Author: Carl Benedikt Frey

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Comments: *Carl Benedikt Frey is the co-author of the famous paper from Oxford University published in 2013 which gained so much notoriety because it purportedly argued that 47% of US jobs would be automated by the mid-2030s. The paper in question of course argued no such thing: it in fact looked at the characteristics of over 700 jobs and found that 47% of them were at “high risk” of automation, meaning that they are the most vulnerable. Whether they will actually be automated will depend on costs, regulations; political pressure; social resistance etc.

Frey has now developed his argument more fully in The Technology Trap. It turns out that he is worried that the effects of technology and automation will not be properly managed. He takes lessons from the history of industrialisation. The first is that it takes time for the effects of technology to be seen in productivity. This is known as Engels’s pause which describes the delay before technology results in more jobs and higher wages. The second is that before the positive effects are felt, automation is likely to increase inequality leading to unrest and opposition. This may in turn slow the pace of automation and productivity growth. This the “technology trap” of the title. It could be avoided by managing the transition, for example through educational measures, income tax credit to alleviate inequality and provide incentives, increasing the ease of mobility, access to cities and others. Whether these measures are reasons for optimism is not clear, especially since some seem to generate adverse reactions.*

Author: Lydia Bacrie and Charlotte Brunel

Publisher: La Martinière

Comments: *The book traces the history and impact of new materials, which have gradually enriched the clothing sector. A work carried out by journalists Lydia Bacrie and Charlotte Brunel for the the Première Vision tradeshows. In this richly illustrated volume are evoked the great stages of the textile industry, from the rise of stich to recent connected materials while passing by the great time of Lurex, the appearance of polyamides, without forgetting the recent multiplication eco-friendly materials, and the evolution of colors and prints.

The book also recounts the history and evolution of the Première Vision tradeshows.

[The book is available in French only so far]*

Author: Shoshana Zuboff

Publisher: Public Affairs

Date: 2019

Shoshana Zuboff is professor at Harvard and author, among others, of “In the Age of the Smart Machine”, a prescient book on the future of work published in 1989. This latest book has been described by the Financial Times as “unmissable” and by the New York Times as “extraordinarily intelligent”. It develops her fundamental thesis that this new form of capitalism was invented in 2001 by Google then spread through Facebook and others, migrating to the real world providers of goods and services.

Private human experience has become behavioural data in the marketplace where it gets traded and whole new markets develop. These develop around predictive analyses which allow entrepreneurs to know what we will do now and in the future. This has progressively become a “default” model which monetises data about customers, and which has become the terrain on which the future of the digital economy will be fought.

Two excellent interviews of this articulate author are available online:

See the video

Read the interview 

Author: Finn Brunton

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Date: 2019

Comments:Just as the press and commentators are competing with opinions about Facebook’s recently announced Libra “crypto”-currency, Finn Brunton, professor at New York University, publishes this history of cryptocurrencies and the motivations behind their advocates. Although the technical jargon of crypto-currencies can sometimes be impenetrable, the common thread uniting previous attempts has been that fiat cash is on the way out and that those with cryptocurrencies will be the new elite. Brunton’s thesis is that money is a cosmogram, a model of the universe and a plan for how to organise life and society accordingly. So the shift to crypto-currency is not just the collapse of money, but the collapse of society as we know it. This goes for the technocrats of the 1930s who proposed a stable currency tied to units of energy; the cypherpunks (including WikiLeaks Julian Assange) who saw digital money as part of the struggle against the state; and the extropians who dreamt of a healthier smarter humanity based on a barter system. Libra by Facebook was announced too late to be included in the book but it is striking that its utopian talk of financial inclusion and stability echoes earlier propositions. While Facebook is certainly a powerful backer, both financially and politically, it does not mean that it will be successful, especially as legislators and others have made clear their doubts about the proposed system. While some innovative approaches to finance are clearly needed, the author doubts that crypto-currencies represent the future of money. Historically, movements that believed in the end of money have not ended well.

