14 May, 2019

The DNA of Future Retail Leadership

Our latest report from Green Park and the World Retail Congress, “The DNA of Future Retail Leadership”, provides a thought-provoking and comprehensive insight into retail leadership and the skills, attributes and behaviours necessary to survive, and thrive in the changing future retail landscape. While we find that there is clearly a crisis in retail, with huge disruption and transformational challenges, there are also many opportunities to prosper.

This is not only our opinion – the strength of this report lies in its reflection of views from around the world. You will read, based on hundreds of interviews and our comprehensive survey of senior global retailers, about the consequences of tumultuous, technology driven-change for leadership teams everywhere. We are grateful for their frank views on the talent crisis among those charged with driving through necessary change.

The unvarnished truth is that while some retail businesses are winning through, many are not. Traditional retailers, in particular, are struggling to adapt at a time when the disruptors are moving forward at speed. The report shows that the cause of this difficulty lies in leadership - and this is why we wanted to facilitate this crucially important debate around the future of leadership teams, their culture and capabilities.

Change is accelerating and the challenges are becominsg tougher. Can retailers in difficulty survive and then thrive? Yes, they can.  Among leadership teams, however, it is clear that a more collaborative and innovative mindset is needed to compete for customer attention and loyalty. Opportunities to understand the customer are being missed every day and leaders need to think and act very differently to give customers what they want, whenever and wherever they want it. To serve this end, there are clearly specific skills challenges, all addressed in this report, that need to be met within top teams around channels, data, digital, technology and products.

While there are many difficulties to be addressed, it is also true that every one of them today is a potential source of opportunity tomorrow.  Retail leadership teams are great problem solvers – and now they need to prove their worth.  Those with the ability to transform themselves can reap rich rewards.

Steve Baggi

Written By

Steve Baggi

Co-Founder

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