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Author Archives: Victor Hoong

How to build a professional network as an independent consultant

Posted on October 16, 2019 - 11:48 am by

News coverage on the gig economy usually centers on digital platforms such as Uber, Lyft and Upwork. What this coverage fails to mention, however, is the growing “white collar” dimension of the gig economy, made up of highly qualified professionals working independently. As more and more professionals leave traditional employment, you might be asking yourself if you should do the same – and if so, how to succeed?

To be successful, a strong network is often key. Especially when starting to freelance, setting up and nurturing a professional network is the best way to get leads and clients. If you’re considering taking the leap into an independent career, get started building your network ahead of your career transition, so that you will be up to speed right away. In this article, we explore how to build this network, and how to reap the most value out of it.

 

How to build your network

You’re thinking of leaving the corporate world behind for a career in independent consulting. How can you build, expand and foster your network?

 

1. Keep in touch with colleagues from your previous employer

When leaving your company after years, make sure to maintain contact with your co-workers. Having worked with you for quite some time, they are aware of the skills and value you can add to teams. This could come in handy, should they (or any of their connections) be looking for a consultant in the future.  Who knows – this might turn into a valuable lead!

How: Connect with your ex-colleagues through LinkedIn. Let them know about your future plan to start freelancing in your field of expertise, and the possibility to forward you any open roles they might encounter.

 

2. Join networks online

Online networks are one of the easiest ways to manage your connections. You can send direct messages, as well as give or ask for recommendations. This is a great way to build and maintain a connection, and it might come in handy, as you’re more likely to be considered for a job if you’ve kept regular contact!

How: Adding old colleagues to your online networks is a great first step. Next to that, don’t forget to join groups to find and connect with a range of professionals from your industry or location, as well as other freelancers.

LinkedIn: The go-to platform for online networking for professionals remains LinkedIn. Connecting with other professionals, be it ex-colleagues, freelancers or clients, is as easy as sending a personal message. Have a look at other freelancers in your branch of expertise to get inspiration on how to market and even differentiate yourself!

LinkedIn Groups: A great way to connect people with similar interests, goals or background. This will help you build connections outside your inner circle, all the while  still generating leads within your area of expertise.

Just start by searching for groups by typing in keywords such as “digital strategy”, “retail” or “RPA”. You can start by introducing yourself, your interests and your background. By being an active community member in this group, you might be considered when a new job opportunity comes up.

Social Communities: You can also find consultant groups on Twitter, Slack and even on Facebook. These platforms make it quite easy to connect to people and to have conversations. Additionally, you might find relevant information regarding starting your own freelance business. Riverflex consultants have access to Slack community where the can share and access useful information and opportunities – to join, sign up on our website!

 

3. Network offline as well

To grow your network even further, make sure to also attend offline meetings or events in your industry.

How: The more people you meet, the higher your chances are of finding a new opportunity.  Make sure to approach different people and engage in conversations.

On Meetup and Eventbrite you can find more events based on your areas of interest and location. Next to that, consider becoming a member of a local chamber of commerce, industry association or volunteer on the board for a charity – all these actions can act as a direct lane to new leads. If you’re not able to find an association or group that seems relevant to you, how about creating one yourself?

Riverflex is organising face-to-face events on a regular basis, in London and Amsterdam. Our goal is to give freelance consultants the opportunity to meet like-minded peers, discuss opportunities in the digital space, and learn more about how to strengthen their independent brand. Read more about our next event on The Future Of Work and sign up here.

 

4. Build a reputation

Even better than attending events is being a speaker at one, as it gives you additional networking opportunities and visibility. If you’re speaking at an event, you immediately are considered an expert in a field. This gives you the opportunity to show your expertise and make a lasting impression on your audience.

How: When given the opportunity, make sure to publicise your contact details at the end of your presentation and give the opportunity for discussion afterwards to further connect with interested peers.

 

5. Connect at co-working spaces

You won’t find a space with a higher concentration of independents than a co-working space. That’s a great opportunity for you to join the crowd and build connections across industries. Oftentimes these spaces will also organise networking events.

How: Look out for these kind of co-working spaces in your city. Riverflex for example is located at TQ in Amsterdam! Let us know if you’d like to come by for a coffee.

 

How do you get value out of your network?

So you have network. Now comes the difficult part: getting value out of it. It’s not all about coffee drinking – how can your connections bring value to your independent brand?

 

1. Stay active / build relationships (online & offline)

First and foremost, keep an active online and offline presence. It helps to build stronger relationships and pushes your content as well as your profile at the top of mind for other freelancers as well as potential leads.

How: All online social platforms are two-way communication communities. Pushing content alone, doesn’t work – liking and commenting on relevant posts from others increases your own visibility. Offline, take time for important meetings and people.

