General Session
December 9, 2009
Keynote - Engineering for the Possible: The New Patterns for Retail Success
John Rand, MVI Director of Retail Insight
The strategic plans of your customers have been more fundamentally questioned and revised in the past year than at any other time in the last four decades. Retailers across the entire landscape have altered their businesses: introducing new decision rules, reworking their understanding of their core shopper, and trying to simplify their operations while exporting complexity and costs back to the supplier. As the economy finally starts to gain a post-recession perspective, success will not be a simple matter of returning to former patterns. Both the shopper and the retail landscape have changed in permanent ways—and suppliers must learn to build success using a new understanding of the possible.
- Evaluate how your business will be affected as the decision points of distribution and merchandising are impacted by retailers altering and expanding their own branding
- Gain a clear vision for the skills and team structures supplier organizations will need to win in the future
- Learn how the need for consistency and shopper relevance is driving different channels of retailing to re-think strategy development, alter store space, transform marketing, and create new expectations for their preferred vendor partners
Chain Drug: Looking Past the Inflection Point
Bryan Gildenberg, MVI Chief Knowledge Officer
The past year has been one of transformation for the drug channel: CVS advanced its leading position and brand in the retail and healthcare space following its acquisition of Longs, Walgreens embraced customer-centric marketing and merchandising strategies in the face of a more complex and competitive operating reality, and Rite Aid took steps to ensure its future survival through segmentation. Bryan assesses how your partnership with these customers will change as they develop new formats, push aggressive private brand agendas, and enthusiastically optimize assortments—all while reaching deeper into your organizations.
Value Discount: Changing Gears for Better Times
David Marcotte, MVI Director of Retail Insights
The Value Discount channel has done far better than others in the industry in the past two years, but there appears to be limits to how far and fast they can grow. A major part of their success was preparing for growth before the recession—now, they are starting to position themselves for better times. David explores what discounters are doing where they are going, and how this affects the suppliers that call on them—each of which are integral to understanding the next version of this channel.
Walmart’s Project Impact: Tectonic Shifts in Mass & Beyond
Leon Nicholas, MVI Director of Retail Insights
Over a year has passed since Walmart launched Project Impact— and the repercussions for those who call on Walmart have been substantial. Yet, given the scale of the changes at the world’s largest retailer, competitive dynamics with Target and other retailers are also poised to undergo new configurations as the landscape shifts. Project Impact’s effect is likely to extend to industry practices ranging from new product development to team staffing requirements. Leon explains how Walmart’s strategic positioning is re-shaping the retail ecosystem and how you can keep pace with its implications.
US Grocery: The Once & Future Channel
John Rand, MVI Director of Retail Insights
Grocery remains the most maddeningly complex (and least consolidated) major channel of retailing. For a long time, this appeared to be a weakness for suppliers who preferred to concentrate on simpler channels with higher rates of growth. But the channel turned around and reinvented itself in numerous ways, with rapid evolution of pricing and marketing strategies, new shopper insights, and a new willingness to change what was business as usual. The best operators have a bright future, but they may not be the retailers you expected. John poses the question: Is your company more constrained by tradition than your traditional channel?
Warehouse Clubs: Redefining Member Relevance
Brendan Langan, MVI Director of Retail Insights
As the clubs channel emerges from the recent downturn, some things will be forever altered. With the convergence of an aging population and the new economic reality challenging the status quo, clubs are revisiting near and long-term strategies to grow share of wallet with new and existing members. Brendan outlines where the warehouse club model will evolve, what that entails for Sam’s Club, BJ’s, and Costco—and how suppliers can best tackle the club-facing and internal obstacles to optimizing this channel.
Built For The Long Haul: How Best-In-Class Retailers Change Best-In-Class Manufacturers
Bryan Gildenberg, MVI Chief Knowledge Officer
An environment of unprecedented transformation of shopper behavior is forcing best-in-class retailers to retool and realign their capabilities.These actions, as well as changes in the consumer and technology landscapes, are forcing best-in- class manufacturers to revolutionize what they do in a variety of areas. In this speech, Bryan investigates 4 key themes: Innovation: Waiting for the consumer to come back is not an option Credibility & Relevance: Building a product brand in a retail environment will mean building effective partnerships with retailers—and both initiatives rely on mutually developing category credibility and relevance Forward-looking Economics: Category management can be an extraordinary tool for helping shape the dialogue, but its rear-view mirror orientation must evolve into a more predictive supplier view Unique Information...not just Unique Interpretation: Differentiate your company by bringing your best customers data and insights no one else can bring them.