Retailers have spent the last decade chasing the promise of omnichannel, often equating it with being everywhere at once. But the real challenge today is not ubiquity—it is focus. The most advanced players are learning to guide customers toward journeys that create value, while reshaping their store networks into engines of proximity, trust, and fulfilment. Omnichannel is no longer just about touchpoints; it is about rethinking the very infrastructure of retail.

The IADS has published several articles on the topic, including from Dr Christopher Knee, the Association’s honorary advisor. To go further and make conceptual advances, we invited Robert Rooderkerk, an Associate Professor at Erasmus University (Rotterdam), to give IADS CEOs an idea of where research about Omnichannel stood at the time. By a fortunate coincidence, his lecture took place the very week when he published his latest article in the Harvard Business Review, When omnichannel retailers don’t deliver what customers ordered.

Rooderkerk holds an M.Sc. in Econometrics with a specialisation in logistics from Erasmus University Rotterdam and a Ph.D. in Marketing from Tilburg University – both earned with cum laude distinction. His research focuses on the intersection of marketing and operations, addressing critical challenges in omnichannel retail and retail analytics.

Drawing from collaborative academic research, insights from management journals and popular media, and conversations with practitioners across industries such as apparel, consumer electronics, grocery retail, and DIY— he offered a fresh view on the steps department stores could take to become truly omnichannel and remain competitive against specialist retailers and Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) brands.

IADS Exclusive: From orchestration to reinvention, how omnichannel matures

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