 

2. Referrals

Give to get. Referrals always go a long way – they are a great relationship strengthener, and you can be sure that, eventually, the consultant you helped out will get back to you with an opportunity.  This appreciation usually comes back to you when other freelancers are too busy to take on a job or are looking for someone to work together. Sometimes there’s even the possibility of a referral kickback.

How: Don’t treat other freelancers as competition but rather as your colleagues. Your goal is to stay top of their mind, which you can do through referring interesting job opportunities.

 

3. Sharing knowledge

Why: Sharing insights from past experiences is a great way to make an impact on potential leads. Writing informative content on your area of expertise, tackling issues that potential clients are facing, will resonate with readers and demonstrate your knowledge and experience. This is a different approach to tell your audience that you’re the right person for the job.

Within the Riverflex community, we encourage consultants to team up and share their expertise by publishing it in quality articles that will boost their independent brand. Have a look at these articles on the meaning of digital transformation, and the role of marketing in organisational change.

How: Repeating information from other websites won’t give your audience what they need. You should start with topics in your field of expertise, where your clients have the most questions. This will ensure your articles have an actual impact.

 

4. Ask your network for support

Next to offering your expertise, your network is a great place to find answers to your questions and support. Use your connections to find expertise, ideas and tips – and return the favor. Not only will you become a valuable addition to your contacts’ network, but you’ll find that the favor is returned in abundance when people recommend you to others who are looking for similar help – and that can mean paying clients.

How: When sharing your knowledge (see tip 3) or interacting with other people at conferences, always make sure that you’re open to any discussions, questions or feedback. Next to that make sure to make use of LinkedIn groups or professional networks (such as the Riverflex Slack community) to find answers to your questions.

 

Now it’s time to go out there and start networking. Good luck!

 

About the author

Victor Hoong is the co-founder of Riverflex. An ex Deloitte partner, has 16+ years of experience developing digital strategies and roadmaps for major brands and retailers.

IKEA is Transforming its Retail Experience for the Modern Consumer

Posted on April 29, 2019 - 8:17 am by

Disclaimer: our views below do not represent that of IKEA or its staff. All sources of information are from the public domain and no input or view has been taken from IKEA in the development of this article.

IKEA has just opened another of its small store formats on New York’s Third Avenue. A definitive shift from the gigantic blue and yellow maze stores, this is one of the many steps the Swedish furniture giant has taken to transform its proposition to match the changing habits of consumers around the world.

IKEA first conquered the retail sector with its famous concept of well-priced self-pick and self-assembly design furniture. However, this winning formula has been challenged by recent trends of online shopping, increasing urban dwelling and customers seeking greater convenience. Understanding that its USP’s were no longer fully matching the needs of today’s omnichannel shopper, IKEA is embracing change.

We are seeing an amazing transformation story underway at IKEA – let’s take a look at three of the major shifts it’s made.

 

Increasing opportunities to connect with the consumer

As part of its mission to “create a better everyday life for the many people”, IKEA aims to increase its reach and interact with 3 billion consumers by 2025. Digital channels offer an obvious opportunity to increase reach and IKEA are investing here heavily. However, it’s the investments the retailer is making into the physical touchpoints where things are getting really interesting.

Until recently, the big box, blue-yellow maze stores have been the only IKEA we have known. But with over half of the world’s population now living in cities and the trend in urban dwelling set to continue, IKEA has had to evolve. Cue the plans to open 30 smaller stores in major cities across the globe, with flexible sizing depending on location – like the New York store. Two smaller stores have also opened in London and Warsaw, with announcements for stores to open doors in Sydney in May, and in Tokyo in 2020. The smaller formats have focused on specific room categories — such as kitchen and bedroom planning — while still allowing  consumers to explore the wider IKEA brand ecosystem.

In addition to the small format stores, IKEA are also investing into pick-up points as an alternative to home delivery or their big box stores, as well as pop-up stores focused on specific themes or events. Right now in Switzerland, an IKEA vending machine is even on tour at main stations across the country!

The launch of new store formats by IKEA seems to be intended as complementary to the big box stores, not as a replacement. The overriding theme has been increasing brand awareness with consumers and access to engage with and explore its brand ecosystem.

 

Developing “ecosystem thinking”

The second shift we see is that IKEA is opening up its business borders and engaging with partners to create new products and services. While the outcomes of the partnerships with adidas and Lego are still a secret, we have recently seen the results of the Sonos partnership. Speakers that can stand vertically as a bookend on a shelf, or become a shelf when mounted on a wall – or the Symfonisk table lamp, which is a speaker inside a lamp. On a partnership with the non profits Milbat and Access Israel, IKEA has adopted 3D printing to make furniture more accessible for people with disabilities.

