Canadian Retailer - Holiday 2016 - 17

Kruh: I think it's safe to say that the term 'omnichannel' is now finally obsolete. It's yesterday's
news to suggest that retailers look at their
business beyond the channels they sell through.
Today, retailers have got to be integrated
omnibusiness that are customer-centric, where
the customer is the point-of-sale. However, even
though this is already old news, many within
the industry are finding it difficult to achieve
the goal of becoming fully integrated. I do a
global top-of-mind survey every year with CEOs
from around the world. For that group, a third
wants to be an omnibusiness where inventory
management, supply chain and everything else
is integrated fully. But at the moment, only 7 per
cent of companies believe they are there. Where
do you believe you are today in your quest to
become an omnibusiness?
Letts: We are not there yet. But it is our goal to ensure that our customer has a

consistent experience with us whether they engage with us in-store or online,
and that our pricing and product presentation is consistent. We have physical
limitations with the number of products we can put in our stores and we are
leveraging our website to showcase additional pieces and certain collections.

Today
2018

Bennison: The biggest challenge in becoming an omnibusiness from my

perspective is in building an organizational structure and culture that is 'one
customer' based. It often comes down to the simplest things. The traditional
retail model where you've got a bricks-and-mortar location that's accountable
for a certain amount of deliverables, metrics, sales and margin assigned to
that single location no longer works. As an example, cross-functional teams
should be made equally accountable for revenue across all channels in a
defined trade area. Unless you can set yourself up that way, it's human nature
that you'll have people working in different streams with different definitions
of success in mind. It's about teaching your business to be consumer-centric
in the most fundamental of ways.
Jones: Our mission statement is simply "always customer first". What we're
trying to do in our company, which has been around for 100 years, is to look
at all of our customers the same way, whether they're shopping with us
in-store, online, leveraging our click-and-collect or delivery services. Because
despite the channel they're shopping with us on, we want to be focused on
the same thing-delivering great value. We want to make sure the service our
customer receives is consistent across formats and that they're receiving the
same great experience each and every time they engage with us. That's value
today, and it's a huge competitive advantage.
Green: The omnibusiness model is what incentivized us to move offline and

open showrooms. Our growth without a physical retail presence has been
amazing; however we also understand just how important it is for our continued
success to develop and enhance all of our channels. The biggest challenge
in becoming a great omnibusiness is changing how we report. The traditional
way of reporting as an online business, or a retail business, has quickly become
antiquated. You have to realize that reporting affects everything you do, from
rolling out strategy to opening new stores. This requires us to look at everything differently and it means evaluating everything we do differently, too.

Channel reliance
By 2018, only 1% of surveyed companies expect to be
reliant on just one channel
vs. 7% today.
Source: Global KPMG Top of Mind
CEO study

By 2018

Business transformation
By 2018 nearly 1/3 of execs
plan to evolve beyond their
current retail operations
into omnibusiness. However,
only 7% said they're already
doing this now.
Source: Global KPMG Top of Mind
CEO study

Labistour: It's imperative for any business, before it begins thinking of becoming an omnibusiness, to start at culture. Everything you do as a business
should depend on it. In doing so, we decided we would not have a head of

www.retailcouncil.org/cdnretailer

THE LOSS PREVENTION ISSUE | CANADIAN RETAILER

| 17

http://www.retailcouncil.org/cdnretailer

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Canadian Retailer - Holiday 2016