Author: Jonathan Aldred

Publisher: Penguin

Comments: *Cambridge economist Jonathan Aldred challenges the view that economists are unsentimental, straight talking and brutally honest.  “For decades”, he writes, “the default starting point of mainstream economists has been to assume that selfishness is the natural, dominant determinant of human behaviour.” Over the past fifty years, the way we value what is “good” and “right” has changed dramatically. Behaviour that to our grandparents' generation might have seemed stupid, harmful or simply wicked now seems rational, natural, woven into the very logic of things. And, asserts Jonathan Aldred, it is economics that's to blame.

This book tells the story of how a group of economics theorists changed our world, and how a handful of key ideas seeped into our decision-making and, indeed, almost all aspects of our lives. Aldred reveals the extraordinary hold of economics on our morals and values. Economics has corrupted us. But if this hidden transformation is so recent, it can be reversed. Licence to be Bad shows us where to begin.*

Author: Dave Ulrich and Arthur Yeung

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press

Comments: *Authors Ulrich and Yeung, respectively from the University of Michigan and Tencent, argue that the traditional organisation is dead. New models have been suggested to replace it such as the agile organisation, holacracy and others. But do they really work? How can we build an organisation that is responsive to fast-changing markets? What kind of organisation delivers both speed and scale, and how should it be led?

Yeung and Ulrich provide leaders with a much-needed blueprint for reinventing the organisation. Based on their in-depth research at leading Chinese, US, and European firms such as Alibaba, Amazon, DiDi, Facebook, Google, Huawei, Supercell, and Tencent, and drawing from their synthesis of the latest organisation research and practice, they explain how to build a new kind of organisation that responds to changing market opportunities with speed and scale. They call it a "market-oriented ecosystem” and it delivers radically greater value in fast-moving markets.*

The 2018 GDSS organised by Selfridges and the IGDS, took place in London at the QEII Conference Centre in Westminster. Selfridges was voted best department store for the fourth time. The message of the conference was that retailers who do not innovate will die.

GDSS 2018: short report of the conference from WWD 

Global Department Stores Summit 2018 - website

Six takeaways from Coresight:

• The “retail apocalypse” story is “great clickbait,” but it is not taken seriously as an accurate depiction of US retail.
• JD.com’s Richard Liu predicted that the retail industry will be operated at some point by artificial intelligence (AI) and robots, rather than by humans—but he did not predict when.
• Alibaba Group sees Tmall as the “gateway to China” for Western retailers and brands and notes that the platform enables these companies to test products rapidly.
• Premium department store retailers are investing in regionally tailored, boutique-like stores.
• Inditex implemented radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to digitally track its products and, so, improve business operations and the customer experience.
• Investments in technology can be “peanuts” compared with the return they provide for retailers.

The “premium department stores” mentioned are, in fact, El Palacio de Hierro in Mexico and Harvey Nichols in London. The CEO of Palacio, Juan Carlos Escribano described the recently renovated Santa Fe store part of a project to curate stores for specific cities and communities. In this way, the store at Santa Fe has been redesigned around the theme of “wellness” with a 17500m² gym, and organic food. In contrast to the classic flagship-branch store model, each store has a theme which aligns with locations and local demands.

Note: the IADS Store Operations meeting in June 2018 will take place in Mexico and will include a visit of the Palacio de Hierro store in Santa Fe as well as the one in Perisur and the flagship in Polanco.

Harvey Nichols, which considers itself more of a large boutique, prioritises personalised service, style, daring and customer obsession.