IKEA has also complemented its product offering with new services, such as the 2018 announced partnership with Xiaomi, which could help the company catch up with IoT and smart home developments. These partnerships are a clear example of how an ecosystem can help an organisation create new offerings by sharing capabilities and resources. Instead of doing it all by yourself by acquiring or building elements in time- and cost-intensive processes, a partnership is a highly advantageous approach to create new offerings.

 

Extending value proposition scope

While the ecosystem approach extends innovation within the core offering, there are changes happening to extend it as well. What does the future of IKEA look like, then?

Manhattan’s recently opened planning studio is a great example. Visitors are scheduling appointments for one-on-one sessions with one of the 25 on-site consultants to design their future home. They are browsing through the model homes which imitate living arrangements familiar to most New Yorkers. We see IKEA is taking away the user friction connected with IKEA products and it’s original self-assembly concept in order to deliver greater customer convenience. To increase accessibility, products are being shipped to them and thanks to the recently acquired Taskrabbit, customers can outsource the time-consuming assembly of IKEA products at a small fee.

What is happening is a change of the core IKEA offering from products to outcomes. We believe IKEA is now viewing its customer value proposition not only as creating and selling furniture but extending to decorating living spaces. The acquisition of Taskrabbit and the opening of more and more planning studios are only the first steps in investing in new resources and capabilities to support the delivery of this new value proposition.

 

IKEA is investing in transformation for the consumer

IKEA has improved digital capabilities as well as logistics operation to achieve its ambitious goal of making home delivery cheaper and more efficient. Its gross profits have grown steadily from €10 to €15 billions in 2009 to 2016 even amidst consumer digitisation trends. Testimony to IKEA’s dedication to transformational plans to meet new consumer needs, profits have dropped in 2017 and 2018. As part of those transformational plans, in 2017-18 €2.8 billions have been invested, mainly on digital and sustainability efforts. As well as establishing 14 new distribution centres for its online business, IKEA has also bought wind farms in Finland and Portugal and forests in Latvia and the US.

IKEA is a great company. Its historical growth and business performance are stellar. And such success can build a kind of momentum that can make it difficult to change. We are happy to see that IKEA has made some bold choices to invest heavily and turn its tanker in a new direction. It’s a massive change and a difficult course to navigate, but we respect the leadership courage it takes to face the challenge head-on. We’re looking forward to watching IKEA’s effort produce results and hope to see them blossom as a retailer that made the choice to do things differently.

 

Looking for the right expertise to solve your toughest business challenges?

We can help you find the right independent consultants and industry experts to work with from diverse digital specialisms.

 

Read more about our take on retail innovation and how we can support your retail organisation here and read more about our applications for Samsung and a global fashion retailer here. Check out our insights on retail analytics here.

 

About the author

Victor Hoong is the co-founder of Riverflex. An ex Deloitte partner, has 16+ years of experience developing digital strategies and roadmaps for major brands and retailers.

So you’re in charge of a digital transformation. What exactly does that mean?

Posted on February 14, 2019 - 10:23 am by

Digital transformation is everywhere. Yet, often it is unclear what people actually mean. While there are already thousands of articles on digital transformation, many are vague and some are simply inaccurate. Rather than dispelling the mist surrounding digital change in organisations, many of these publications just add to the confusion. What is digital transformation, really? What key areas of change need to be considered? And with what priority? If you are one of the lucky few brought in to lead, sponsor or support a digital transformation — these will be just some of the questions entering your mind.

Despite the plethora of articles you’ll come across online, an accurate guide on organising and executing digital transformation is pretty hard to come by. With this article, we are starting the informational series Digital Transformation Done Right, which we hope will change that. Over a series of posts in the coming months, we will explain the steps in driving digital change in organisations, written by experts that have really done the work.

With so many different projects hyped-up under the banner of “digital transformation”, this initial article addresses a very basic but important first question: ‘how do we define digital transformation for an organisation?’. What categories of change is this made up of and how can we think about where the scope starts and ends for the different teams involved across the organisation? This article is intended to serve as an initial reference framework basis for our series of deep dive follow-up articles into different transformational topics.

After reading this you will be able to:

  1. Identify the breadth of change that is put in the scope of digital transformations and the differing perspectives that different stakeholders may bring to it
  2. Quickly distinguish between varied digital change objectives, why they are important and some focus areas for each type of change

Our future articles will take further deep-dives into the topics within digital transformation, getting more specific on the different aspects and how to be successful. But for now, let’s talk ambition!

