Reshaping Retail (PDF)

The modern retail system has worked to dazzling effect. From the
19th century, store owners emerged from small beginnings to set in
train an industry that has seen some operators become nationally,
even globally, dominant. Along the way, they turned retailing into
an art, and then a science. Now retailers in emerging markets
appear to be repeating the story all over again, except on a scale
and at a speed beyond anything we have seen before.

Given all of this, it can be hard for those who work in
retailing to accept that the industry as we know it is living on
borrowed time, on the brink of transformation. There is now an
urgency with which conventional store-based retailers must now act
and the extent of the challenges this change represents in
strategic, organizational, and above all, technological terms.

Reshaping Retail sets out the driving causes, current
trends and consequences of a transformation in retail triggered by
technology. The changes go far beyond making items available for
sale on the internet. Starting by briefly setting the historical
and business system contexts for retail and describe the role that
technology has played in the creation of modern retail it then
explains the underlying technological drivers behind the current
revolution - radical changes in the capacity of both hardware
and software, mobile telecommunications changes and the advances of
the Internet.

Ultimately, success will hinge on more than competence; it will
come down to a way of thinking. Customer-centricity will need to be
valued not just by the store owner, as in the past, but also by all
employees in the organization. It will need to become embedded in
their daily tasks. The same applies to technology, which must be at
the center of the organization and recognized as such by
everyone.

With a combination of extensive desk and field research,
interviews with leading retailers and technologists, together with
the real world experience of practitioners in this area,
Reshaping Retail will inspire and help store retailers to
make the necessary transformation now to win in the new consumer
driven world.