Other news and ideas of the conference included:

• The rebranding of Cortefiel as Tendam
• Branding processes have speeded up as illustrated by Buzzfeed
• Speed was also part of the M&S operations where big data is allied with AI to personalise and be smart
• TMall promises a gateway to the Chinese market  for foreign brands
• Amazon is still the main example of frictionless low price shopping experience
• Speed and service once again, this time as the main components for success in the Chinese market according to JD.com
• Information needs to be shared among partners in retail
• Stores are increasingly about the experience, not the transaction, according to Lego
• A US recession is on the way according to Deloitte
• There is a strong need for more women in middle and senior management posts
• “Be bold, brave, test, and don’t wait until you know the answer”, according to Kingfisher
• Sustainability standards in fashion are increasing but there is still much to do
• The future of retailing is all about flexibility
• The example of Ikea shows the importance of company culture and simple values

Reports

Day 1

Summary by World Retail Congress

Summary by Coresight

Day 2

Summary by World Retail Congress

Summary by Coresight

Join the next World Retail Congress on 14-16 May 2019 in Amsterdam

World Retail Congress - website

Presentations - Concurrent sessions

How AI is currently powering retail's growth

International perspectives on building a digital-first culture inside your organization

Leading with positivity: Retail 2018

Retail trend watch: Inspiration beyond Amazon for transformation

An economic tour of retail around the world

Presentations - Exhibitor big ideas

Challenges in an e-commerce world

The "insane" business case: Why brand CFOs love uniting brand and commerce sites

Transforming the store into the warehouse

Building the future of intelligent retail

Videos from NRF

New NYC stores worth a visit!

Three new search technologies: Get the right products at the right time

Best of retail 2020: Logistical and post-sale transformative technology

The what and how of digital transformation: Three consumer expectations to meet now

Infusing innovation: How to develop and deploy disruption

Retail trend watch: Inspiration beyond Amazon for transformation

The fanatical customer and building brand loyalty

Analysis

Analysis by Deloitte, 2018 Global Powers of Retail:

Transformative change, reinvigorated commerce

Stores

Latest store openings in New York City

NRF 2018 - website

IADS Chief Information Officers meeting

Author: Barbara e. Kahn

Publisher: Wharton School Press

What: A new matrix to analyse the competitive advantage of a retailer

Why it is important:  The matrix is simple to use and to understand, quite clear in terms of strategy involved in each of its quadrants. Even though the analysis dates from before 2020 and its multiple changes, the basis of the reflexion remain very valid and some of the points made by the author remain more relevant than ever today.

Barbara E. Kahn is Professor or Marketing at the Wharton School since 2011. Prior to that, she used to be Dean at the School of Business Administration, University of Miami. She has been a member of various consumer research bodies, and has extensively written on marketing, grocery and consumer-related topics.

The forces transforming retail

Barbara Kahn identifies 7 forces reshaping the retail business as we know it:

• Amazon and the notion of unlimited offer (endless aisle), superior customer management (Amazon Prime), and threefold business model helping to generate revenues while decreasing retail prices to the maximum (Amazon Web Services AWS and Amazon Marketplace generating the bulk of the profits, helping to “fund” the low operational margins at Amazon retail),
• Omnichannel shopping (with mobile phone shopping market share going from 2% in 2012 to 30% in 2020),
• Massive data collection (implying the necessity to be able to monetize what is collected),
• New retail tech (VR, AR),
• Vertical integration, with brands cutting the middleman and reverberating the savings on the final retail price, supported by a strong brand narrative,
• Real estate oversupply (in the US), while mall visits were halved between 2010 and 2013,
• New customers coming on top of millennials: Gen Z customers (less price conscious, more sustainability-oriented, not loyal to brands, digitally native, valuing experience over things, and in agreement to share data provided the experience is worth it).

As a consequence, there is a necessity to be customer centric, i.e. give customers what they want after having earned their trust, and, ideally, in a perfectly frictionless shopping process. Barbara E Kahn goes further by mentioning that in reality, retailers must do so better than the others.

For memory, this book was published two years before the 2020 pandemic that radically transformed the business, and it is interesting to see how the identified items remain more than relevant now.

The Kahn matrix

Barbara E. Kahn has developed a matrix helping to identify the type of competitive advantage owned by a market player, and identify further axes of development:

![The Shopping Revolution

![The Shopping Revolution

For the author, retailers looking for superior competitive advantage need to be good in at least 2 quadrants. She then exemplifies each quadrant through a retailer she considers leader in its initial quadrant:

• Frictionless quadrant

Amazon is first excellent in the frictionless quadrant, and also a leader in the low price quadrant.

