Reshaping Retail (PDF)

The modern retail system has worked to dazzling effect. From the19th century, store owners emerged from small beginnings to set intrain an industry that has seen some operators become nationally,even globally, dominant. Along the way, they turned retailing intoan art, and then a science. Now retailers in emerging marketsappear to be repeating the story all over again, except on a scaleand at a speed beyond anything we have seen before.

Given all of this, it can be hard for those who work inretailing to accept that the industry as we know it is living onborrowed time, on the brink of transformation. There is now anurgency with which conventional store-based retailers must now actand the extent of the challenges this change represents instrategic, organizational, and above all, technological terms.

Reshaping Retail sets out the driving causes, currenttrends and consequences of a transformation in retail triggered bytechnology. The changes go far beyond making items available forsale on the internet. Starting by briefly setting the historicaland business system contexts for retail and describe the role thattechnology has played in the creation of modern retail it thenexplains the underlying technological drivers behind the currentrevolution - radical changes in the capacity of both hardwareand software, mobile telecommunications changes and the advances ofthe Internet.

Ultimately, success will hinge on more than competence; it willcome down to a way of thinking. Customer-centricity will need to bevalued not just by the store owner, as in the past, but also by allemployees in the organization. It will need to become embedded intheir daily tasks. The same applies to technology, which must be atthe center of the organization and recognized as such byeveryone.

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