On the very first day of class, when we were going through the syllabus and discussing the class paper assignment, I instantly knew right then what topic I wanted to cover. Firstly, I enrolled into this class during registration last semester with great anticipation because I greatly value customer insights and what I believed this class had to offer. But once completing my internship over the summer and learning even more about customer insights with hands-on experience, I have grown even more passionate and curious about this course and specifically my project topic:
The omni-channel
phenomenon and how retailers are adapting to evolve.
The now very popular
buzz word “omni-channel” is a fascinating topic because it not only includes
the complexity of channel collaboration but it is also a highly relevant and
current movement occurring in the retail space today. Now add on the critical
layer of how this affects customers (consumers and vendors) from a loyalty and
experience lens, and things get even more interesting! I am constantly reading
articles and publications about omni-channel trends because it is interesting
to see how companies are responding to the pressures of evolving quickly and
strategically. So it was this article and blog post that really piqued my
interest further and what I found as a solid source of inspiration for my
paper:
The article offers
many “omnichannel loyalty tips,” some of which are quite compelling. This
spurred the notion of how retailers begin to synthesize and prioritize their evolving efforts
because there is more information and insight out there than one can even
handle! Some strategies work for some and not for others, so what are the
guiding principles of this channel evolution and what does that mean for us as
consumers on how we interact with retailers and what we expect from them.
This thought segues
well to my true source of inspiration for this topic – my summer internship at Target.
While working on the Target.com Home team, I encountered
many instances where the omni-channel phenomenon was the core and underlying
foundation of initiatives and business opportunities. My entire project
ultimately centered on the firm's massive shift towards becoming integrated and
omni-channel, and I left my internship extremely intrigued and eager to learn
more. My internship at Target further solidified my interest in the retail industry,
and this particular topic is personally important to master because it will
change the landscape of the retail environment and how I can best serve customers
in my corporate role.
The first goal for
this project is to understand the omni-channel movement with a series of
exploratory objectives. First, I intend to put some of my curiosity and
theories to test by learning about companies doing it right, aiming to adopt,
and unwilling to adopt all together. I also aspire to develop effective strategies
and best practices for companies looking to adopt the omni-channel model. Finally,
I intend to collect and synthesize key learnings and “do not do’s” based on
historical data and activities conducted by companies. The second goal is to provide
a robust analysis and understanding of how omni-channel directly and indirectly
affects customers. Because serving customers in the right way results in greater
loyalty and affinity, the growing focus on omni-channel will change how we collect,
synthesize, and apply customer insights. In addition, technology will enable us
to capture more data than before, which is a positive implication of omni-channel
and showcases the importance of truly streamlining omni-channel efforts.
Regarding the connection to key customer insights, the business model framework is very
interesting in this context because omni-channel suggests that the current
business model framework we think of today is changing and evolving. I am
really interested to dive deeper into this to see how exactly it is changing
and what that means for businesses and customers. And as mentioned above,
providing customers with a valuable and relevant
experience is one of the critical underlying goals of a successful
omni-channel model so understanding what those experiences look like will be
critical to the paper.
As I begin to think
more about my topic, below are a few questions that come to mind and that I will explore in writing the paper:
- Who is doing it right? And what does right mean?
- What will Amazon do next and will that reshape the retail industry... again?
- Do customers understand omni-channel and what it means to them in the future?
- Does omni-channel predominately affect the retail industry or does it have wide-spread implications to other industries and functions?
- How the business model framework is affected – are some of the pillars more important than others now and can any be combined/eliminated?
Hi Karika - I'm really excited about you writing this paper too! We were just discussing omni-channel (although someone in the room strongly preferred multi-channel and I can tell you why later) in a meeting on Friday and how this is one of the biggest challenges facing companies (especially retailer and brands) today. I think looking at business cases is a good way to explore this and trying to distill lessons learned on behalf of retailers and others trying to improve their efforts. I would encourage you to think about it as a rumination on ROI of channel efforts, because so many companies are (rightly) worried about making money. This sounds good. I might have liked to see you explore a few parts of this a little more (e.g., you throw Amazon into your questions at the end without mentioning them previously, so that might have been interesting to hear your thoughts about their impact up to now). Otherwise, it all sounds good for now.
ReplyDelete