Life of a Business Principal in Consulting

In the good old days of retailers having a single channel with a steady and relatively well forecasted demand, pricing was the forte of the merchandising managers. Ability to negotiate with CPG majors or wholesalers, retailing based on shelf space and target segment was very helpful. The basket analysis can be used very effectively - having Key Value items and anchor items to be able to optimize product mix and margins as well. This ensures we have a good rein on retail operations and also contributing to both the top line and the bottom line.

We discussed about how picking is going to become important in e-commerce a f ew posts back . The strategy of picking from store ware houses instead of centralized warehouses is a good move, but we should never over-look another warehouse operation that is as important as picking - slotting. In fact, slotting is what determines how we design the warehouse in the first place. This statement is obviously slightly exaggerated - but it is one of the main factors.

Retail Operations have always had challenges with scaling. Most of the challenges are related to typical operation processes and some of them are related to personnel and training. Operational process challenges include designing process for operational efficiencies, identifying bottle necks, typical logistical challenges, ability to matchup supply to demand - both increasing and decreasing supply to match demand. With the advent of science in the last 30-40 years, most of the operational challenges have been solved. Personnel and training is another challenge - trying to continuously up-skill people on new technologies and processes. This is a constant challenge. However, with the advent of universities that tie up with industry, this challenge is also partially solved. Vocational training helps industry with more trained candidates for the industry. There are organizations at various levels of maturity that still face these challenges However, Retail operations ...

Definition The practice of using advanced statistical approaches to allocate proportional credit to marketing communications and media activity across all channels, which ultimately leads to the desired customer action. This is the definition from "The Forrester Wave: Cross-Channel Attribution Providers, Q4 2014 report" that can be accessed here .

For long e-commerce players were pure play online players that concentrated on centralized warehouses and always had optimizing costs as their key goal. However, the e-commerce has changed much since Amazon shaped some of the practices.

Apple is credited for a lot of things - the least of which is managing retail operations. However, that seems to be a key element of product launches with apple these days.

Omni channel digital strategy from Prashanth Madhavan Narasimhan

Omni-channel digital strategy cannot be driven in isolation. This is one of the most common practices that organizations use. However, the reasons these happen is because of the way most organizations are structured. Organizations that have not had an IT department tend to invest more on them to catchup with their competitors. This leads to a more skewed digital strategy Some best practices that will help: Digital strategy should always be in tandem with the organization’s business strategy. Digital strategy should be used as an enabler A sound digital strategy includes planning for pivots in your business model based on your digital strategy. For more information on pivots, refer to this post here .

Any organization that has ever run a marketing campaign or has engaged a marketing partner would know that they need to have a clear and directed messaging strategy when targeting users through multiple channels. What helps when you are looking at omni-channel digital strategy - specifically with respect to messaging - is what feeling or image does your organization evoke in your digital connection’s minds. This is the reason why digital strategy is not something that can be easily consulted on by external agencies or a clear plan of action be provided for the organization to be put in motion. What can instead be done is a set of practices, principles and guidelines that can drive a simple and clear messaging across channels.

Organizations cannot be run completely online or offline. It has to be a hybrid. Similarly, digital strategy cannot be completely online. It is not possible to have engaging digital connections online. Organizations have to create opportunities to interact with their digital connections offline. There are several ways in which you can connect with digital connections offline.

How do you know that your digital connections are engaged? One of the most effective and popular ways it to have a forum. A forum could be a discussion board on your own website or it could be a social site that could act as your forum. Several organizations that have omni-channel strategy make sure that they have an internal forum as well as forums on several social sites. They also make sure that the forums are inter-operable. There are certain key practices that can make sure you have an engaged forum:

When you , as a business, are acquiring digital contacts from multiple channels, there is no way you could serve content that could be relevant to every one. The best way forward is to personalize the content based on the user profile information. More information we have regarding a digital contact, more personalized the content can be.

Coming in a week, we are going to present a series of posts on Omni-Channel Digital strategy and how companies can be more prepared to understand and handle digital strategy in today's world. Companies, both digital as well as brick and mortar, are acquiring digital contacts through various channels.  These channels include social, enterprise, support, mobile, partners among others. The main challenge is how to make sure that they stay engaged. In a series of posts, we will discuss what will help them with this challenge. In a Nutshell, the companies will have to do the following : Personalise Content Strong Forums Connect with online contacts offline Unified messaging across all channels Drive digital strategy through business strategy We will discuss in detail about each of these in the coming weeks.

Have you ever noticed how terrible the parking signs are in any major US city. When you need to park your car in any major US city, it takes 5 minutes to decipher the information in the parking sign to understand if it is ok to park in that spot. Nikki Sylianteng , a designer , turned this problem into an opportunity and posted her designs nearby some of these parking signs. The new designs evoked good response. You can read all bout that here at Priceonomics .