Leadership and transformation in multichannel retail and eCommerce
Just released, the latest episode of the podcast in with Jamie and I chat about the NRF’s Big Show 2020 in New York, and our store tour there. We were an official podcast partner and took advantage of the booth there to do an interview with Laura Padfield, who runs strategy and development for M&S’ International activities…
In which we spend time in the studio with Jamie de Cesare of Orlebar Brown and Annabel Thorn of Sweaty Betty.
You can subscribe to us via iTunes/Apple Podcasts via this button, or listen live via the Podbean player.
Let us know your thoughts – and don’t forget to volunteer people or yourself to guest in future 🙂
Thanks to Brand Quarterly for publishing my article on the challenge of ‘silos’ in retail. Charged with being simultaneously agile/flexible and stable/optimised, organisational silos were an answer to the latter, yet create a barrier to the former. In this article I discuss the balance that retail leaders must strike in order to benefit from flexibility as well as efficiency.
The Eternal Battle In Multichannel Retail: Flexibility Vs Efficiency
Provided you didn’t blink in the wrong place you may have caught my contribution to a BBC documentary on how John Lewis prepares for Christmas. I had great fun contributing to a topic that we’ve covered ourselves – namely how the elite retailers prepare for peak. An interesting take within the programme was that #BlackFriday had changed the ‘traditional’ Christmas peak, and further looked at the role of eCommerce ‘pure play’ giant Amazon.co.uk in the competitive landscape for John Lewis.
The programme aired on 23 December, 2015, titled “Christmas Shopping Fever 2015: John Lewis and the Retail Race” and you can see it for a while on BBC iPlayer – http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06t3kqt/christmas-shopping-fever-2015-john-lewis-and-the-retail-race
I was really impressed with the research the team did beforehand. We had a number of phone discussions, follow-up questions and a good brief on the ‘arc’ of the show. I had a great time filming my snippets and even though it was a couple of hours the time passed really quickly. I’m sure that TV production crews forget how interesting we find the whole process! Most of the filming I do is around our events and these tend to be one-take-only commentaries. At first I thought that it was a luxury to have more time, but now I simply feel a combination of awe and sympathy at the skill and patience needed to turn hundreds of hours of footage into a coherent, brief broadcast!
My on-screen contribution comprised of a review of the customer expectations on delivery (c 0h24’) and upon the role of SEO in supporting visibility and sales at peak (c0h30’).
We’ve covered John Lewis extensively on InternetRetailing – they’re one of our “Elite” UK retailers in the InternetRetailing Top500. You can see John Lewis’ company listing as well as information on the Top500 on our site.
We also covered BlackFriday and CyberMonday with rolling, on-the-hour information on the performance of the Top23 retailers in the UK and John Lewis’ performance over peak fared well.
I was pleased to give the keynote address to the eCommerce Scotland Forum on 13 February in Glasgow.
c270 delegates gave a very warm welcome and some direct, tough questioning – both during the Q&A and also over coffee and lunch.
Event details are here: http://www.scotlandis.com/events/event-details/1190
The presentation deck is available on Slideshare:
Pleased to have been invited to speak at the spring 2014 ‘eCommerce Trends’ conference in Warsaw. You can see the programme and information about the other speakers here: http://2014wiosna.ecommercetrends.pl/program The topic is “Connecting with the Connected Customer” and I’ll be covering:
The digital customer is becoming more knowledgeable and more demanding. Even as retailers rush to catch up with eCommerce, mCommerce and multichannel, the Customer already takes this for granted. Not only do our Customers expect everything to ‘just work’, they want the best prices, the best range, the best service and – most amazing – the very best entertaining and memorable experiences. In this interactive session, Ian will consider the successful retailers in the UK and Europe and draw out 10 important trends that you should consider for your business. Covering the range of digital marketing, operations, multichannel and technology these trends will be illustrated with case studies and review of the key considerations for ADOPTION and Implementation.
Very much looking forward to my first visit to Warsaw and chatting with ecommerce and multichannel professionals in this very dynamic and fast-growing market. UPDATE: here are the slides from the session – with my thanks to everyone for such a warm welcome and great discussions.
It was my pleasure to return as Chair to Catalyst 2013, Channeladvisor’s European conference.
This year the format was a mix of presentations and ‘fireside chats’ (even though we had no fire!).
I had a fun session with the irrepressible Chris Poad from Amazon – candid, engaging and fun as ever, and continuing his track record of never ducking a question.
I then had an equally candid and no-holds barred chat with Ashley Payne of Debenhams and Helena Risdale of Littlewoods Clearance.
Details of the event are here:
http://www.channeladvisor.com/catalyst2013/
and there’s a live-blog transcript of my chat with Mr Poad here:
http://ebaystrategies.blogs.com/ebay_strategies/2013/06/live-blogging-from-2013-catalyst-europe-amazon-fireside-chat.html
My thanks to ChannelAdvisor for their warm welcome and ever, and for the additional and generous support of my fundraising for Sonia.
I’ve just published the web version of my Editorial for the May 2011 issue of our Magazine, “Capability and Maturity”.
You can see it on Internet Retailing’s site here:
http://www.internetretailing.net/2011/05/editorial-capability-and-maturity/
There’s also a link to the May 2011 Digital Edition of Internet Retailing Magazine (‘page turner’), also available online.
In the article I mention the MSc in Internet Retailing – a commercial qualification, academically assessed and accredited.
Applications for the MSc are now being accepted for September 2011 start: information at http://econsultancy.com/uk/training/qualifications/retailing. Open evenings on 26 May (Manchester) and 14 June (London) can be booked online . You will have a chance to chat with us, the academic staff from MMU and the Econsultancy trainers, as well as speaking with current students from the first and second intakes.
I’ve just published the web version of my Editorial for the November 2010 issue of our Magazine. You can see it on Internet Retailing’s site here:
http://www.internetretailing.net/2010/12/editorial-purchandising/
There’s also a link to the digital ‘page turner’ edition, also now published online.
