Retail space is display space. Not selling space.
It’s three years since British Home Stores went into administration. Three years, and so many signals that UK retail is not in a happy place, yet successive retail failures quickly followed. The demise of Toys ‘R’ Us and Maplins added to the signs that all was not well, but the reassuring voices of other major high-street names told us not to worry – they were on the case.
Long-standing brands are continuing to fall away, more quietly perhaps, but the rate of attrition is now established. This week, we learnt that Mothercare’s stores will follow Thomas Cook’s by soon vacating all their premises.
At the current rate, the UK is losing 110 retail stores per week from the ‘most popular town centres’, according to PwC. Sixteen a day. If you haven’t noticed yet, you’re either in a big city, or maybe you never had them in the first place.
Retail space is display space. Not selling space.
Shoppers are spoilt for choice when it comes to getting what they want at the cheapest-on-display price. Mothercare may have done a great job at displaying brands for parents -to-be to try, but why would they buy there?
The press accused Mothercare of being ‘expensive and grotty’ this week: neither of these things happens overnight. ‘Grotty’ happens when there isn’t enough money to refurbish, and ‘expensive’ happens when the competition has undercut you for so long that you need to sweat the maximum cash out of every sale.
Thomas Cook, apparently, hadn’t noticed that people don’t buy holidays from a brochure anymore. Maybe they’d never heard of Ceefax, let alone the internet. Mothercare didn’t understand its customers’ digital tendencies – or it chose to ignore them.
So, in the company of Jack Wills, Staples and Bonmarché, we’re likely to see another gap in the UK retail landscape this year.
Who loses?
You and me. I needed to buy a printer last week and I tried to do it by going to a store. It didn’t happen.
John Lewis was, frankly, atrocious. If customer service and a two-year guarantee are now their only USPs, I don’t see them surviving. Curry’s/PCWorld couldn’t sell me what I wanted and there just weren’t any alternatives. My town (@miltonkeynes) sits at the heart of the UK’s technology ‘Growth Arc’ and it seems more than a little ironic that basic products and services for the growing ‘technology’ population aren’t on sale.
As much as I hated to do it, necessity and convenience drove me to Amazon and my new printer arrived inside 48 hours.
Will this continue?
Should we expect more of the same? Should we get used to hearing ‘not another one’ when a high-street brand vanishes? Hell, yeah.
In the last month, we’ve met around eight SME businesses that won’t be in business in three years’ time. The signals of change are loud and clear, but the need to stay loyal to a founder’s vision has over-taken the acknowledgement of the blindingly obvious.
There’s even a networking business that has suspended one of its groups through a lack of interest. If ever there was a sign that grass-roots start-ups are pulling in their horns, this is it.
What are we doing about it?
It’s all very well sitting here and bleating about how bad things are, and how Amazon is taking over the world, but what is room44 doing about it?
Two things
Firstly, we’re diversifying and investing in a new activity stream. We’ve been writing about environmental matters for a long time and we’ve decided that we should do a bit more than talk the talk. We’re about to walk the walk as well (more about this later).
Secondly, we’ve built a product that will help companies, like yours, plan to outlast your competition and thrive in a tough market. It’s called 10, 20-30. Together we will build product launches to take you through the next decade and provide you with the tools to launch at least one per year, so you stay relevant in a changing market.
Because we take seriously our capacity to deliver quality, it’s only available to a limited number of clients. Take a look at the 10, 20-30 proposition here and get in touch if you’d like to know more.
Thanks for reading and, if we don’t speak, good luck.
Future thinking. Future-proofing. It’s what we do.
To look for insight where you’ve always looked, or where you know your competitors look, isn’t going to provide you with business insulation.
The eruption of new business start-ups and the resultant increase in business failures makes the chance of existing business faltering higher than ever before.
Adjacent opportunities must be sought and grasped. Longer term scenarios must be mapped and reviewed. Constant and tenacious interrogation of your market dynamics and consumer behaviours is imperative.
The way you do anything is the way you do everything.
If you are taking care of business today with only an occasional look at immediate threats, the way you will react is occasional and immediate.
Regularly working in your future makes your opportunities appear regularly. The way you do anything is the way you do everything.
There is a way to work in your future.
It’s a way to work in the 2020-2030 decade and know what you need to do next, and then next… Download it here.
Future thinking. Future proofing. It’s what we do.
