Innovation: Riding fast paced trends in the consumer / retail sector
At many of my keynotes, I focus on some of the most successful creativity and innovation attributes that I see within organizations. Here's a list of guidance from a recent keynote for a group of executives in the consumer goods sector:
- Adapt to more challenging customers: customers expectations and needs are changing rapidly, and yet they are more demanding than ever before. Loyalty disappears....at the same time they expect creative perfection from you, they are more fickle, and far less loyal .... I'm not even sure the concept of loyalty exists any more for many brands!
- Costs increase: all this is happening in a world in which producers and retailers are faced with a rapid increase in uncontrollable costs...energy, plastics, you name it! Margins are being squeezed and pressured as a result. Operational excellence is no longer optional!
- Focus on collaborative relationships: The key to innovation in retail today can be found in collaborative relationships and partnerships between packaging companies, consumer products and brands, and retailers. ! Noted Paul Moss, British Bakeries Divisional Marketing Director, "We have more to talk about than price." No one wants to fight in a brand sector that is involved in a race to the bottom, but that's what happens when everyone focuses on price. Shift the equation with your partners, and you'll find a way out.
- Remember -- the package is the brand: Heinz, StarKist and other industry leaders have learned that packaging innovation, driven by new methodologies, ideas and technologies, has become the secret to brand image in many sectors, because it permits a shift of value and customer perception in ways that haven't previously been seen. Think upside-down-Ketchup. If you aren't innovating with packaging, you aren't in the game
- Hyper-innovation is key: Throughout the consumer products world, we are witnessing faster time to market in every single sector. The concept of a product lifecycle is disappearing as products come to market and thrive for but short micro-bursts of time. Make sure you've got the agility on your team you need to cope with this reality, and you might survive
- Get used to rapid change. Consumer desires, needs and demands will continue change at an ever more furious pace, often in ways that won't make sense, particularly with the impact of social networks. Don't despair from it: learn from it. Take the recent race to value-oriented products as a result of the recession. Did you act fast enough? What organizations sclerosis blocked your ability for quick change? And what should you do to fix it?
- Capture the insight of creatively new competitors - constantly: Admit this: there are likely going to be a lot of folks out there who are a lot more creative than you are. They'll beat the pants off you all the time with quick short bursts of tactical success, while you are still busy marshalling your forces. Rather than losing sleep over their success, study them! Learn from them! And then capitalize by doing what they do - and do it better. Rapid creativity in a time of constant change is the name of the game, and you'd do best to work to obtain the same skills and insight that your best competitors have developed.
- Ride the wave of continuous business model innovation: If someone is reinventing your business model, reinvent it faster! In retail, we are seeing constant experimentation with store formats, brand partnering, in-store displays, logistics and tracking studies, and countless other new ways of doing things. Get on board the tornado of change in retail and ride it for all it is worth. You should develop a team that has a finely-tuned radar for unique trends, experiments, success stories and innovations. They're swirling around you continuously, they are constantly reinventing the world of retail on a minute by minute basis - and you've got to understand them and capitalize upon them.
The topic for that keynote will be: Where Do We Go From Here? Why Innovators Will Rule in the Post-Recession Economy - And How You Can Join Them.
Here's an extract from the keynote description:
Jim Carroll has carefully studied what it is that organizations are doing to position themselves for post-recession growth.
One thing they are certainly doing is positioning themselves for innovative solutions to complex problems. When it comes to retail store maintenance there is no doubt that we are in the era of fast-paced solutions, whether its related to intelligent building management solutions, the rapid evolution of in-store layout and design principles; innovative environmental and green technology solutions; or new in-store customer engagement methodologies, all of which impact in-store maintenance professionals in new and dramatic ways.
In his keynote, Jim will share his insight into the key trends impacting the retail sector, and how maintenance professionals can take a seat at the "strategy table," providing unique solutions and guidance to the management team by adapting to fast paced trends
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More information:
- PRSM 2010 Conference
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Video: Cardboard people, plasmas people: Generational change and innovation! How do you master innovation? Through the powerful story in this video clip, I point out the challenges that organizations face with the different generations in the workplace -- and introduce the concept of "generational collaborative capability" as being a key component of succcesful innovation.
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A Key Trend for 2010 - increasing business velocity A huge number of global organiztions have me in to challenge their team to think about how to deal with the increasing speed of change in the world of business.
Here's a clip from a Las Vegas keynote, in which I speak to the topic of business velocity. I believe that in 2010, a greater number of organizations will need to deal with ever increasing rates of change!
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Hunting innovation : I'm keynoting a QSR global leadership conference
There are two types of organizations in the world today: those have retrenched, shut down their idea machines, and are trying to coast through the recession. Then there are those who are making sure that they keep their team focused on the future, opportunities, and the need for innovative thinking.
I've been confirmed to be the opening keynote speaker for next a global leadership/franchise conference for a company in this is industry.
This is really quite an honor, and I think is indicative that my theme that "organizations need to stay on the innovative edge despite the recession" resonates strongly.
Every industry is changing at a furious pace, and the quick service food industry is no exception. We're seeing rapid change in terms of branding and marketing, particularly in terms of outreach and interaction with the new mobile consumer. There's a lot of fast paced change in terms of consumer preferences. If we think about issues of restaurant design and construction, there are fast and furious developments in terms of energy usage and environmental footprint. The list goes on and on - there is no shortage of opportunity for new and innovative thinking.
I'll set the stage by challenging the audience to focus on growth, focus on opportunities, and think about how innovation can become a core component of how they progress into the future.
I wrote about these trends in a previous blog post, High velocity change in the food/consumer products sector.
(p.s. I found the photo on iStockPhoto, and dreamed up the "hunting innovation" title. It seemed kind of fun!)
More information
- Read about High velocity change in the food/consumer products sector
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Recent keynote: Innovating for growth in the restaurant industry!
I was thrilled to be the opening keynote speaker for Yum! Brands 2009 Global Leadership Meeting. It's the world's largest restaurant company.
The organization, the owner of such iconic brands such as KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, certainly finds itself in the midst of high-velocity change. There are fast paced trends in terms of new branding challenges and marketing methodologies (think Web 2.0), consumer behavior, and many other issues. Yet, there are tremendous opportunities for growth through innovation.
