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In an environment where markets and competitors are changing faster than ever, huge amounts of money, resources and management focus are being poured into business transformation programmes. Despite this massive investment, most fail to deliver the hoped-for benefits. But while the risks are high, the rewards for success can be even higher. A small number of business transformation programmes succeed in delivering remarkable results and real competitive advantage. Why do so many continue to fail, while a few achieve such spectacular success?

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Voted one of the three most influential benchmark studies by business leaders, Best Global Brands is Interbrand’s annual report on the world’s most valuable brands. Published in partnership with BusinessWeek, it offers insights into how these global organizations create and manage brand value.

Today, Interbrand has conducted over 5,000 valuations for clients to provide guidance in managing their most valuable asset – their brand.

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The multichannel shopper (MCS) has received much attention over the past few years. It is widely agreed amongst manufacturers, retailers and researchers that consumers increasingly engage with brands through multiple touch points. The consumer experience no longer simply ends, or begins in-store. Rather, throughout the buyer journey, consumers are visiting and experiencing a multitude of channels. The shopper landscape is clearly changing but what is truly driving this change? And what does it mean for both for information gathering and purchasing and for suppliers, retailers and marketers?

In an effort to put the shopper at the heart of the discussion, Arc Worldwide, the marketing services arm of the Leo Burnett Group, has carried out the largest study of its kind across the US, the UK and France with the objective of exploring more deeply the MCS phenomenon.

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Andrea Felsted examines how international groups need to approach the rapidly changing sector

Despite the ravages of the global downturn,consumer spending has remained remarkably robust.The chaos in the financial system of late 2008 sparked a series of retail collapses. But since then, shoppers’ confidence hasrecovered, while the capacity taken out of the market by the casualties has boosted the fortunes of remaining store groups.“People were expecting Armageddon,and it never came,”says Mark Hudson, UK retail leader at PwC.Simon Wolfson, chief executive of Next, said recently: “Clearly things have turned out very differently from how we expected . . . The [UK] economyhas been better than anyone thought.” On both sides of the Atlantic,consumers’ pockets have been boosted by efforts to stimulatethe economy. In the UK, lower energy bills and an end to the rampant food price inflation of 2008 and early 2009 meant that those consumers who have remained in work have seen their disposable incomes rise (...)

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Most retailers try new ideas in some stores before rolling them out to the entire chain. For most retailers, unfortunately, this trialling process often raises as many questions as it answers. Advances in information technology over the last ten years have created the opportunity to implement a much more effective version of this process, termed “Test & Learn.” A small number of leading retailers have pushed the development of this capability to new levels, and are today using it to generate tens of millions of pounds of incremental profit per year - often without their competitors knowing that they are doing it. Their experiences hold important lessons for all retailers. Click here to download the APT report summary.

To download IBM's The Performance Manager Report click here. 

In the “good old days” of retailing, shop owners knew their customers by name and their preferences by heart. With the explosion of mass retailing, the customer became an abstraction and all customers were treated the same.  Today demand analytics and planning intersect with shopper segmentation enabling retailers to operationalize their segment strategies through their assortment, promotions and pricing decisions.

To download Demandtec:The nextGEN of Merchandising & Marketing: Customer Insights at the Point of Decision please click here.

Digital world

Latest research from WRC’s Market Insight partner GfK Retail and Technology has revealed that Western Europe (19% of global total) will surpass North America (18%) as the region with the largest volume share of technical consumer goods (TCG) in 2009.  Sales of the three main categories of the electronics market (Mobile phones, TVs and PC) in Western Europe will rise by 2% over 2008 to reach US$131 billion whereas North America will experience a substantial decline of 12%.

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After years of steady growth, the market for Major Domestic Appliances (MDA) experienced a sudden hit when in autumn 2008 the collapsing housing market in the US and the following credit crunch sent its shock waves around the globe. At the beginning of 2009, the outlook for the rest of the year looked rather gloomy as the world was just about to enter the fiercest recession since 1945.

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