Like a great song, a product can have a development trajectory. Here’s how a product can be nurtured over the 2020 – 2030 decade.
1984
When Leonard Cohen released Hallelujah, probably his most recognisable song, in 1984, he did so after a struggle.
If you’re familiar with Cohen, you’ll know that he isn’t the jolliest of singers, even if his poetry is worth a read. 1984 was all about the end of disco, and the start of the New Wave and electronica. It wasn’t about angst-ridden self-reflection. So Leonard had an uphill battle; his record label didn’t want to release Hallelujah at first, apparently telling him: ‘We know you’re great. We just don’t know if you’re any good.’
Cream rises to the top
With enough heat though, cream rises to the top, and Leonard got Hallelujah out – although it didn’t do particularly well. But, like all ideas that start as a minimal viable product, the development of Hallelujah was built by various artists over the following years. It was sung faster – let’s face it, it couldn’t get slower; it was shortened from the original seventeen verses; it was treated to as many styles as there were covers – and then came Jeff Buckley.
1994 – 2007
Buckley got hold of Hallelujah in 1994 and made it his own. Again, it wasn’t an immediate success – in fact, it didn’t meet its moment until almost a decade after Buckley’s death. The version of the song that finally became a hit was true to the original, but with a new vibe that resonated with a contemporary audience in the early noughties.
And what happened as a result? Leonard Cohen himself came to the party with a couple of extra beats per minute, and sped up his own song when in his seventies.
Hallelujah!
The point is that Cohen conceived a ‘product’ that was almost good when it launched. Over time, the idea got better – until someone came along and packaged it in a different wrapper and it met its moment. It took over twenty years and speaks to the long-term value of ‘evergreen’ content.
The lifecycle of a product is never easy to predict but, if the product is any good, it will find its market position eventually.
I’m not claiming that Hallelujah was an innovation. That would be like saying Cohen invented music. But I am saying that products that don’t make it at first can, with tenacity, belief and maybe even some pivoting, win out.
10, 20-30
To read about our new long-range innovation tool please click here and we’ll send you a synopsis. It’s called 10, 20-30 and it is designed to maximise your opportunities though-out the next decade.
Future thinking. Future-proofing. It’s what we do.
Go to a packaging or any other trade show, and see the
plethora of ‘sustainable’ claims displayed on stands.
The initiative to reduce consumption of virgin raw materials is well-intentioned. Consumers, aided by a gathering momentum around circular product design, have begun to turn the tide, and a new awareness of value beyond the product now takes account of the huge cost that environmental myopia has had.
But changing to a recycled material to do the same job as the virgin one doesn’t produce less waste. A new, ‘sustainable’ product might only be a bit less damaging, or slightly different quality, than it used to be. ‘Sustainable’ doesn’t always mean better.
Sustainable doesn’t always mean better
Newly recycled and recyclable waste may be re-processable a finite number of times, and new industries will spring up around the new circular material flows. Good news.
However, we’re missing a point. While industry peers applaud alternative product developments and re-utilise a material type a few more times than we used to, we’re still making as much product; as many pieces of packaging; as many pieces of plastic to collect and reprocess; as much material that won’t find its way into the recycling stream.
We understand. Of course, businesses are trying to adapt to market demand and stay in business. But the changes being initiated across markets take time, irrespective of how long the IPCC says we have left to avoid irreversible environmental damage.
Consumers take responsibility
The onus now falls to consumers to take responsibility and tell producers what they will accept. As the saying goes – stop buying crap and they’ll stop making crap. As long as shoppers keep buying processed foods packed in a modified atmosphere, and keep eating products that travel too many miles, there’ll be someone to meet that need.
Consumers need help in this regard. A little less convenience and a little more bias towards home-grown, seasonal foods will reduce the need for clever packaging. A bit more availability of these options in more places will catch the eye and help a broader uptake.
Casualties of business
If this kind of behaviour catches on, and products are priced at their true value rather than at an artificial level made possible by industrial efficiency, inevitably some packaging producers may go out of business. Sorry but there it. These things happen.
Less demand will mean less supply and some unwelcome surprises. The myopia I mentioned earlier has already become a by-product of not looking far enough ahead or not devising a survival strategy that we call ‘innovation’. As James Clear says in his book, Atomic Habits, “we’d rather be wrong with others than right by ourselves.”