My keynote addressed a variety of trends which are impacting the QSR (quick service restaurant) industry today:
- opportunities for global growth. Chain restaurants account for but 1% of China's commercial food service sales, and in Europe, it is but 2%. (Compare that to the US, which is at 50%.) Clearly, growth will come from continued expansion into global markets.
- rapid emergence of new methods of customer interaction. For example, in the next few years, we will likely see the emergence of contact-less payment technology, as our credit card infrastructure migrates to Blackberry, iPhone, and smart phones. This presents new opportunities in terms of customer contact.
- new methods of brand and product promotion. Organizations must be able to scale to meet the demands of new intelligent infrastructure, and that will require a tremendous amount of innovation. Consider text messaging: Subway is working with a "pRomo" program that provides for remote retrieval of mobile coupon offers. With 147 million people already interacting globally on social networks via their mobile phones, there are tremendous opportunities for new methods of achieving brand and product awareness.
- rapid change in consumer choice. Take the issue of health concerns and balanced diet. Fresh-cut snack foods grew from $6.8 billion in to $10.5 billion in a short time, according to the International Fresh-Cut Produce Association. Innovation comes from changing product mix to keep up with fast-changing consumers.
- rapidly emerging new menus and taste trends. It's estimated that new flavors now move from upscale kitchens to chain restaurants in 12 months, compared to 36 months 5 years ago. This means that faster innovation is not a luxury - it's a necessity. Change faster, and you've got new growth-based products.
- fast emerging industry issues. Consider the "greening of the industry." The Grille Zone, a restaurant chain in Boston, generates about 15 pounds of waste per restaurant, compared to an industry average of 275 pounds. The Green Restaurant Association took 14 years to go to 90 restaurants; it's now at close to 1,000, with thousands more going through the certification program. Growth can come from evolving a brand so that it matches the social desires of the customer base.
Is the industry innovating? You bet: in October 2008, the US QSR market saw the biggest number of "Limited Time Offers," a unique method of increasing sales, with 547 new menu items (up 40% from the prior year. Noted Obesity, Wellness, Fitness Week magazine in November 2008, "operators appear quite open to partnering with suppliers on new products with shorter lead times."
Here's the thing: in my keynotes, I focus on growth opportunities. There are enough people out there who are so focused on the doom and gloom of the economy, that they lose sight of the fact that if they focus on fast innovation -- and keeping up with rapid trends -- they can discover all kinds of new ways to grow the business.
Faster is the new fast. Think growth. Think innovation.
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Innovating in the springtime, outdoors, in the sunshine!
In the last week, Europe has suffered through a dreadful cold spell. A huge polar arctic air mass is coming into North America next week. It could very well likely snow in Washington on or around Inauguration day.
My family and I ski every weekend, and I love the cold.
There are many others who don't. And this cold winter, combined with dark economic clouds, provides people with a degree of gloom.
That's why innovation and thinking about future trends is important! And always after winter, there's a springtime!
I'm thrilled that I've been confirmed to be the closing keynote speaker for the American Nursery and Landscape Association annual conference, aka as the 2009 Management Clinic.
The cool thing is that this is a repeat booking; this organization had me in for another event in 2006 in Vail. It's always a thrill to know that you've had such an impact on people that they bring you back for more.
My focus for this closing keynote is how to go forward; innovate; adapt; find new opportunity; and get in the right frame of mind to succeed in tumultuous times.
As spring comes along, people will find solace in the warmth and comfort of the sun. They'll visit their local garden store, and will gaze at their backyard and think about whether some work needs to be done. They might not spend as much as in prior years, and their purchasing patterns will be different. But they will be there, and the key to capitalizing upon this will be to understand the new emerging consumer mindset as it might exist this spring. I'm starting to do some detailed research on that trend now (as I do for every event I go into) and by early February should have a good handle on what comes next in this sector.
Think GROWTH!
More information:
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2009 Food Industry trends - "hyper-nicheing" is the new reality .... There are a lot of hits coming in to my web site searching for "food industry trends 2009" or "2009 food trends."
I've spent a fair amount of time through the last few years, focused on trends in the consumer, food and retail sector, talking about some of the unique trends which influence shopping behavior.
Here's a clip from a major food symposium I keynoted in New York City in September 2008; I spoke to a wide variety of trends impacting the industry. In this short clip, I'm speaking to the issue of market fragmentation, and the need for ever more small niche markets:
The key point: while economic trends are impacting consumer choice, there are still many other trends at play. At the conference, I spoke about a variety of other the "new influencers," rapid product innovation, fast-paced consumer choice change, and the impact of brand interactivity.
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Retail and consumer product innovation: a report from NYC
A few weeks ago, I keynoted an event for the Readers Digest Food & Entertainment group (who publish Everyday with Rachel Ray, and own and manage the popular online social network recipe site, AllRecipes.com) in New York City. The audience consisted of executives and creative types from Madison Ave advertising agencies, food and packaging companies and other organizations.
They've released a summary of the overall day; in addition to my own insight, participants included Katie Lee Joel (pictured on the right), author of the Comfort Table; as well as "supermarket guru" Phil Lampert.
I spoke to a variety of trends that are impacting retail and food markets; for example, the trend in which in store display technology -- a "new influencer" -- will come to influence how shoppers shop, faster than we think:
This new shopper is not only more scattered and more connected, but also faster -- scanning 12 feet of shelf space on average per second.In-store influencers will now evolve at the pace of the iPhone and the Blackberry, challenging marketers to keep up with the pace. Faster is the new innovation and innovation isn't just about new product design - it's about responding to fast-paced consumer change.
Marketing Implication: Marketers must work harder than ever to capture the attention of the consumer and make a connection. Brands must keep up with the pace of consumer change in order to stay relevant.
More information:
Read the RDA Food & Entertainings Consumer Food Symposium summary (PDF)
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How do you innovate in a volatile economy?
When the Readers Digest Food & Entertainment Division, based in New York, went looking for a keynote speaker on marketing and advertising trends within the consumer goods sector, they went with Jim Carroll.