In 2017 the e-tailer represented 34% of the total US market with a turnover of USD 44 bn. It was expected to reach a total market share of 50% in 2020 (note: this is not the case). The author notes that the margin per product can be as low as 3%, which is possible thanks to the profits generated by AWS (data warehousing, 7.4% of Amazon total revenue in 2015 and 41% of its total income), Amazon prime (paid membership programme generating 60% of total dollar value) and Market place (and the commissions paid by vendors, representing 1/5 of the total revenue in 2017).

• Low price quadrant

Walmart is excellent in the low price quadrant, and good in the frictionless / omnichannel one (which shows, for the author, that the promise of a low price is not enough).

• Product brands quadrant

On the one hand, she identifies DTCs as leaders in this quadrant. Kahn differentiates two types of DTCs:

-     Legacy DTCs such as Zara or Trader Joes, usually quite large and profitable companies,

-     DNVBs such as Casper, Warby Parker, where the story, the experimentation and the frictionless approach are elements of differentiation. They struggle, however, to reach the needed levels of profitability to scale up.

Kahn also mentions that luxury brands embody the unparalleled product experience needed to be a strong product brand. However Kahn notices that they can not rely on this element only, and most of them are also eyeing the Experience quadrant and the Frictionless one.

• Experience quadrant

Here, Kahn mentions brands such as Eataly, Story, Costco, TJ Maxx, Burlington, Sephora or Rebecca Minkoff to develop her argument. The examples mentioned are quite heterogeneous and this part of the demonstration is less convincing than the three other ones.

Going further: we need new KPIs

Kahn concludes her analysis by reminding that:

• To be a leader, retailers must be superior in terms of execution in at least 2 quadrants…
• … but this is not enough: they must also provide a fair value in the other ones…
• … all the more that the market is getting even more competitive.

She also states that the old KPIs are no longer adapted to the new world: sales by square metre are not customer centric enough to be helpful in the new retail realities, and she calls for new tools such as brand impressions, digital purchase intent index, customer convenience KPIs or “share of home” through Siri, Alexa or Google home.

• Buy it on Amazon here

Author: Colin Mayer

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Comments: *Colin Mayer, former dean of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, is critical of companies who chose dispersed ownership rather than a more long-term oriented ownership structure such as family ownership for example. Thus Mars of the US is still family owned in contrast to its rival the UK Cadbury, whose founding Quaker owners floated the company and finally gave it up to Kraft of the US in 2010. However, structure alone does not guarantee stability, accountability or social purpose.

His real target is what he calls the shift to a dangerous monoculture of business in the 1990s and 2000s. This has led to a number different corporate models such as employee ownership, mutual and family companies being overshadowed by an increasingly self-interested listed company model. He is not pessimistic and indeed believes that capitalism has a bright future. However, he warns we stand “on the border between creation and cataclysm”, especially since the last decade of regulation has barely improved the flawed corporate model. We need to divert our path  towards “the age of the trusted corporation”.*

Author: Thomas H. Davenport

Publisher: MIT Press

Comments: *Thomas Davenport specialises in analytics, business process innovation and knowledge management. He is currently the President’s Distinguished Professor in Information Technology and Management at Babson College, a Fellow of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, Co-founder of the International Institute for Analytics, and a Senior Advisor to Deloitte Analytics.

This is the latest of his twenty-odd books and in it he takes a typically no-nonsense approach to AI. He is concerned above all with how to use AI in business. Davenport explains that the business value AI offers is solid rather than sexy. AI will improve products and processes and make decisions better informed: important but largely invisible tasks. AI technologies won’t replace human workers but augment their capabilities, with smart machines to work alongside smart people. AI can automate structured and repetitive work; provide extensive analysis of data through machine learning (“analytics on steroids”), and engage with customers and employees via chatbots and intelligent agents. Companies should experiment with these technologies and develop their own expertise.*

Author: Yotam Ottolenghi

Publisher: Ebury Press

Comments: Yotam Ottolenghi is a food writer and chef operating the Ottolenghi delis and Nopi restaurant. This is a recipe book which makes his Middle Eastern food seem easy. They are all simple in at least one of the following ways: S (short on time: less than 30 minutes); I (10 ingredients or less); M (make ahead); P (pantry); L (lazy); E (easier than you think).It is interesting that this famous chef writer has joined the simple movement and claims simplicity as a virtue without necessitating the sacrifice of originality and flavour.