 

Defining digital transformation

In its broadest definition, digital transformation involves embedding digital technology to improve a business to be more effective and/or efficient. However, the aim is not just to replicate processes and support them with technology, but also to re-design them so that the overall system or service is significantly better. Next to that the most successful transformations also tackle the organisational mindset at a fundamental level. Business and technology competencies are intertwined and a culture of continuous improvement and innovation is established. The process to rapidly enhance business through new technologies becomes systemic.

This is a high-level definition, so let’s get more specific. The illustration below outlines the typical areas tackled within digital transformation. Each have differing objectives and focus. Categories 1 and 3 are more focused on what digital output a business creates while categories 2, 4, and 5 are about how digital ways of working are embedded into the business to create its outputs. A digital transformation tackles a combination of these areas — ensuring it addresses not only what digital output is needed by the business, but also how digital ways of working will be incorporated to do that consistently, systematically and to high quality.

Now let’s take a closer look at each of the categories in turn.

Typical areas tackled in a digital transformation strategy

 

1. Customer & Channels

Why is this digital change important?

Digitalisation has opened up a multitude of new ways for customers to discover and interact with businesses, leading to a shift in customer preferences and behaviour overall. Businesses can market to, sell to, and service their customers via digital channels such as web, mobile, social, and email; which need to work hand in hand with more analogue touch-points such as retail, customer deliveries and events.

The need to be able to meet and compete for customers via digital channels has been a major catalyst for companies to invest in digital capabilities. Early digital start-ups across different market sectors have spurred incumbents to also compete via digital channels despite their domination of traditional channels to market. Some examples include Amazon (which started with Books, CDs before mass merchandise), eBay (Print classifieds), ASOS (fashion) and Expedia (Travel).

Although this first wave of disruption started in the late 90s, this is still as relevant now as it was then, and for several reasons. First of all, customer preference to utilise digital channels continues to grow. This means that also business growth potential is greatest via digital channels. Secondly, digital innovation continues to increase in pace. Businesses must continuously up their game to compete, as the bar for digital competition rises higher and higher.

Most digital transformations today still include efforts to drive improvements in customer channels. If you are leading or supporting a digital transformation where digital channels are a key focus, then it may help to explore some successful examples. As a starting point, we recommend exploring John Lewis’s omnichannel transformation, or adidas’ digital strategy to grow. Especially because they are incumbent businesses which had the additional complexity of how to grapple with the combination of old and new digital channels to reach customers.

 

Three focus areas for driving digital change in customer & channels

As there are many change areas and interdependencies that should be explained, we will further deep dive this topic in a future article. But for now, here are 3 key change areas we would like to highlight as front and centre of a “digital channel transformation”:

  1. The customer is king. A customer-centric mindset is at the core of this change. Your business is growing in digital channels because customer prefer to increasingly use these as the medium to discover, learn, select, and buy the products and services needed
  2. Understand the customer and act on it. This digital change means increasing your organisation’s capability to learn, and optimise its approach towards the customer. In our experience, many business say they do this — but few really do in practice. This commitment to the customer is what separates average performance with industry leading growth. Success means adopting design thinking approaches, and building the capability to better capture, analyse, and utilisecustomer data/feedback. And not just talking about it but doing it
  3. Cross-channel collaboration. Stimulating collaboration across brand, marketing, sales, and service teams is essential to connect business thinking and action to deliver a superior customer experience. Not an easy task, but crucial to really make the shift you are looking for. And actually a lot of fun for the departments and people involved once they get the knack of it

 

2. Next Gen Operations

Why is this digital change important?

While change programmes that focus on improving customer experience and digital channel capabilities have been the majority of digital transformations in the past decade, we increasingly find that digital transformations focus on revamping operational and back-office capabilities. And this deserves greater attention. Digital technology has significant potential to drive the efficiency and effectiveness of internal business operations. Our definition of Next Gen Operations is the digitalisation of non-customer facing operations to optimise for efficiency and effectiveness. Digital changes that you want to focus on in this space are “Digital Workplace”, “Digital HR”, “Digital Finance”, and “RPA — Robotics Process Automation” or “RCA — Robotic Cognitive Automation”. Let’s touch upon two of the areas in this article to give you a flavour of Next Gen Operations.

 

The digital workplace

This relates to knowledge, learning, and collaboration platforms that take web and social technologies developed on the internet — and bring these mechanisms to serve internal employees. Simple inexpensive platforms such as Slack, Trello, Jira, Google docs are already proven in start-ups and digital operations to effectively increase productivity and match digital and lean ways of working. Tools of this kind are now being adopted into the enterprise as a whole.

 

RPA and RCA

Data according to McKinsey: Bots algorithms and the future of the finance function

 

Within the back-office functions, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Robotic Cognitive Automation (RCA) technologies offer significant promise. They enable computers to take over repetitive tasks and processes which could radically improve speed and efficiency within Finance and HR operations. Read more about our expert tips on how to successfully implement RPA in your organisation.