In an event co-sponsored with Advertising Age, the publisher of such innovative titles as Everyday with Rachel Ray wanted to provide a concise, inspirational but challenging overview of the trends impacting innovation, marketing and advertising within the food sector ... and decided that Jim's message on how to innovate at high-velocity was the ideal fit for their symposium.
Ironically, the event fell smack-dab in the middle of one of the wildest economic corrections that we've ever seen, and much of the discussion through the day focused on how to innovate in a fast-paced, ever more challenging economic environment.
I outlined how innovation-oriented organizations will use the economic challenges as an opportunity -- they'll examine the emergence of fast-paced trends, and will adjust their actions, products, services, and brand message accordingly.
Consider a few of the trends we're already seeing:
- The food consumer is now shifting their focus -- 71% of consumers are choosing to prepare meals at home instead of eating out as a result of the economic correction, Restaurant trips have decreased from 1.5 times a week in 2006, to 1.2 times today. (Food Marketing Institute US Grocery Shopper Trends 2008). There's a big opportunity to rapidly shift to in-house meals, from a branding and comfort perspective.
- Chef Katie-Lee Joel, who also spoke at the event (she's the author of the book The Comfort Table and a Top Chef judge on TV), affirmed this point, speaking of the trend in which "comfort food" -- feel-good food -- will once again take priority as people adjust their spending.
- other trends will pick up steam as people think more about their food consumption habits. For example, the trend to "local food" will pick up steam with the recession -- people will want to feel responsible when it comes to food choice and the environmental footprint related to particular food. A study in Australia found that the typical shopping basket of 29 supermarket food items had travelled an astounding 70,803kms! An unbelievable number that certainly causes a pause for thought!
It's a critical concept to think about during these times.
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High velocity change in the food/consumer products sector
I'm in Manhattan tomorrow, speaking at an event for food, advertising and packaging companies on behalf of Readers Digest Food & Entertaining Division. 
I'll be offering a late morning wrap up of observations about the high-velocity change that continues to envelop the sector, particularly the following trends. Dig through the blog -- particularly, the retail or consumer product categories -- and you'll find a little bit more insight about each of them.
- the new consumer is faster -- and innovation isn't just about new product design -- it's about reaching and interacting with the consumer in new and different ways
- the new consumer is connected -- and interactivity is the new brand foundation
- the new consumer is no longer nuclear -- and hyper-nicheing is the new brand reality
- the new consumer is influenced differently -- and social-networks are the new brand influencers
- the new consumer is shifting their focus faster -- and faster paced preference change is the new reality
- the new product is rapidly re-defined -- and time to market and corporate agility are the new corporate capabilities
- the new product is up-side down as innovation changes -- and partnership is the key method to speed things up
Here's one of the statistics in my deck -- 71% of consumers are choosing to prepare meals at home rather than eating out; restaurant trips have declined from 1.5 times a week in 2006 to 1.2 times today.
These statistics, from the Food Marketing 2008 US Grocery Shopper Trends report, came out before the economic challenges of mid-September and the problems on Wall Street.
One of my key messages is that we live in a time when "volatility is the new normal" -- a mantra I've been using for years -- and food companies must learn to innovate faster to capitalize on such fast moving trends.
We'll probably see this particular trend pick up steam -- and there's opportunity for new advertising messages, branding campaigns, not to mention new product offerings!
Faster is the new fast!
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Setting the table: rapid consumer trends in the food industry
We're witnessing hyper-innovation with packaging, design, in-store promotion, new product introductions, rapid change with branding, and perhaps most important, a massive and permanent shift of advertising and influence dollars from traditional media to the online world.
These are all themes that I will be exploring later in the month, when I provide my insight for the Food & Entertaining Division of Readers Digest, the group behind AllRecipes.com, and the magazine Every Day with Rachel Ray, among other properties, at an invitation only event in New York City.
Also sharing their insight during the Symposium will be Phil Lempert, who specializes in providing deep insight into supermarket trends, and Katie-Lee Joel, Top Chef judge and author of the book The Comfort Table.
A few years ago, I dug out the statistic that the typical shopper is so attention challenged that they are scanning some twelve feet of shelf space per second. That was a few years ago : today, their decisions on what to buy and what to eat are influenced by social networks, mobile messages, cutting-edge in-store display technology, and many other trends.
Food companies and packaging companies need to understand the rapidity and depth of the trends that are occurring -- and that's why Readers Digest chose to bring my "high-velocity change" message to the table.
It should be a fun day!
More information
- view the invite for Setting thee Table : Consumer Trends, insights and opportunities for food and packaged goods marketers
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Innovating in the era of the celebrity baby blog!
I just returned from a keynote for the Direct Seller Association; the industry dedicated to selling products to individuals in their homes. One might think in the Internet era that such an industry is on the skids; yet organizations like Avon, Mary Kay, and new direct selling companies continue on a growth trajectory; through innovation in traditional markets, and through fascinating growth in the Asia Pacific region.
My keynote focused on two primary trends: how the customer of today is changing; and how marketing and advertising are changing. I then spoke about how these organizations need to continue to keep up with the rate of change that is occurring around them.
So what's with the picture? One of trends I covered was that today's consumer is influenced differently when it comes to their purchasing activities. It used to be all word of mouth; it still is, but WOM has changed to a significant degree: it's widened to include the world of social networking.
For example, a recent New York Times article commented on the role of Celebrity Baby Blog when it comes to the clothes that parents are choosing for their children. US Weekly also comented on this trend, noting that when it comes to selling, "In the 1990s, everyone wanted to know about handbags.....now it's all about, 'What stroller is Naomi Watts's child in?'" (Apparently it's a Strider 3 Steelcraft in slate at $449US).
That's but one trend of about 20 key consumer, advertising and marketing trends I took a look at. House parties have been social-networked too, through Houseparty.com! As noted in the Times, "Jarden Consumer Solutions, which sells appliances under names like Mr. Coffee and Sunbeam, hired House Party to put on 1,000 parties over the Memorial Day weekend to promote the Margaritaville Frozen Concoction line of drink-making machines, which cost $199 to $379." To a degree, the more things change, the more things stay the same. Direct selling still happens; the mechanism and methodology is changing furiously.