Authors: Michael Dart & Robin Lewis

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Comments: After their provocative The New Rules of Retail two years ago, Michael Dart and Robin Lewis strike again with Retail’s Seismic Shift, a look at the next big changes in retail and the fundamental reasons why “many companies will fail during the next few years”. The growing imbalance between supply and demand is the main culprit and the gap between the two will continue to grow because of a series of dramatic trends: the authors list dematerialisation; demography; the fragmentation of the market; and technology as some of these trends. In technology, APIs (noted in the January 2018 CIO meeting), blockchain, mobile computing power, and of course AI are discussed. But this is not a treatise about technology. It describes a deep change, in particular away from the benefits of economies of scale which underlie so much of the taken-for-granted thinking in business today. Dart and Lewis recommend constructing a brand for the future through clear values, by raising the customer’s self-esteem, through innovation, maintaining relative scarcity, and a consistent identity. The new retail requires a different frame of mind which includes the agility and flexibility of a “liquefied organisation”, and the advantages of a “platform model”.

Author: Daniel M. Cable

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press

Comments:Daniel Cable is concerned by the enormous number of employees drifting through their working week in what he calls a “commute to the weekend”. The real war for talent identified by this London Business School professor of organisational behaviour, is not hiring new employees from competitors but unleashing dormant enthusiasm in the existing workforce. Too many organisations deactivate the “seeking system” of their employees through fear and anxiety which kills experimentation. It would appear that, although creativity is valued at the very top of organisations, it is less prized further down the hierarchy. We need to learn how to build creative environments that motivate people to share ideas, work smarter, and embrace change.

Author: Paul R. Daugherty & H. James Wilson

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press

Comments: Of all the tech trends coming our way and which are often mystifying to the layperson, the authors identify AI as the “alpha trend”, the most important, as the one which will have greatest effect. They look at:

• 3 myths:

+ Robots are coming for us

+ Machines will take our jobs

+ Current approaches will still apply

• 3 imperatives:

+ Re-imagine business (automate ->re-engineer ->re-imagine)

+ New approach to work: “collaborative intelligence”

+ Responsible AI (a C-suite responsibility)

• 3 challenges:

+ Skills and learning

+ Data veracity

+ There is no finish line

We should all work on acquiring a finer understanding of AI and what effects it is likely to have.

video - Human + Machine: See lecture at NorthWestern University

Authors: Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press

Comments:The authors, from the Rotman  School of Management of the University of Toronto, recast AI as a significant lowering of the cost of prediction. When seen in this way, the magic of AI as it is used to drive cars, to trade stocks or to teach children, falls away and the hype becomes, in economic terms, cheap prediction. As such it still has extraordinary potential. For example, prediction is at the heart of decision-making under uncertainty; prediction tools increase productivity through handling machines, handling documents and communicating with customers; prediction liberates strategy and opens the door to new business structures and strategies. A good introduction to AI, Prediction Machines develops its huge consequences out of a relatively simple economics framework.

Author: Giulia Mensitieri

Publisher: La Découverte

Comments: This book, based on a doctorate in anthropology at EHESS, France, is packed with revelations about the fashion world. For example that a number of models strutting the runways of top fashion houses are doing so for free; that the clothes presented are assembled often for several months, day and night, by talented workers on minimum wages. This story of stylists, models, photographers, creators and make-up artists is a story of passion and devotion which enables all these actors to accept the unacceptable, and to trade their flexibility for a form of slavery. It uncovers a new form of insecurity characteristic of modern capitalistic cultural industries, which combine with glamour, fame and visibility. The book is an attempt to decode the invisible dynamics underpinning the fashion industry and thus “deglamourize” it.

