Grocery retailers urged to ‘go build the future’
The food and grocery industry is continually grappling with wave after wave of disruption, ranging from new technologies – developed at lightning speed - to global social and political developments. And it could be said that the last ten years will be judged as a period of relatively stability, compared with what the future holds.
That was the message from Joanne Denney-Finch, Chief Executive at IGD, in a speech delivered yesterday at the Checkout Conference 2018. “This disruption provides many challenges for companies, but also more opportunities to win. In the future, I’m convinced that by building upon three vital skills, grocery businesses will be able to manage all this disruption, build for the future and will emerge on the other side as thriving businesses," she said.
These are: Do the ordinary, extraordinarily well; Harness the seismic trends; and operate with agility. In terms of the latter, the big technology companies like Amazon and Google are fast-moving with adaptable business cultures. They generate a mountain of ideas and then they experiment, all while keeping a fixed vision of where they want to get to.
“This is a challenge for all of us in the food and grocery industry – the need to become more agile, to innovate, experiment, learn and adapt very quickly,” commented Denney-Finch. “The key is to keep investing in your people and empowering them to make those frontline decisions. Set a series of micro-goals along the road to your vision and ensure you celebrate every success. Use real-time data, keep refining your forecast and make sure everyone is kept up to date – these are the behaviours of the most agile companies.”
She concluded: “I urge everyone to enjoy the challenge of dealing with disruption. People that overcome big challenges deliver amazing results. You have the opportunity to live in exciting times, face defining challenges, show your leadership qualities and build a better future. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have all the answers yet, nobody does, what’s important is the passion, the bravery, the energy, the openness to change and the desire to keep building your skillset. Dig deep, find these qualities and go build the future.”