The key issue is this: no matter who you are, what you sell, and who you sell to, your markets, products, customers, touch points and brand issues are changing at a furious pace, and you need to as well. That's why innovation in the consumer goods sector is critical.
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Can we talk -- upside down innovation?
The media is all abuzz with the concept of "user oriented innovation," and that is certainly an important innovation trend. But it's not the only trend. Innovators would do well to recognize that there are many, many other concepts that can help to focus and refocus their innovation efforts.
While everyone focuses on having "customers" modify and design their next product, there is an even more powerful and important trend underway. I call it "upside down innovation," and it involves new levels of innovation partnership between organizations.
It's when packaging companies, retailers, and food producers get together to examine new markets and branding opportunities through powerful new ideas. Or when a retailer works with its suppliers to come up with "pre-packaged lifestyle solutions" that offer time starved consumers a neat-solution or new idea. It's when organizations in a supply chain or industry learn to innovate together -- and that can be more powerful than when customers innovate.
I keynoted the American Nursery and Landscape Association in Vail, Colorado, and offered up this example: traditionally, your local garden store features the same, endless rows of plants, in the same old order, often according to their Latin names. There's no inspiration; there's no excitement; there's no solution to the fact that you are a busy consumer and just want to "buy a backyard."
"Upside-down innovators" take it one step further; they offer a retail environment that provides you with outdoor living solutions. They've combined the insight of leading edge retail ideas, with innovative, packaged solutions, and with unique products that "fit" together.
Today, you want to look at a complete "outdoor living room solution," that happens to include all the elements you need: plants, patio furniture, outdoor entertainment solutions, decor, candles, some wine glasses -- and everything else. And that solution has been put together by the retailer with the assistance of their suppliers and packaging companies,
into one unique, outdoor lifestyle vignette.
Here's what upside-down innovators do:
- partnership is a key focus: they recognize that great ideas might come from others in their supply/production chain
- collaboration is critical: they know they have challenges in keeping up with all innovation opportunities in this hyper-economy, and are eager to learn how others can help them
- they focus on providing solutions: innovative companies no longer sell products: they sell entire solutions to customers
- they refuse to "lay flat" : it might be a flat world, but upside down innovators go to the next step by putting a ripple into the flatness, by approaching innovation in a new way
More information
- Creativity, trends and innovation in retail, packaging and consumer goods
- Read What do you do after the world gets flat? Put a ripple in it!
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Innovating in a flat world - the jewelry industry
I keynoted the 2008 Manufacturing Jewelers and Suppliers of America Expo New York yesterday, on the theme of ""How to Unlock Your Potential in the High Velocity Economy." Just about a week from now, Dubai will hold a similar event. The challenge for the AJMA members is that they now find themselves in a world that has gone massively global and is far more competitive; and as the world has flattened, so too have their challenges. They're competing not only against the City of Gold, but countless other highly innovative jewelry centers.
The focus of my keynote: what to do after the world gets flat! How can they innovate to deal with the unique challenges of today? Most certainly, the challenges go far beyond just globalization: rapidly changing consumer attitudes are also playing a key role. I used some recent insight from research firm Mintel UK, which provided a few fascinating nuggets:
- only 5% of all the customers surveyed buy jewelry frequently - compare that to the trends with consumer electronics spending - a lot of discretionary spending now goes to the latter, and not the former.
- 22% compare prices before they buy
- 15% buy online
- 17% of women are finding jewelry sold in supermarkets an "increasingly attractive" option
These are all the classic signs of commoditization of an industry -- wherein existing competitors find themselves in a never-ending black hole of being forced to compete on price.
How do you innovate your way out of this? The advice I included in my 75-minute talk covered a vast number of issues; here's a few of the things they should focus on:
- faster time to market : fashion happens faster; they need to deal with this. If P-Diddy appears with a new ear-stud and it gets noticed, kids will want it. Agile jewelers align themselves to such instant production, by revamping their process and cost structure.
- innovate upside-down. Adopt new design philosophies: rather than innovating, focus on upside down innovation. Work with their retail partners to restart the design process. Innovative organizations recognize they can't do it all. They seek partners with everything they do, recognizing that there are of lot of really wonderful innovative ideas that transcend their organization and their culture. This allows them to discover new innovative ideas they hadn't thought of before; a process I call upside down innovation.
- revamp manufacturing capabilities: a lot of these folks manufacture to inventory, and with the high and fluctuating cost of gold and other metals, that's an expensive business model to maintain, particularly in the context of increased global competition. Leading edge manufacturers are using CAD/CAM tech to change their design process and are learning to shift their business model as a result.
These were just a few of the issues I covered ; the key is accepting the fast-change that envelopes the industry, and challenging your assumptions and habits to move forward!
More information
- Read the MJSA article Change Your Mind: Staying One Step Ahead
- Read What do you do after the world gets flat? Put a ripple in it!
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Innovating locally in a global economy
I spent the day yesterday with management executives and store owners of DoItBest, one of the largest US hardware retailers. It's a fascinating organization, because in the midst of the current economic challenges in the US, it's managed to grow its profit at the same time that it saw a dramatic revenue decline.
As with all the keynotes that I do, I undertook an extensive amount of research into the company and industry before I took to the stage; this is combined with the fact that I have keynoted dozens of retail oriented conferences through the years.
What I found was a really cool, and extremely innovative organization. Their online Web site has seen a sales increase of 60%; they've included an option where shoppers can have orders sent to their local DoItBest store (of which there are 4,000+). The site is price competitive with Target and Amazon. They are doing a lot in terms of supply-chain, online store portals and rebates. They've rolled out three different store designs, and are discovering new micro-markets. All this, while they've seen sales fall to $2.81 billion from $3 billion from the year before -- and yet, they also achieved record profitability.