IADS Takeaways

Presentations - Day 2

Key growth trends for Asia retailing - Michelle Grant

Building a New Interactive Retail Platform (Ⅱ) - Roger Wang

Back to the Nature of Retail, Innovative Retail Transformation Model - Fang Wei

More growth! Challenge to the future of the Japanese retail and distribution industry - Yotetsu Hayashi

Retail Business Environment in South East Asia - Shaun Chong

The making of SOGO Malaysia - our journey into the future - Datuk Alfred Cheng

Seven Eleven’s Management Strategy - Kazuki Furuya

Introduction - Shah Karim

The future is scary - Howard Saunders

Presentations - Day 3

The Art Creativeity & Design in Retailing - John Peeters

Omni-channel is the new Retail Reality - Hoseok Kim

Be Open and Innovate，to Share and Empower - Qian Fangzheng

The Art of Being World Class in F&B - Joanne Denney-Finch

EAT. DRINK. SHOP. - Benjamin Yong

The present condition of Japanese Retail Business (supermarket) and challenges in the future - Yukio Kawano

New Retail Trends - Chen Xiao Dong

Online Payment disruption and creating blue ocean - Chan Kok Long

Adherence and Innovation: Payment under New Retails - Hu Ying

AEON’s basic philosophy and the role of retailer - Soichi Okazaki

APRCE 2017 - website

General Information

Takeaways

Programme

Presentations

Global Economic Outlook - Craig Wright, Royal Bank of Canada

Omnichannel Retailing: the Inconvenient Truth - Nicolo Galante, Central Group

Serving Customers in a Digitally Connected World - Erik Nordstrom, Nordstrom

Store Pictures

Holt Renfrew, Toronto

Nordstrom, Toronto

Hudson's Bay, Toronto

The World Retail Congress took place in April 2017 in Dubai. A report on the congress has now been produced. It give some details of presentations, some videos, and a summary. The ten main points to takeaway:

1. The transformation of retail is taking place now.

1. Retailers are not selling stuff but selling experiences.

1. Data is everything.

1. By 2020, most retailers will have a digital stage.

1. The next technology age is that of machine learning.

1. Change is taking place at an unprecedented speed.

1. Do not forget the basics of retail: emotion, people, service and product.

1. Consumers now expect sustainability from retailers.

1. Think Gen Z and Gen α (those born entirely in 21st century).

1. The future will see a total integration of online, offline, logistics, and data.

see WRC report

Next meeting: 17-19 April 2018, Madrid, Spain

THEME 2017

Mobile marketing on all channels

euroshop17 - pix

Reaching the mobile customer anywhere

Similar to the “classic” forms of advertising, mobile marketing also offers a variety of options to reach the user.

This includes the retailer’s own apps of course, advertising in external sponsored apps and on mobile websites as well as the increasingly utilized QR code, which routes the user to the store or directly to the product.

Next Event

IADS Takeaways

Presentations

A View From Walmart: How Retailers are Creating Economic Opportunity

How to Turn New Customers Into Repeat Consumers

Your Secret Weapon: Making Retail With Personality

#Lovethestore: When You Do Digital Right

"Glocalization:" Why Going Global Means Not Forgetting Local Identities

Move Over, Globalization: Community Retail Has Arrived

more presentations

Author: Adam Alter

Publisher: Penguin Press

Comments:According to Adam Alter, professor of psychology and marketing at NYU, we live in an age of behavioural addiction. Whether it is emails, Instagram likes, TV episodes, or working hours, we are allowing our behaviour to be set for us. We spend an average three hours a day on our smartphones and millennial kids struggle to interact with real, live humans. He tracks how so many of today’s products are “irresistible”. He also suggests how we can harness addictive products for the good; to improve how we communicate, spend and save our money, and set boundaries between work and play.