 

Three focus areas for driving next gen operational change

  1. Drive business adoption. Managing business change is the crux of internal digital transformation. Start with concrete and expandable use cases to quickly prove value, providing exponential benefit as you scale them
  2. User-centric design. Just as the customer is king for customer & channel transformations, the user is king for internal business change. Many technology development teams been moving towards user-centric design practices over the past decades, but in many cases the priority for, and pace of change can be increased
  3. Business and IT collaboration. As employees become increasing tech-savvy and digital technology becomes more intuitive, we see ever-greater configuration options at the control of end-users. RPA is an example of an initiative that is often driven by the business, using vendor technology. The temptation is for businesses to go it alone with technology. However this is a grave error. Roadblocks will be hit as you attempt to scale, security issues arise, data silos develop and the true potential of new technology is not captured. Don’t make this mistake. Get IT involved and pay due respect to the importance defining the right technology architecture and adhering to design principles. The additional time it takes in the short-term will be more than rewarded in the long-run

 

3. New Business Models

Digitisation is fundamentally reshaping some markets. Opening up new ways for customers and businesses to form relationships and exchange value has great potential for organisations. Digital transformation programmes therefore often include the development of new business models into their scope. Not in the least to fund the investments needed for innovation and digitalisation in their core service offering. For example, in the financial services industry, innovations such as crypto-currencies, blockchain and artificial intelligence offer huge business growth potential. As a result, some financial institutions have undertaken digital transformation efforts to be better able to launch new digital products and services.

In consumer business and retail, the rise of Digitally Native Vertical Brands (DNVBs) is worth a quick mention. It used to take many years of heavy investment to build a successful brand, but the reach of the internet and social media have given the perfect breeding ground for new brands such as Warby Parker, Harry’s and Bonobos. DNVBs combine the advantages afforded by digital across marketing, distribution and payments with vertically integrated business models. The result is a business growing ~3x faster than typical eCommerce businesses.

 

sales growth year on year

 

Three focus areas for driving new business model development

  1. Adopt lean start-up practices. Made popular by Eric Ries’ book “The Lean Start-up”. We apply lean principles to the development of new businesses/products/services. The idea at the core is to continuously balance the level of investment with the level of risk as a innovation is explored
  2. Manage the organisational immune system. It’s human nature to resist change, and this is one of the most difficult factors to manage in developing and launching new products, services, and associated business models. Innovation teams must consider the tools at their disposal to meet this challenge (including organisational design, incentivisation structures, and PR & communications)
  3. Go data-driven. This is part of the lean start-up method but deserving a book in its own right. Building a capability to quantify, measure and act upon data (reflecting true business performance) is critical to the success of new business models. You will need to be clear on your business objectives, identify the drivers behind those objectives and then define the appropriate metrics to ensure you are accurately measuring success. Establishing a KPI framework / OKRs (Objective and Key Results) will help you formalise and embed the process into your business system

 

4. Agile Transformation

Why is this digital change important?

The pace of digital change, and the need for rapid speed to market, requires new technology or products to be launched fast. Being able to react to customer feedback or moves by competitors requires nimbleness and flexibility. Creating a business that is able to quickly act and react to internal and external stimuli creates a very strong competitive advantage. Key to this is tight collaboration between functions — both business and technology — to avoid internal inefficiencies being a drag on speed.

Business practices have improved significantly over the last couple of decades. Organisations like Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook have shown how to be incredibly successful — running organisations with technology at the heart of them. The ways of working these businesses utilise are often adopted within the scope of digital transformations. They are excellent enablers of cross-team collaboration, customer centricity and integrating technology capabilities into the business system at scale.

An agile transformation is the pursuit of transforming an enterprise so it can effectively deliver business technology to achieve customer value at speed. Core to this is the agile method, an iterative approach to technology development where user feedback is sought at the earliest opportunity, the business is directly involved in the team as product owner, and autonomy is increased of development teams. The success of agile as a replacement to the traditional waterfall development method has spurred the adoption of approaches like scrum, kanban or SAFE.

This topic is a crucial enabler of digital transformation, we detail how to go about its implementation in large corporate settings here.