In my mind, there are a number of innovative strategies that the organization has pursued that any organization can learn from:
- rapidly transition challenged product lines: lumber saw price declines of 25%, and panel prices dropped 60% according to an article in Home Channel News. Do It Best stores responded by focusing on all kinds of other lines in hardware and new market opportunities such as home-decord
- be relentless on customer service: a search of news articles shows any number of articles in which customers rave about the knowledge that a staff member in a Do It Best store has when it comes to hardware, tools, home renovation and just about everything else. They've maintained a relentless focus on customer service, even as the big-box chains have lost site of its importance. If you need a power tool: these folks know power tools.
- recognize that micro-branding works: the new store format design has three components: one for those fully within the DoItBest brand, one that is sort of halfway, and one for those stores that want to maintain a distinct, local, "general store" type of image. The fact is, in this era of homogenized big-box brands, some folks like the feeling they get from a small, local hardware store brand. "Do It Best owners understand the micro-economy" -- that's what Jeff Prupis, of Pomona Paint & Hardware, a Do It Best store in Pomona, NY, stated in another Home Channel News article.
- when markets commoditize, specialize: at their trade show yesterday, they were featuring a "Christmas in January" theme; with various vendors showing the unique Christmas offerings they might be thinking about. Everywhere you look, you can see some of their stores learning about and experimenting with new premium markets and service opportunities.
- make life easy for customers: We're time compressed. We're in a hurry. We need solutions. We want "fast." That's why the comment from Joe Talor, CEO, Taylor's Do It Center, Virginia Beach, is so appropriate. "We're like the 7-11 of the hardware industry. You can get in, get out, and get back home to enjoy your weekend."
All in all, a tremendous amount of fun, and a wonderful organization to spend some time with!
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Making generations work - Cardboard people and plasma people
Can you innovate across the generations? If you can't -- then you've got a big problem to fix!
I do a tremendous number of keynotes that focus on the issue of "managing millenials," and the complexities of change occurring in the workplace. See, for example, my blog post, "Don't Mess with my Powder, Dude." (below)
Yet organizations need to move beyond the staffing issues that come with new generations: they must also ensure that they can innovate at the rapid rates demanded in our new world, and they need to do that by keeping up with the new ideas and innovations occuring with younger staff.
In this video clip, I take a look at the story of the "plasma people" and the "carboard people." Innovation occurs when different generations -- with different attitudes to change -- can cooperate and see eye to eye, and take advantage of different strengths. In this clip, I tell tjhe story where this clearly wasn't the case!
This is a video clip from a recent keynote that I gave for hundreds of executives from the grocery and consumer products industries, titled Faster is the New Fast: Innovating for the New. High Velocity Customer . This story also became the opening chapter in my book, Ready, Set, Done: How to Innovate When Faster is the New Fast.
Watch the video clip
Related postings:
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Faster is the new fast: innovating for the new. high velocity customer
In the fast paced world of instant obsolsolescence and rapid innovation, time-to-market is becoming a key factor for success.
This is a video clip from a recent keynote that I gave for hundreds of executives from the grocery and consumer products industries, titled Faster is the New Fast: Innovating for the New. High Velocity Customer . I take a look at what innovative retail, packaging and consumer goods companies do differently.
This is the third retail presentation that I've done for a major retail conference this year; earlier, I spoke to several hundred convenience store owners and their franchisees; as well as to a group of executives involved in health care retail.
There are a few key themes that I wove through this keynote that retailers, consumer goods and packaging companies need to be thinking about, as well as their advertising agencies:
- velocity: i.e. collapsing product lifecycles
- instantaneity: faster trends; I have a wonderful story about dive-in movies, that I use to describe how the new global idea sharing machine results in faster product to market!
- spontaneity: social networking, rapid emergence of new "hits"; there's a new suddenness with consumer choice!
- intensity: business operational excellence is critical; I have a story of a video game distributor -- 45% to 60% of profit of a new video game occurs in the first FOUR TO FIVE days. I explained similar short, sharp shocks of revenue are coming to consumer goods
- unpredictability: sudden, rapid shift of consumer choice, with nicheing, impact of new packaging, etc.
- simplicity: the new consumer wants nice, simple solutions that fit into their life; there's a great story here from the work I did with the American Nursery Landscape Assn, that spins directly into consumer products, beverages etc, in that simplicity is the new branding.
- volatility: great unknowns; water on planes, melamine/pet food; we have to be prepared for unforeseen risks!
- attractability: there's another video that I'll post soon that involves a story of the plasma people and the cardboard people. suffice it to say, the new consumer will be more highly interactive, sooner than we think
- unfocusability: short attention spans, consumers scan 50 feet of shelf space per second; we're seeing collapsing newspaper/magazine spend, rapid growth of online spend, etc.
- virtuality: Screen Digest, a media consultancy firm, predicts that 80% of active Internet users will become involved in a virtual world by 2012.
Watch the video clip
Related postings:
- Next big home entertainment trend? Dive-in movies!
- Can you run your business at video game intensity?
- High velocity retail innovation
- Creativity, trends and innovation in retail, packaging & consumer goods
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Innovation - agility is critical
I often talk on stage to my clients about the concept of organizational agility: that is, the ability to respond to fast-changing circumstances. In the high velocity economy, everything can move quickly : markets, customer expectations, competitors, products ....
In this video clip, I take a deeper look at the concept of agility, outlining that organizations that master the capability have several key attributes:
- they are rapid movers
- cost excellence is a major focus
- their customers have set high expectations
- they establish instant, need driven relationships in order to get things done
- they excel at rapid response to new market demands
- they focus on fast time to market
- they have mastered the ability for quick marshalling of resources
- ....and they have instant scalability!
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Banking and furniture industries -- coping at high velocity!
It's been a busy week, with keynotes for the American Community Bankers Association and the National Home Furnishings Association. This gave me an audience of several hundred CEO's and senior marketing/sales VP's of some pretty big organizations.
And I can tell you this: the undercurrent of the mood within both conferences was one of being "overwhelmed" by high velocity change! New methods of marketing, a constantly higher bar of expectations from customers, a need for relentless customer oriented innovation to meet those expectations, an accelerated product innovation cycle with a need for a faster time to market. Web 2.0, collaborative networks, social networking, new media spending, YouTube, Google! What the heck does one do!?
