Brian Ross

Precima

Brian Ross is President of Precima, a shopper-driven insight and strategy firm operated by LoyaltyOne.

Part 2: Change Management by the Numbers: Devising a Strategy That Produces Results, and Advocates

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Posted on 2011-06-30

Second in a Two-Part Series: Rolling Out Change

The key to engineering any successful structure, whether it is an office tower or a shift in company-wide operations, is a solid foundation. In the case of change management, that foundation is a living entity, and its most critical strength is the ability to continuously test, measure, refine and communicate change throughout the process.

In the first installment of this series, we walked through a proven approach to enabling the change to a shopper-centric strategy – how to develop and launch a successful proof-of-concept (POC) plan. This includes:

• The development of a dedicated change management team;
• prioritizing strategies and tactics to maximize success;
• defining a shopper centric approach;
• developing a comprehensive POC plan; and
• executing and measuring.

This time-tested approach builds the business case for a change to shopper-centricity, powered by two...

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Change Management by the Numbers: Devising a Strategy That Produces Results, and Advocates

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Posted on 2011-05-26

First in a Two-Part Series: Launching a Successful Proof of Concept

Corporate history is rich with tales that heed the need for proper change management to drive value from new strategies, plans and tactics – so much so that over the past few years we have seen a tremendous rise in the prevalence and credibility of the discipline.

Given that in retail all value lies in execution, this should not be surprising.

Shopper-centricity has been one of most significant trends driving retail growth globally. And while there has been much success, there are an equal number of challenges that cause many organizations to rethink their shopper-centric strategies. This presents the risk of not realizing the significant strategic and financial benefits available.

But research and experience demonstrate that shopper-centric strategies do not fail because companies don’t know what to do – they fail because companies don’t know how to execute, or lack the support...

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How Customer-Centric Retailers Ask Deeper Questions and Get Better Answers

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Posted on 2010-08-09

The ongoing revolution in sophisticated, customer-focused analytics has sparked a dramatic paradigm shift in the retail landscape. Faced with steadily increasing competitive pressures – and recognizing that the battle for valuable customers cannot be won on price alone – forward-looking organizations are moving decisively from traditional market-driven strategies to a new era of data-driven customer-centric retailing.

Of course smart retailers have always paid attention to their customers. What they lacked, though, was a way of inferring all they wanted to know about people’s shopping habits, product preferences and aspirations. To gain those kinds of insights, you need two things. The first, obviously, is information – and for most retailers today, this is the easy part. As long as you have a loyalty program or any kind of mechanism for identifying your customers, you have a wealth of personalized transactional data in your systems.

The trickier part is being able...

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The Manufacturers' Pivotal Role in Shopper-Centric Category Management

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Posted on 2010-08-02

When it comes to driving the most value from rapidly expanding shopper-centric analytics, manufacturers and retailers would do best by sharing the front seat.

Leading CPG companies have been enhancing their analytical expertise for years, investing heavily in richer sources of shopper data and the talent required to decode it. Retailers, meanwhile, are leveraging their shopper insights in the quest for deeper intelligence and are rethinking their marketing and merchandising strategies to target their highest-value shoppers. Where the two can come together is in viewing the challenges ahead through the common lens of that individual shopper.

But before collaborating to push the boundaries of product-centric thinking, retailers and manufacturers must first achieve a meeting of the minds around common goals and the clearest routes for reaching them. Using these steps, CPG companies and retailers can transform data-driven intelligence into higher incremental sales,...

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Five Proven Tips for Winning Shoppers in New Categories

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Posted on 2010-05-06

A bigger basket. All retailers want it, and almost all of them have become adept at persuading shoppers to buy a particular item – whether it’s a new brand of pet food or a line-extension in cereal. But, turning those one-off item purchases into long-term incremental behavior is an all-together different challenge. It takes a deft understanding of shopper needs, brand loyalty and price and promotional responsiveness to win the bigger basket again and again.

Most retailers now know that this insight is attainable through analysis of shopper purchasing data, but putting it into practice is quite another matter. Retailers that analyze consumer shopping behavior can identify their most profitable shoppers, learn what motivates them and then get them to buy products they had not even considered. The key to long-term profitable behavior is to complement the understanding of what is most important to shoppers with relevant marketing and merchandising tactics that resonate and...

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