“Retailers need to adopt four pillars to future-proof their business for the long-term amid the challenges they are going to face in the coming years,” says retail expert George Minakakis in his new book.
The book, The New Bricks & Mortar, Future Proofing Retail, outlines those pillars as starting with getting back to grassroots retailing which he calls “Street Smart” followed by brand development that is “Technology-Driven,” building a robust “Customer Obsessed” culture, and investing in “Bold Innovation.”
“52 per cent of business executives worry about the pandemic continuing, couple that with current supply chain issues, persistent inflation and there are even signals of a consumer slow down, that would push us near a level 3 risk management. Which to me as a trained board director means potentially threatening and damaging outcomes to businesses. Retailers must ask themselves and their teams one question. What else can we do?” said Minakakis, who leads advisory firm Inception Retail Group.
“The harder they push that question the more it strengthens their strategic and tactical thinking. It matters because retailing is a measure of economic health. Retailers must rebuild their volumes to pre-pandemic levels, or the risks spread to others, such as commercial property owners, financial institutions, and workers.”
Minakakis said he wrote the book to help businesses better understand how they’re going to have to change, modify their thinking, modify their organizations and their cultures, to be better at responding to change.
“Look, I’m an operator. I’ve run large businesses. And I can tell you that what we thought a year ago is clearly irrelevant today. And now things are moving so quickly what you thought a month ago is irrelevant. I’ve led businesses during 9/11, SARS and the Financial Crash successfully, this is very different, you need to be rethinking 2022 and 2023 in a dynamic way” he said.
“The book was written based on that premise and to help businesses start thinking differently in their approaches to competing and remaining relevant. Retailing is an imperfect industry it’s not a cookie cutter business it needs a strong culture, talent, vision, strategic planning, and flawless operational execution. Continue to get better at that and hit repeat.”
“These are the four pillars for how I view what’s important for businesses and their journey for the balance of this decade.”
Street Smart
In looking at the first pillar, being ‘Street Smart’, Minakakis said, “this is about knowing your markets and how to compete in each of them. Businesses now must have a level of street fighting that allows them to use all their assets, engage customers locally and globally. Afterall there really are no selling barriers today. I still believe that ‘boots on the ground’ operational skills and behaviors are very important. There is still a lot of traffic walking into stores, and it can’t be ignored just because your efforts are focused on e-commerce or social selling.”
Technology-Driven
“There’s no way in the world that you can move through retailing today without having some good, honest level of investment in technology that actually is helping you run your business day to day. Whether that’s the collection of data, how you interact with your customers, in person, your website or through social channels. You cannot succeed without a sound investment in technology that works for you,” said Minakakis.
While writing the book he coined a phrase ‘data and supply chains are kingmakers of retail.’ And they are. “However, technology is going to play a much bigger role in retailing than it even does today. I believe that too many retailers remain very conservative in their approach and those that believe they are doing well are only dabbling. For example, based on today’s issues with supply chains, you are going to need a far more robust and integrated systems with real time data on suppliers, manufacturing sources and shipping overseas and locally. Not to forget customer data and their purchasing patterns and monitoring market trends. It’s a mistake not to be planning with more diligence and technological intelligence.”
“Customer Obsessed” culture
Minakakis said productivity gains over the years have always been driven by technology which has led to reducing hours on the front lines. “When you reduce productivity hours at the store level, you also diminish your ability to deliver great customer service and revenue.”
“I am an advocate that you need a very powerful motivation within an organization whether that’s one store or one thousand. A customer obsessed culture is far more powerful than being customer centric. There is more emotion and purpose with an obsession to satisfy customers. Being centric as a company is fine but it isn’t passionate enough. Service in retailing is about passion and you can extend that in all service attributes related to a brand. An obsession with service draws in everyone. Being centric only surrounds the concept as a focal point. The goal is to deliver a great customer experience, you need to start with understanding what those expectations are. You can’t do that without a customer obsessed culture.”
Bold Innovation
Minakakis said bold innovation involves creating the advantage that differentiates a retailer from competitors. “By being bold, it also means breaking away from your comfort level on products and service and continuously innovating. Most organizations stop with that just one great idea and it withers away. Retailers need to continue to build on that foundation at an unprecedented level. As executives we never worried about competitors and what their position was. We were focused on competing in the marketplace with our own assets and created advantages internally to ensure our continued growth.”
Bold innovation can come in the area of products sold, service, the store environment itself.
“We did a poll about what drives consumers. Convenience is number one, fast service and price,” he said. “But the fourth one that got least support from consumers was about getting a luxury experience. That they wanted a high end experience. A small percentage wanted that. So there’s a big shift that’s happened and that shift is impacting everything on these four pillars.
‘What these four organizational initiatives do is allow a business and its leadership to continually challenge and renew long before change is needed. Far too many wait past the expiry date of their last great ideas and market wins.’
‘Research we did for the book shows that convenience, speed of service and price are now provoking change in retail. Responding to these changes you must be street smart to learn and adapt, tech-driven to have real time information to respond with, couple that with a customer obsession and continuous bold innovation and you have the potential for business longevity and the ability to build market dominance.’
Minakakis was a former Luxottica executive having led four retail chains as a Country General Manager in Canada and as CEO for China, responsible for the international expansion of over 200 locations. This is his third book. He is frequently interviewed by the media and is a podcast co-host for The Business of Retail.
The New Bricks & Mortar, Future Proofing Retail book is available at Amazon and other participating booksellers. The book is offered as an e-book, paperback, and hardcover.