The mindset of many senior executives today is "where do we start? My keynotes approached this by indicating the three organizational capabilities they must adjust for:
- velocity: they must evolve their organizations so that they can operate at the very fast pace that today's market demands
- instantaneity: they must be prepared for rapid shifts in market, style, demand, fashion, product, service, and just about everything else!
- short term spontaneity: the consumer has no attention span left; they must learn to market, support and sell to the “continuous partial attention customer."
My advice to them for the short term? I suggested to both audiences:
- focus on upside down innovation: turn existing innovation models around, by learning customer focused innovation. I've written about that on this blog before; it is a trend that is sweeping the world of retail, and is coming to impact financial services
- use the “new influencers” : some people are overwhelmed with product/service decision making : what should I get? What should I buy? They are increasingly turning to someone to help; in the case of furniture, parents seeking a home theater are turning to their kids for help! Re-steer your markeitng campaign to get the kids to get the parents in the door!
- develop knowledge agility: sales staff are overwhelmed too. Help them cope, by focusing on just-in-time knowledge on new products, services, campaigns and other customer focused efforts.
- focus on location-intelligence capabilities: online search increasingly drives customer decisions. It's become extremely narrow and specific in the last year: you need to boost your ability to make sure you show up with very specific location information.
- build your experiential capital: take risks. Make mistakes! Do things! Learn from it -- that's your experiential capital, and it is the most important asset in the high velocity economy! You can't just sit around and hope this rapid change will go away. It won't -- and it's going to get faster.
I think the feeling of being overwhelmed is a common one. Based on the comments post-keynote last night, I think I hit the right mark with the observations, and the guidance.
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High velocity retail innovation
Back in October 2005, I identified the major trends that would sweep the retail and consumer products industries, and some of the key innovation methods that organizations should pursue in order to avoid product and service commoditization. You can read the original post here.
Since then, we've seen continued massive rates of change in these sectors. Three weeks ago, I keynoted a major convenience store conference, speaking both to store and franchise owners, as well as dozens of executives from major consumer product companies.
The retail industry today is now driven by hyper-innovation, rapid technological advance, increased customer expectations, rapidly evolving product trends, and increasingly fickle consumers driven by the rapidity of instant trends.
How can people turn these trends into opportunity? It comes from innovation -- not just with new products, but with business process, store design and layout, rapid adoption of new products, format mix, and partnerships between the retailers, consumer goods companies and packaging companies.
Some of the trends I highlighted in my talk included:
- the rapidity of change: The retailer of today is drowning in new product innovations. According to the Washington Post, some 33,679 new products were introduced into the consumer products sector in 2004, up 53% from 10 years earlier. With room for only so many new SKU's, it can be pretty difficult to keep up.
- constant format change: There's a lot of innovation with in-store formats and display technology : constant experimentation with store formats, brand partnering promo innovation, new in-store displays, logistics and tracking studies, and countless other new ways of doing things within the store are all critical.
- zero-attention span customers: The average consumer now scans 12 feet of shelf space per second. News becomes old news within 36 hours. The average age of a video game player is now 37 years old. Today's consumer has precious little attention, and you've got to work extra hard to get them interested in a product while in the store.
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Is your brand from the olden days?
"A brand today can go from hero to zero in a matter of months...."
As the news media gears up for the release of the Sony Playstation 3, one wonders whether they are capturing an increasingly important aspect of the story: has Sony managed to keep any of the brand luster that it once had, or is already irretrievably lost?
That's an important question in this world of instant obsolescence. I often tell the story on stage of how my sons -- now 11 and 13 -- perceive many of the things which were once a part of my life as being from the "olden days." We've actually come up with a pretty long list; just the other day, when looking at a Web site, my youngest asked me with all innocence, "what's a cassette player?"
Sony once had a really cool brand name, and the Walkman had deep, deep brand value. Yet Sony seemed to lose its innovative spirit, and started going wrong in a big way. It ended up destroying a good chunk of the brand value behind the Sony name -- when I think of Sony now, I think of a company that is slow, behind the times, ponderous.
Which begs the question : are you operating with enough agility and rapidity in order to ensure that your own brand doesn't become a "brand from the olden days?"
The rate at which the Sony brand lost its value is nothing short of stunning -- and was due to a series of well known missteps (among others):
- they failed to keep up with the rapid growth and demand for flat panel TV's and other hot new technologies: they failed with market agility.
- they decided that going to war with their customers (by slipping destructive software onto their music CD's) was more important than developing great technology that caught the next wave of consumer electronics.
- they dropped the ball on the necessity for continuous operational excellence , as evidenced by a disastrous recall of laptop batteries.
Are you making similar mistakes that is costing you brand image? You certainly are, if:
- Your brand looks tired, because it is tired : Case in point -- many companies in the automobile industry missed out on the revolution in the passenger compartment, because they weren't watching what their customers were doing. They were busy releasing automobiles that were some five years behind the living rooms of their customers -- and that certainly brought the brand sheen off of some of the biggest auto companies.
- Customers see a lack of innovation: Consumers today are immersed in a global cloud of new ideas. They're witnessing constant, relentless, awe-inspiring forms of innovation all around them, as they deal with a flood of new consumer technologies, packaging based product innovation, and ongoing advancements in retail environments, both offline and online. They've come to expect that the brands they deal with are at the leading edge, in design, functionality, message and purpose.
- Lousy, ineffective customer service: Guess what - when it comes to interaction with your customers, they measure you up against the world's best. If you don't add up, you are doing some significant damage to your brand equity right there. Customer support is no longer good enough -- fanatical support is better.
- You don't know that you customers know more about your brand than you do: Your customers today are immersed in the global innovation idea feedback loop. They busy sharing ideas on what's really cool, and they are even busier taking apart the folly of those who have been left behind. In doing so, they are rapidly reinventing products, services, brands and image. If you aren't listening, you are guaranteeing that you'll fall behind.
- A lack of purpose or urgency: I've studied many organizations who still don't have the key information they need for market agility. They don't have instant feedback mechanisms which tell them of rapid developments in specific markets. They don't know how to regroup quickly "when bad things happen." They still operate blind, as if it's 1990: their sales force goes into a customer meeting, oblivious as to what that customer has been thinking about them. They approach every day as if it were the same as yesterday; meanwhile, their market and their customers have run away from them!