You don’t have to be the same as everyone else, and change starts with a phone call. To have a chat, please book some time in the room44 diary. It won’t cost you anything and it might change your ideas about surviving in a changing market.
Future thinking. Future-proofing. It’s what we do.
At room44 we have to maintain an agnostic view of every client’s business. To deliver landscaping strategies that present our customers with perspectives they couldn’t see for themselves, by themselves, and to be able to extrapolate an idea into a product concept that their competitors haven’t seen: that’s where we earn our bread and butter.
There are a few tenets we hold dear and we’ve developed a manifesto that we’d like to share with you. However, we’re also aware that, as world politics and environmental issues continue to dominate our news, and market responses to mega trends go on evolving, these tenets may change. We recommend that every CEO is able to change her, or his, mind in the face of new information, so why wouldn’t we?
1. Question everything
The constant in all our lives is change. The question that we must all ask isn’t ‘what’s going to change?’ but ‘what won’t change?’
This is where room44 starts in all our work. The probability of change and disruption occurring correlates directly to the probability of your new idea being successful, so it’s an important first step.
2. The way you do anything is the way you do everything
To look for insight where you’ve always looked, or where you know your competitors look, isn’t going to provide you with any business insulation. The recent eruption of new business start-ups and the resultant increase in business failures makes the chance of existing business faltering higher than ever before.
Adjacent opportunities must be sought and grasped. Longer term scenarios must be mapped and reviewed. Persistent and tenacious interrogation of your market dynamics and consumer behaviours is imperative.
The way you do anything is the way you do everything. If you are taking care of business today with only an occasional look at immediate threats, the way you will react is ‘occasional’.
Regularly working in your future makes your opportunities appear regularly.
3. Choose yourself
Waiting for market approval is commercially limiting and puts you into a competed position before it’s necessary. Being first to market may not always be the best position, unless you can sink countless £/$/€ into support – but waiting isn’t the answer either.
When you ‘know’ you’re right, have a little faith in yourself and launch. The worst that can happen is that you don’t make the money you need. But even in this, there is an experience to sell and benefit from later on. Choose yourself every time.
4. It’s never too big to ignore
Overwhelmingly huge issues are a challenge that individuals cannot ignore. Big issues require a big vision and baby steps. As Greta Thunberg has written; “no-one is too small to make a difference”.
5. It’s never too small to launch
Everything starts at the beginning. A step starts a marathon, an acorn starts the oak tree, a flake starts a blizzard… When we have the germ of an idea, we start it and feed it and water it, and we see where it goes.
An ideas that you feel is right should be nurtured even if the data isn’t available to support it. In fact, if the data is there the idea has already been seen by somebody else.
As we say in number 3, choose yourself.
Our own room44 initiatives
At room44, we see the danger that exists if commerce, industry and consumers continue to crave growth in all things. We buy-in to the need for us all to make less individual impact on our local environments, and we’re trying to offer others options too. It’s all very well for a consultancy to preach a message, but we believe that we should make it easy for people to access better alternatives. In 2019 we have been working on new ’small’ ideas and invite you to take a look.
room44 does more than talk about change
In 2019, we have kicked off two new businesses. One is a sustainable start-up focusing on artisan clothing.
The other is a partnership with an established eBike retailer to become their first brand licensee. Micro-mobility is starting to affect how towns are designed and how residents view their travel options. We see eBikes as democratised personal transport for the 14 to 140 age group. In time, we’ll introduce bike-sharing in our area but for now, we’ve started small and we’re thrilled to have found great partners who we can work with to promote a less polluting way to get around.
More to follow on this one.
Future thinking. Future-proofing. It’s what we do, in theory and in practice.
We all procrastinate. It’s time for my lunchtime run, but I’ll just finish working through these emails… The lawn needs mowing, but I think I’ll go for that run I missed at lunchtime… There’s a deck I need to proof-read, but I’ve found a fascinating piece in the latest Courier magazine…
Every day, we have these mundane internal debates and they hinder our productivity, thwart our creativity and impede our ability to plan.
In the Design Thinking process, the front end is where we spend a huge amount of time, to show clients a different view of their world.
Our skill is to reveal emerging trends that don’t sit in their radar, but will definitely affect their business prospects.
This is an example of disruption coming from an adjacent market. Have a look. It may surprise you.
