A new year and a new decade, or is it?

When we in multi-channel retail reflect on the past decade what have we really learnt about the key drivers in consumer behaviour. 

As an international retail brand and business consultant I constantly see brands/companies becoming distracted, fixated with logos, mission statements, AI, VR, tech projects, and other such activity - all of which distracts from the real reason the company/brand is struggling.

If the foundations are crumbling you need to fix that first.

We are all consumers of someone else's business, every day we make an unconscious bias in our decision to shop with one company/brand over another. 

I've provided a link (below) to an end of 'decade' story about the number of retail brands that have disappeared from the high st, and for some their online presence as well.

My day job is to help businesses that have stalled, stagnated, or worse still in rapid decline.

"The biggest threat to any company is to lose sight of the 'why'".

I'll say it again - "The biggest threat to any company is to lose sight of the 'why'".

The 'why' is your brand equity.

So if you've elected to do more of the same, and move away from the core reason 'why' by product or category extension you have probably given ground to other brands/businesses who have managed to take away your 'why'. 

And if you think you still have years (or another decade) to resolve it, your definitely in shit street - FACT.

What I mean by this is that every single business I've been called into when dealing with a turnaround were on a race to the bottom because they lost focus on the core reason 'why' consumers previously chose to shop with them over a competitor.

When I ask the leadership team to explain to me 'why' they think the consumer has ceased going to them ahead of the competition, they go on to explain to me how through promotional marketing and advertising is how they got customers to the company previously WTF - and there you have it......the biggest indicator of an internal mindset disconnected from the external factors impacting the company.

Transformation isn't about digital, channels, tech, Apps, websites, or other fixed mindset stuff, it's totally about being consumer centric, then working out how you can add value by leveraging what you have to build the transformation bridges to the new future.