 

Three focus areas for driving agile change

  1. Ensure leadership understands and champions the change: Being agile is absolutely not about putting a new delivery process in place, it is about creating a new culture of collaboration, accountability, and value delivery. Leadership needs to truly understand this, so they stop reinforcing old behaviours — and start modelling new. Good leadership and example setting is how an agile transformation will take hold
  2. Reorganise and resource teams properly: An agile delivery team requires key roles who are dedicated to the goal of that team. Ring-fencing resources is important, as is ensures that cross functional teams are created with the right representation from the business, not just technology. Unless you create these dedicated units of delivery they will still be challenged with context switching and mixed priorities which will slow them down
  3. Practice, practice, practice: Agile sounds great, and is common sense in a text book, but like most things it is a craft that takes time to learn. So the advice is to just start doing it at a small scale, rather than planning too much ahead or being too theoretical. Do the transformation in an agile way. The whole point is that you run in short iterations with effective retrospectives, so at the end of each you learn something new — and apply it next time

 

5. Technology Transformation

Why is this digital change important?

To compete in today’s digital age, organisations must be able to deliver technology effectively and at high speed. Technology transformation focuses on creating the foundational components and capabilities to do just that. It sets-up the IT function to become both an enabler of change and driver for innovation. At a high-level, we can summarise technology transformation in three main chunks of change.

First, let’s start with modernising the technology landscape. Replacing legacy systems burdened with tech debt, with more contemporary technologies and architecture patterns. Not only increasing functional value to users, but also improving security, scalability, and agility. Cloud, mobile, social, and big data are a few of the technologies that typically need to be implemented to accomodate for future growth and development of the business.

Secondly, in tandem with updating the systems landscape, technology transformation programmes also drive the need for updated ways of working. Automation, Test Driven Development (TDD), Behaviour Driven Development (BDD), Continuous Integration and Continuous Development (CI/CD) and DevOps practices are key to enable speed, agility and continuous improvement.

Thirdly, technology transformation needs to implement a fit for purpose organisational model. This should not only satisfy the new ways of working, but also start to take into account the evolving role of IT within the organisation. The IT function of the future can no longer serve as a supplier function, but must urgently become an effective partner — collaborating across business teams. In addition, you ability to source and partner with vendors should be reviewed to meet the needs of the digital age. Just deciding between SAP, Oracle & Microsoft is no longer enough. The future IT function must frictionlessly engage and utilise ecosystems of innovation external to the organisation. This means you need to be able to discover, engage, on-board and switch between a wider variety of vendors and increasing diversity (size, culture, geography, purpose).

This should give you a feel of what’s involved in this important aspect of digital transformation. We will get into more detail in future articles.

 

Three focus areas for driving (digital) technology change

  1. Fix the basics first. In order to become a strong partner for the business, the IT basics must be in place first. Ensure that service delivery is strong, and that day to day operations run like clockwork, delivering well within SLAs. Earning a seat at the table to discuss strategic topics and drive innovation & growth starts with being credible — reliably delivering on the fundamentals
  2. Customer first and business-led. Technology is an important catalyst for change but never starts with the solution first. Value is only created by technology when it solves a real customer or business problem
  3. Start with people. Technology transformation is ultimately about being able to deliver fantastic technology, but the starting point is with people. Identify where the business is going, and what capabilities it will need in the future. Work this back to what the IT function must provide. Honestly assess the competencies and skills you have within your IT department. Make strategic decisions on what capabilities you need in-house for the future, and get external support where you need it. Too many teams get excited and get busy building stuff, only to find that they cannot continue to execute or sustain solutions effectively over time

 

So let’s get started!

Digital transformation is about making foundational changes to remain a competitive organisation in the digital age. We’ve surfaced five of the common flavours being pursued across the market but your transformation will not fall neatly into one box. It should certainly be made up of a blend of different ingredients across these. The exact combination you need will be driven by your unique set of objectives and context, which in turn will focus you on the digital capabilities you need to drive competitive advantage.

It’s an exciting and dynamic time of transition. Everyone can be a leader in the process of digital transformation and we encourage you to pick-up the torch for driving change. We hope this first article feeds you with some helpful context to do just that. We hope you are triggered to reflect on your own transformation objectives and so you can sharpen the focus with your own team.

This is just a start to our series on digital transformation. There’s more to come. In the meantime we welcome any input and feedback to improve our thinking and sharing learning with the digital leadership community further. For now good luck on achieving digital success!

 

A bit more about Riverflex and the authoring team

Riverflex is a new type of consulting firm. We deliver digital expertise and value by combining top consultants with the power of independent specialists — providing digital consulting, staff augmentation, and interim management services.

 

Contributors to this guide

Victor Hoong, ex-Deloitte Digital partner, Riverflex Founder and Director. Past clients include Adidas, IKEA, and Ahold Delhaize.
Andre Azadehdel, ex-Deloitte, Riverflex Founder and Director. Past clients include Canon Clear Channel International, O2 Telefonica, and SAB Miller.
Arjen de Ruiter, ex-CTO Coosto, ex-bol.com, and now IT Strategy & Ops consultant.
Sohrab Hosseini, ex-CTO Transdev, ex-McKinsey, and now IT & Digital Strategy consultant Designed and rolled out multiple digital and agile transformations in Fortune 500 companies.
Kenny Cruden, ex-ThoughtWorks and now independent consultant and agile coach.
Cameron McKelvie, ex-Bain & Company sr. associate, now independent Strategy consultant.