The forward view is so necessary. Without this precrastination and an examination of the whys, ifs and buts, you’re going to keep doing what you do – of course you will. That’s what brings in the money now.
But it isn’t where the revenue will always be. Very soon, your market will suffer turmoil and new competition. If you don’t see it coming, it’ll be ‘sayonara baby’ and back to the LinkedIn Premium Account.
If this kind of thinking can be helpful to you, let’s talk.
Here’s my diary. Book some time.
Future thinking. Future-proofing. It’s what we do.
The ideas economy is great. Having ideas is where innovation-based strategy starts.
The problem that business leaders have, is not looking for great ideas; it’s choosing one.
Unless ideas translate into action, a launch and an experience that consumers value, what started out as a good idea with potential will never make it as an innovation.
Everybody loves biscuits
Nearly everybody loves an ideation session. Loads of biscuits, a day out of the office and, at the end of the day, a wall covered in coloured Post-Its.
The energy, the buzz, the empathy, the synergy and meeting of minds that ideation sessions generate are testament to the power of creativity.
And this is where the work really starts When you get back to your desk, the sugar crash hits right about the time the first client calls and you’re back into the humdrum.
Work with room44 and that won’t happen. Sure, you’ll still get the client calls but you’ll also have expert resource working in and alongside your company to get the first idea to market – then the second…
Assess your options
Our specific method of assessing your product options will make the order of priority clear, the thing to do next apparent and the eventual result measurable.
We have delivered products that started as an idea on a Post-It and know every part of the supply chain intimately. If you want to hear about some examples let’s talk.
In addition to strategy, we have delivered:
- product design,
- positioning,
- creative design,
- communications strategy creation,
- prototyping,
- branding,
- testing and manufacture,
- supply chain builds… and we’ve done it many times over.
If there’s a practical element to delivering a product to market without distracting your team from what they’re paid to do – we’ve done that.
In our opinion, ideation needs to lead to an actionable plan that gets actioned.
Future thinking. Future proofing. It’s what we do.
Brand value
Car sales guys are pretty good at customer service. In my experience, service desks aren’t always. Problem: the last impression your customer has of your brand is the thing they take to market when they buy again.
Where have you come across this kind of customer service?
Social lens
Brands today clamour to be in the spotlight of social media and pay billions for click-throughs. But, as consumers become more attuned to issues they want to act on, brand behaviour will come under scrutiny. It’s no good telling the world what your brand plans to do about its environmental impact while consumers are kicking your plastic bottle/crisp packet/detergent tub/fertiliser sack/bread bag along the beach. They can see what your attitude has been so far.
Social media and connectivity have been the preserve of brands to exploit, but we are at a point in brand market evolution where this power is pivoting and is the lens through which emotional quotient (EQ) will be measured.
Calculable doesn’t always mean measurable
EQ is a hard metric to get right, but acknowledgement of it as a monitor of consumer sentiment is filtering through to market segments – some more than others. High end clothing? Yes, in some places. Plastic packaging? Not obviously. Not yet.
Of course, environmental considerations, as they relate to buying decisions, represent a decision for the privileged. There are many places where it’s simply not possible for people to be as ‘green’ as they want to be. Budget, choice, even basic availability of products isn’t guaranteed in large parts of the world. So, how consumers behave, where their choice is available, makes that behaviour even more powerful.
Design Thinking
Understanding how consumer EQ needs to be considered by brands is unlikely to feature in your sales team’s remit, or your marketing team’s plan.
If you don’t know how EQ and Design Thinking are related, it’s time to talk. Personal purchases and the ways that consumers respond to brands are going to be more and more critically measured.
CSuite responsibility
This is a matter for CSuite. If your CSuite isn’t actively and urgently discussing these complex issues, get in touch. We can help.
Let’s talk. Click here to choose a time to suit you.
Future thinking. Future-proofing. It’s what we do.
When it’s done effectively, innovation defines a roadmap, sets explicit objectives, and provides a guide for everyone in your organisation to follow.
There are two issues that innovation must resolve to succeed:
- The need for change must be owned right across an organisation.
- There must be someone to do the work after the training team has departed.
Let’s deal with #1 today…
Because the ‘need’ for change is the hardest.
Companies evolve to be super-efficient at delivering their product or service. Their systems and processes develop to avoid waste, and every aspect of production and client service is streamlined for profitability.