- A lack of market and competitive intelligence: It's the information-age, get it? There's no shortage of information to be had. Yet I see companies who seem shocked when a competitor drops a 'bombshell' announcement -- only to realize that they were the only one who thought it was a bombshell. Everybody else knew what the competition was up to, because in this new hyper-connected world, everyone knows what everyone else is doing!
- A regular series of fumbling missteps: The saddest thing is that Sony has messed up in so many ways, that some customers now look at as if it has a "L" on its forehead. Today, small mistakes can be instantly compounded. Take the concept of compounded financial interest. Now realize that a small PR mistake, a lousy executive decision, or poor execution, can lead to the same type of instant, global brand devaluation -- that can compound on itself at an extremely high interest rate!
A brand today can go from hero to zero in a matter of months. How do you avoid such a fate?
- Recognize that brand longevity is now a critical issue
- Ensure your sales, marketing, development and customer support team are relentlessly focused on the currency of the brand
- Make sure that continuous brand innovation is part of your corporate mantra
- When confronted with the new and challenging customer, learn from them rather than running away
- Be incessantly focused on the likely innovations that will come to impact your brand
- Learn to think five to six product lifecycles in advance -- and plan to do them all within six months.
- Make forward oriented intelligence a critical aspect of what you do.
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Can you run your business at video-game intensity?
Video game business intensity is coming to all industries.
This provides some important food for thought -- can you run your business at the high degree of intensity that occurs within the high-tech gaming (not gambling) industry? Remember -- the key words today are rapid time to market, agility, and execution.
One of the most innovative companies I've met in the last few years is a distributor of computer/console video games - they operate between the video game manufacturers and the retailers. They have one core mission -- they make sure that new games get to the store and to the shelf on time.
The CIO of this organization indicated that 45-60% of the total life revenue stream of a typical video game is made within the first four days of its release.
That's why this company is relentlessly, aggressive focused on operational excellence - their entire culture, information system, management structure and organizational responsibilities are completely focused on this market reality.
Tie this observation into the fact that accelerated innovation and rapid time to market is becoming a key trend in every industry today. With that comes short, sharp shocks of revenue hits, with a good chunk of total lifecycle revenue happening in just a few short days.
That's why to thrive in the high-velocity economy, you've got to think about business intensity, and the concept of short-term, rapid operational and market excellence.
Can you do it? If not, you'd better look at your innovation mindset, and begin to adjust accordingly.
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What's Next? Trends Shaping the Future of Commercial Horticulture
I've just returned from Vail after doing a keynote and workshop for the American Nursery and Landscape Association.
As the session description for the afternoon workshop commented: "Your mind is spinning from the morning's trends discussion. Now it's time to turn those trends and challenges into a tangible business opportunity! After 100 years, StarKist finally got rid of its tin-can, replacing it with a new resealable plastic tuna pouch. $200 million of new revenue later, they've realized the benefit of aggressive change and innovation. StarKist looked at the trend toward convenience, and modified their product accordingly.... Jim Carroll will roll up his sleeves and work with you to discover what your business' tin can is...and help you see that opportunity comes from your ability to innovate and change, adapt and evolve, as the very foundation of the industry continues to evolve."
(The full session description is here)
Like every industry, horticulture and garden retailing is being influenced by a wide variety of trends; some of the issues I spoke about included:
- hyper-science, including the rapid evolution of new species for particular markets and hardiness zones based on plant genomics. But it's not just that: the global infinite idea loop is also seeing the emergence of new plant strains, which fuels new consumer desire, once they see the new things they can do in their garden that they could not do before .... imagine hydrangeas that bloom all summer long....
- marketing to the zero-attention span customer, who now scans shelf-space at an average rate of 12 feet per second! Gardening stores and others in the industry need to focus not on selling plants, but on selling brands and solutions. The customer isn't looking for a plant by a Latin name -- they want branding and design! Some growers are doing exactly that, such as with the "Tropical Splendor" design which involves cool brand names such as "Exotic Tahiti" or "Fiesta Cozumel"
- the emergence of pre-packaged life, a time in which today's gardener doesn't want to do the work -- they want an outdoor living room solution, of but which flowers and plants are but a part of an overall design. I identified the outdoor living room trend in 2003 -- and today, already, the outdoor living product market is now estimated at $15.7 billion, or 37% of total lawn and garden spending....
- the rapid emergence of new markets: all of the above means that retailers in this sector are witnessing new products and markets appearing faster than ever before, with the result that their team agility -- the ability to respond to rapid market change -- is critical to their fuuture success
- upside down retail -- as with every aspect of innovation, the retailer is now in charge of the design process, and producers must learn to listen and follow, rather than mandate and dictate.
- and programmable plants: yup, that's right! Pretty soon, many garden plants will have the intelligence and connectivity to signal to the home irrigation network when they need water. With water being the oil of the 21st century, the home gardening industry is faced with some pretty big challenges -- and science is quickly bringing us some pretty unique developments!
- Change acceptance is a challenge: I think one of the most challenging issues occurring is that traditional florists/nurseries and gardeneres are having a really tough time dealing with the new consumer. A fellow name Eliot Wadsworth of White Flower Farm commented in the May 11, 2006 issue of Greenhouse Grower that as gardeners, "we were selling a process and a way of life" but that all they are selling now "a canned and instantaneous-gratification product. " That's exactly what many consumers are looking for; and even so, many traditional gardeners and florists will remain. Innovation is all about understanding change -- as difficult and sad as it might be from an emotional perspective.
All in all, it was a great day and a great session -- although I'll be the first to admit that my energy was seriously drained by the 8,000 foot elevation at Vail combined with 95F temperatures....! That was some heat wave!
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Denmark TV interview -- Brand image in a low cost economy
Wow! Where did May go?
I had keynotes for a huge number of different companies and associations, ranging from appraisers to broadcasters to motor vehicle dealers ....
Somewhere along the way, I did an interview on the national news for Denmarks's TV2 on the issue of how companies might survive the global low cost economy.