5 reasons why your retail store analytics projects fail

Posted on June 26, 2018 - 3:58 pm by

The data-renaissance in the retail industry has become somewhat of a buzzword. As retailers become aware of analytics solutions needed to understand customer demands and increase store effectiveness, the arms race continues. Stores are getting equipped with sensors, cameras, virtual reality and other technology which vendors have promised will bring a data-driven approach to brick and mortar retail. However, one main challenge arises – for the most part, in the retail business data is being generated for its own sake. Piles and piles of reports and charts are being created, seldom driving meaningful, disruptive retail innovation. How can we do better? In this article we will explore the most common reasons why these experiments fail, how we can tackle the issue from a different angle and how we can build effective data-driven store analytics capabilities.

 

1. Stop focusing on solution requirements instead of achieving business goals

There are many aspects to consider when choosing the right retail analytics strategy and vendor. What you should definitely look for is the ability to illuminate every part of the shopper funnel, and to conduct experiments that can be rapidly validated.

However, we sometimes find retailers asking for highly granular or highly accurate data without first thinking through what level of granularity or accuracy is good enough to make decisions. They then tend to abandon potentially valuable data and return to store intuition because of an error margin of 1 or 2%. Meanwhile, the accuracy provided could have already lead to statistically significant findings to improve store performance. Being focused on the perfect retail analytics science can distract us from our real goal – improving retail performance or shopper satisfaction. By looking at data as ‘vehicles’, not destinations, our mindset changes. Instead of searching for more data or more precision, we should be designing smarter tests that will still reveal robust insights into what is available.

For example, to understand the value of in-store digital assets such as touchscreens, VR and augmented reality tools, or smart mirrors in fitting rooms, some retailers want to track each step the individual shopper took. Not only is this extremely expensive to do, but it potentially also infringes on privacy rights. The mistake we have made is that we are working with a solution requirement instead of a business goal. It is as if we expect to find technology that will simply tell us with certainty what improvements we need to take without us even thinking about it. Unfortunately, it is not so easy yet.

 

Solution

Framing: We must avoid framing solution requirements and start re-framing them in terms of business goals. Going back to our earlier example, we might explain that the in-store digital touchscreen is intended to raise awareness of specific in-store products to drive an increase in sales. With this in mind, we could then test the correlation between the number of times a specific product or category is viewed on the device and the number of touches of that product on a shelf in the store, and subsequent store sales on the other. By re-framing the problem, we are able to test if the digital touchscreen is achieving the business goal, using the available data and without attempting to track detailed individual customer behaviour.

Test design: After proper framing, effort investment for good test design and preparation is required. Ensure enough time and resource capacity is available to undertake this process. We have to identify what reliable data we can surface and ensure there is enough of it to run a valid test. It’s important to identify potential test pollution factors and identify ways to control the experiment so that these do not impact the outcome of the test you are trying to perform.

 

2. Not having a standard structure and repeatable approach for data analysis

Analysts are often unleashed to churn a large variety of data without a structured framework. This leads to three problems:

  1. Confirmatory bias. We have a natural tendency to find data that supports our understanding of the world and ignore other data points. This can happen subconsciously and is not necessarily driven by any improper motive
  2. Effective time-management. Analysts without a structured process are very likely to be inconsistent with their analysis process each time that they do it. This means that they may spend a long time drilling into unfruitful areas of investigation or missing insights because they are exploring data in other places
  3. Strategic prioritisation. Not every experiment and test will have the same impact on business goals. Within constraints of resources and time, analysts should focus on initiatives with the largest potential to add value to the customer experience and sales performance

 

Solution

One of the methods proposed by Riverflex and available in the StoreDNA platform is to utilise a simple FunnelMap compass. This enables key steps in the consumer journey and the goals of the retailer to be mapped. It also helps to highlight where there is a high likelihood of having performance improvement opportunities.

 

3. Treating store analytics as retail concept innovation as opposed to a new operational capability

With the rise of start-up culture, it is getting increasingly ‘chic’ for enterprises to partner with start-ups in any manner. Many digital innovations are well catered for such an approach. Following initial set-up, they require little support or human intervention from the organisation. However, something like embedding retail sensor technology into the store is different. Such sensors are only the first step. They uncover new data sources, but in order to translate that to any kind of business value, we need the organisation to engage fully at additional levels. First, they must integrate different data sources meaningfully. Secondly, someone must interpret the data into insights. Thirdly, those insights must be translated into actions and implemented in store, and so the learning loop begins again. Any break-down in the organisational process at any point along the data-insight-action chain and the value of the whole is lost.