Kaisen, Lean, J.I.T. and all the other Toyota Business System-inspired processes help to do this. While everything within the company’s control stays the same, it’s all good – operationally.
So, why worry?
Well, the need for change has a habit of sneaking up on you – not necessarily because you don’t see it coming, but because there isn’t a process to decide what should change, or a system to manage that change.
Knowing that a trend will, unavoidably, hit your top and bottom line isn’t enough. Once you’ve acknowledged that probability, the hardest part is convincing your peers and your management that they should take note of it too.
One of the ways that room44 tackles this challenge is to deliver innovation training in the most democratic and agnostic manner: across the workforce and from top to bottom.
If we can’t gain the support of your directors before we kick off, we won’t start. Resistance to the need for innovation must be resolved before a project gets underway.
It’s been suggested that company directors only ever see 4% of the problems that affect their business. If we start from there, alert the right people to what is coming down the line, and change some perspectives, we can have a significant impact on a company’s chances of survival as its market changes.
We’ve become very good at opening the eyes of management to the reality of their situation. To talk about your management team/ leadership team/ board of directors, please get in touch.
Here’s how Click here.
Five years ago, the then UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced that the Government would invest in the north of the country, to drive economic and business development into a region that, to some people’s minds, had been forgotten for too long.
The idea gained popularity.
And it worked.
Mr Osborne had done something quite clever that, when we analyse it now, shows recognition of a need and behaviour that we’d call consumer-centric.
What did he do? He saw the reality of a situation without bias. He explored ideas to achieve a ROI for everybody concerned. He made funding available for business and public services. He consulted with opposition parties on the ideas before tabling options (call this testing). And he picked his moment.
Maybe more importantly, he delivered the idea to market and it had an effect. As the saying goes – invention is having new ideas, innovation is doing new things.
And then Mr Osborne left government, the energy and interest for his idea tailed off, and now the signs are that this initiative is stumbling. Investment is still weighted in favour of the south of the UK and the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ is still pushing for funding and wider recognition.
The lesson: pick your champion well.
How do you entrust the strategic future of your growth plan to anyone? Well, perhaps you don’t. In an ideal world, management will do this as a group and be completely invested in your future. But we know that this is a dream. So, it may be necessary for business to put a structure in place that takes responsibility for innovation. And when there’s a structure, there’s a head of that pyramid.
Here’s a few tips on how to pick the person, or decide not to.
Tip 1
Don’t automatically settle on the long-server who is heading for retirement. If this is on your mind, be dispassionate. This person may be the best for the job, but do they have the energy and charisma to draw peers into a process that is creative and challenging? What’s their record of disruptive activity?
Tip 2
Do listen to what is being said around the lunch table as well as the board table. Who is it that says things like ‘did you see that article about…’, ‘I was listening to a podcast about X on the way in today and it made me think about our…’, ‘I missed Killing Eve, I was hooked on that programme about plastic waste…’ and so on? Research forms the backbone of innovation – consuming a wide range of content is a critical skill. If you need one thing in innovation, it’s a ‘question everything’ mindset.
Tip 3
Don’t believe that sending scouts to trade shows is the answer. Trade shows and conferences are exercises in competition awareness and shopping. Everything on a trade show floor is available now. If you want to copy those ideas, go ahead, but this is product development and just puts you where your competitors already are.
Tip 4
Challenge the team. Who is it on your team that asked to subscribe to a journal you’ve never heard of, or who sent you a link to a site that you couldn’t see the point of reading? In their head, there’s an idea looking for a way out. It might be worth having a coffee with them. Maybe everyone you work with reads things published in places you have never heard of.
Ask your team to ‘show and tell’ one day. In a single workshop, we learnt that the client team comprised a national champion speed skater, a skateboarder, a bed-jumper (don’t ask) and a national netball representative. Until we asked, no-one knew.
Tip 5
Decide if you need someone to drive innovation, or if what the company really needs is something different.
The short-term fix may be that you initiate some interest in innovation by appointing a person (or some people). Often these guys struggle to gain influence across departments, because their remit is to introduce change in an environment where efficiency and cost management depend on everything staying the same.
It’s more likely that your business needs top-down leadership and the evolution of a culture that challenges its own practices while being on the look-out for emerging opportunities.
If you want help getting started, that’s what we do.
Future thinking. Future-proofing.
Get in touch and let’s talk. Click here.
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