There's a short snippet of the interview you can watch online ; just click the picture above!
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"Volatility is the new normal"
I recently keynoted the Furniture Today 2005 Leadership conference in Miami. This article reports on my talk.
Futurist: Changes will present new opportunities
Furniture Today, 12/14/2005 .
MIAMI -- If you aren't comfortable with change, you probably won't like Jim Carroll's vision of the future.
"Everything is changing so fast, you don't know what is going to happen next," he told the Furniture/Today Leadership Conference here. "Volatility is the new normal."
Carroll should know. The "futurist" has observed trends for nearly 20 years. He can't predict exactly what will happen, but understands how quickly things are changing and how that could affect business.
Technology and ease of communication are among the key factors influencing the spread of new ideas and products. For instance, there are now 19 million known chemical substances, he said. Thanks to online capabilities that allow scientists to share information quickly, this number is expected to grow to 80 million by 2025 and 5 billion by 2100.
Carroll cited a study that said 65% of today's preschool children will work in jobs that don't exist now. And half of what students learn in their freshman year about science and technology is obsolete by their senior year.
Such rapid change, he said, will have broad impact on the furniture industry. "The way ideas are generated has changed in a fundamental way," he said. "All ideas are shared faster than ever before, and that is what is impacting your industry."
Carroll wants people to embrace change, the future and the opportunities they present. "Most people approach the future as something to be feared," he said. "To me, the future is full of opportunity."
Aging baby boomers are one opportunity as they seek home health care service, a factor that will influence the type of furniture in peoples' homes, he said.
"Dealing with the future with the right mindset is critical," Carroll said. "When we are bemoaning the challenges, we need to think of the next waves of opportunity."
He urged his audience to better understand customers in the context of a rapidly changing world. Customer expectations and needs are changing rapidly, and many are more demanding, he said, and brand or product loyalty "tends to go out the window with customer empowerment." Also, customers view more and more products as commodities, which influences buying decisions.
He advised furniture companies to remain focused on core areas such as style, selection and service to best serve a demanding customer, and suggested they partner with industries such as electronics and health care to deliver in all three areas.
Most importantly, Carroll urged his listeners to keep an open mind to what is happening around them and the possibilities that presents for their businesses.
"You can become your own futurists," he said. "You can discover your own trends simply by looking at what's happening in the world."
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Creativity, trends and innovation in retail, packaging and consumer goods ….
According to the Washington Post, some 33,679 new products were introduced into the consumer products sector in 2004, up 53% from 10 years earlier. Since the typical store has only 40,000 SKU’s, it can be pretty difficult for a consumer products company to succeed today!
Clearly the world of retail has become extremely challenging – and I’ve been doing a number of keynotes helping consumer products, packaging and other companies and industry associations think about how innovation and creativity can spark success.
Creativity and innovation with retail, packaging and consumer products companies involves understanding the reality of the challenge that exists, and the key strategies that you can use to take your organization team and forward into the world of hyper-change that now surrounds us.
Think about the depth of the challenges that exist:
- Compelling customers….customers expectations and needs are changing rapidly, and yet they are more demanding than ever before
- Loyalty disappears....at the same time they expect creative perfection from you, they are more fickle, and far less loyal …. I’m not even sure the concept of loyalty exists any more for many brands!
- The China price....if that’s not enough, the impact of the “China Price” is such that consumers are coming to view all products as commodities. Without successful value positioning, many brands are quickly losing their distinctive brand image
- Costs increase....all this is happening in a world in which producers and retailers are faced with a rapid increase in uncontrollable costs…. energy, plastics, you name it! Margins are being squeezed and pressured as a result.
- Focus on collaborative relationships The key to innovation in retail today can be found in collaborative relationships and partnerships between packaging companies, consumer products and brands, and retailers. ! Noted Paul Moss, British Bakeries Divisional Marketing Director, “We have more to talk about than price.” No one wants to fight in a brand sector that is involved in a race to the bottom, but that’s what happens when everyone focuses on price. Shift the equation with your partners, and you’ll find a way out.
- Remember -- the package is the brand. Heinz, StarKist and other industry leaders have learned that packaging innovation, driven by new methodologies, ideas and technologies, has become the secret to brand image in many sectors, because it permits a shift of value and customer perception in ways that haven’t previously been seen. Think upside-down-Ketchup. If you aren’t innovating with packaging, you aren’t in the game
- Hyper-innovation is key. Throughout the consumer products world, we are witnessing faster time to market in every single sector. The concept of a product lifecycle is disappearing as products come to market and thrive for but short micro-bursts of time. Make sure you’ve got the agility on your team you need to cope with this reality, and you might survive
- Get used to contentious consumers. Desires, needs and demands will continue change at an ever more furious pace, often in ways that won’t make sense. Don’t despair from it: learn from it. Take low-carb: sure, it was a disaster, a fad, and you should have known better! Yet don’t focus on the morning after quarterbacking – focus instead on your agility instead. Did you respond quickly enough? What organizations sclerosis blocked your ability for quick change? And what should you do to fix it?
- Capture the insight of creatively new competitors – constantly. Admit this: there are likely going to be a lot of folks out there who are a lot more creative than you are. They’ll beat the pants off you all the time with quick short bursts of tactical success, while you are still busy marshalling your forces. Rather than losing sleep over their success, study them! Learn from them! And then capitalize by doing what they do – and do it better. Rapid creativity in a time of constant change is the name of the game, and you’d do best to work to obtain the same skills and insight that your best competitors have developed.
- Ride the wave of continuous business model innovation. In retail, we are seeing constant experimentation with store formats, brand partnering, in-store displays, logistics and tracking studies, and countless other new ways of doing things. Get on board the tornado of change in retail and ride it for all it is worth. You should develop a team that has a finely-tuned radar for unique trends, experiments, success stories and innovations. They’re swirling around you continuously, they are constantly reinventing the world of retail on a minute by minute basis – and you’ve got to understand them and capitalize upon them.
I’ve given presentations in the last year to Nestle, PrintPack, TetraPack, an association of chain drug retailers, and lots more. Want to think about creativity, innovation and trends in the world of retail, packaging and consumer products? Contact me….
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