Business books are big business. Occasionally, they are even helpful to readers. Recently, a panel of experts assembled by Forbes named the 20 most influential business books of the past 20 years. The list…and a chance to tell us your favorites.
How business ideas move from the edge to the mainstream and how companies can profit from the process are the subjects of a new book aimed at helping top management break out of ivory tower isolation. Do most large organizations fully leverage the ideas of their own “deviant” thinkers? Does corporate speak and the group mentality require that companies go outside their own organizations to find consultants/advisors that will challenge the status quo?
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