 

Solution

To get value out of retail store analytics, we have to see it as a capability and not an innovation. Owners must be appointed to ensure that the insights being surfaced are also being driven into store-level actions and feedback loops. New roles and skillsets are required to combine big data skills with that of visual merchandising and store design. Without organisational support in place, value cannot be surfaced from the technology investment in the longer term and we find that all time and investment into store analytics pilots simply go to waste.

 

4. Under-investing in the initial test, and not being able to scale the insights to a wider store portfolio

Over the past few years we have found that many retailers are starting their retail analytics journey in a single store and without the dedication of a focused team to support it. The focus is on a technical test instead and/or ad-hoc data point capture and is undertaken as a pilot innovation, rather than with the vision of capability build-up. The initiative is attempted in a siloed team and there is not wider corporate support. All this creates an additional friction point, where it gets very difficult to scale the initiative further.

 

Solution

We suggest our customers to choose at least three different stores belonging to the same cohort group. This allows a good balance between the initial investment required and having a set of stores for running simultaneous tests against which we can triangulate findings for greater robustness. In addition, a team with sufficient capacity and capability is needed to make sure experiments are well defined with the right KPIs, pre/post analysis, and support for implementation and rollout.

 

5. Not having the mandate or sponsorship to experiment, action and scale the insights across stores

We often say that we are actually in the business of building bridges. Retail store analytics projects are often initiated by innovative characters within the organisation. Someone who is searching for the latest ideas and is willing to invest early and experiment to get ahead of competitive. These bright innovators understand how to read data, and what are the possible solutions. However, innovators by nature work and think differently to others in the organisation. As a result they can often be isolated without the decision making power to act upon these findings. On the other hand, you have decision makers who do not believe in data science or the capabilities of today’s technology. Our job is to build a team who can bridge this gap, and foster quick flow of actionable insights to support decision makers.

 

Solution

Select a vendor which understands both data-driven decision making approaches and the change hurdle which is limiting adoption across the organisation. Identifying and engaging key stakeholders and tackling barriers and objections increase the chance of success for your change process. If we simply add additional technology layers into the organisation without changing underlying business or decision-making processes, then we are not creating any additional business value. We need to change the existing way in which people are working. Technology cannot change people. Only people change people.

 

Closing thoughts

The team at StoreDNA and Riverflex have been working together on getting retail store analytics into companies for the past four years and these challenges come up time and again. You can read about our latest implementation for Samsung’s pop up store here, and how we supported the creation of the Store of the Future for a global fashion retailer. We hope that the discussion we have shared above will help you avoid the common pitfalls in retail store analytics and make you further progress. In all cases, we would recommend that our clients spend time looking at how to build internal muscles to face-off against these challenges back into their own respective organisations.

Read more about our take on retail innovation and how we can support your retail organisation here and read more about our applications for Samsung and a global fashion retailer here. Check out our insights on IKEA’s recently opened small store format here.

 

About the author

Victor Hoong is the co-founder of Riverflex. An ex Deloitte partner, has 16+ years of experience developing digital strategies and roadmaps for major brands and retailers.

StoreDNA: Bringing innovation in retail stores

Posted on April 21, 2018 - 9:00 am by

StoreDNA is a start-up leader leveraging retail analytics techniques in computer vision and machine learning to help retailers understand shopper behavior.

StoreDNA’s decision-making platform delivers improved retail performance and store experiences. This is made possible through the design of better assortments, store layouts, clear navigation, visual merchandising, and effective deployment of sales and service staff. Over the past month, our team has collaborated with StoreDNA on a project for Samsung. The company launched their new flagship mobile device (the Galaxy S9) over multiple channels, including a pop-up store in the Netherlands.

StoreDNA has delivered cutting edge technology and insights from their previous client experience. Riverflex has taken the analysis of the platform dataset to a deeper and more specific level, further advancing the potential business impact of StoreDNA. Our partnership has helped Samsung establish clear benchmarks and expectations for store traffic, dwell time and conversion. In addition, we identified a number of potential improvements for future store concepts that will increase shopper engagement and customer experience, as well as drive brand awareness.

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Get in touch →

UK Office

White Collar Factory 1 Old Street Yard, London EC1Y 8AF

NL Office

Kon. Wilhelminaplein 1, 1062 HG Amsterdam

ES Office

Passeig de Garcia Fària, 49 08019 Barcelona

    TR Office

    Akasya AVM A3 Kule Kat 14 üsküdar Istanbul