What:  A piece on how seemingly unimportant places are in fact lost opportunities for retailers.

Why it is important: Why do you think that customers are happy to pay to access the Egyptian hall traditional toilets in Harrods?

The journalist states that he had always been struck in the past by the lack of attention given to commodities in public spaces, including the toilets. Both for physical and social reasons, he calculated that women would need a space dedicated to their toilets 1,75 larger than the one dedicated to men’s, which is not the case.

More than just being concerned by their wellness, for him, this is creating at the same time frustrated female customers and lost opportunities: for instance, when looking at the female restrooms in a movie theatre, he noticed that many men were waiting their for their date, and left alone with themselves, whereas they could be confronted to displays of products or specific experience at the same time.

He also states that poorly-executed toilets can, sometimes, create a feeling of disconnection with the atmosphere the store is trying to convey, while they could also serve as showroom for specific products and appliances.

At the IADS we also believe that these often overlooked spaces could be improved and convey experience or excitement for customers, and a new revenue stream for retailers. After having toured many department stores in Europe in Q2 2022, there is ground for improvement.

Hidden opportunities: have you been to the toilet recently? 

What: Now that stores are open again, e-commerce does not seem to be poised to achieve what was predicted a year ago.

Why it is important: Many IADS leaders saw this coming and remained confident in their ability to bounce back thanks to their stores, even though they have made heavy investments in their digital capabilities to be on par with pure players.

All comments during and just after the peak of the pandemic converged into saying that e-commerce had gone through a 10 years acceleration and that e-retailers were the future. This week, Amazon share price has fallen back to pre-pandemic level, shares of Zoom video conferences are also back to where they were before Covid, and Shopify is a third lower than before the crisis.

According to the columnists, online shoppers have been more than happy to get back to the store, and this translates in a decrease of the multiples financial analysts are ready to grant to tech shares. The situation is worsened by the supply chain crisis, which is putting the margins of all operators, including e-commerce retailers (who have to sustain heavy delivery costs) under considerable stress.

Pandemic dividends are distant memories for ecommerce

What:  As the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is set to name and shame fashion’s greenwashing offenders, brands might be forced to either rethink their ‘sustainable’ vocabulary or make systemic changes in the fashion industry’s business models.

Why it is important: Greenwashing is a major issue that UK’s CMA is pushing to build more legislation around, and shame retailers that are guilty of misleading consumers publicly. There is an overall push to make sure that sustainability is not only about misleading marketing.

The word ‘sustainability’ has been so overused and broadly defined that it has completely lost its meaning. As consumers and regulators are starting to ask more questions about what sustainability really means, the word ‘transparency’ is now starting to be the next leading greenwashing word, with many more to come.

This trend is exactly what the CMA is trying to avoid. Last month, the government published its response to reforming competition and consumer policy, including the intention to give the CMA the power to enforce legislation directly. The CMA would be able to impose a penalty of up to 10% of global annual turnover on brands that breach such laws.

Can the fashion industry really become more sustainable?

What: MITSloan reviews the conditions needed to implement a purpose which is at the same time bonding all teams together but also contributing to the business advance;

Why it is important: Hubert Joly has given some ideas about the importance of purpose in companies turnaround and transformations. However, the notion can be perceived a bit blurry, which is why the methodology proposed by MITSloan is interesting and based on actual research.

As seen during the chat with Hubert Joly, purpose can be a powerful driver in a company’s transformation and turnaround. It is not however a lever that can be pulled, and needs a shared commitment rooting into the organization’s identity, its role, the reasons why this role is meaningful. As research shows, purpose make a difference in organizations only when it changes the way people operate.

The MIT has developed a set of processes (the “Purpose Strength Framework”) in order to set up a clear process related to setting up a purpose and measuring its impact on the company.

The first step is to make sure that the purpose has power through a shared belief about the identity, meaning and the mission of the organization. To be authentic it must express what is felt is important in the organization. To be coherent it needs to be consistent with the day to day operations. Both conditions leads to integrity. Research shows that when all three criteria are present, employees are doubling their levels of motivation.

Once the purpose has been set, it needs to be communicated, shared and incorporated into operations. This goes through:

• Purpose knowledge: this is made by clarifying how business decisions are based on the corporate purpose. Any opportunity to communicate purpose and manifest it in the organization is a must, and must be visible. A medical equipment company designed its offices following its purpose to make it tangible and visible.
• Purpose internalization: every employee should be empowered to connect the purpose of the organization with their individual values. This is done through explicit processes, such as discovery games or workshops.
• Purpose contribution: it is critical to measure the impact of purpose on the organization. Some companies have set up scorecards helping, at the department level, to follow how purpose has been communicated, implemented and how it contributes to excellence.

Unlock the power of purpose 

What: An opinion piece on the reasons why second-hand goes hand in hand with physical retail.

Why it is important: Many IADS members and other department stores are embracing the trend by opening second hand spaces, and this is bringing in a new clientele, often younger. The key questions are 1/ how to convert that clientele into buying something else in the store 2/ how to make the second-hand space profitable.

The second hand market is estimated to reach $82bn by 2026, doubling in size, meaning that resale will grow sixteen time faster than the retail clothing sector.

To accommodate such a growth, some second hand players are opening physical locations, such as Fashionphile which opened a 6,000 sqm location in New York, after having opened a 3,000 sqm one in California.

Forbes argues that this is a must-do for second hand players: it makes the life of sellers easier by doing the picture and referencing job for them, and, for the buyers, it is more cost-effective compared to shipping the items. Some dedicated players are partnering with retailers to come with a keys-in-hands solution, but some others, like Ikea, dedicate whole retail units to physical resale. In both cases, it seems that such ventures are bringing in an appreciable amount of traffic.

Why physical retail is essential to second hand 

PRINATBALE VERSION HERE

Introduction

In Europe alone, subscription models and paid memberships account for EUR 350 billion, dominated by information and technology (think Microsoft or Adobe software), as well as media and content (Netflix obviously). Consumer goods ‘only’ represent 15% of the total business.

According to a McKinsey study, consumers attached to paid membership programmes are 60% more likely to spend, compared with only 30% for free loyalty programs. Purchases are said to be more frequent and average baskets bigger, transforming paying members to extremely valuable customers. While the footprint of paid loyalty programmes still remains small, it has expanded with Covid. Why? Firstly, with stores closed, subscription services offered a convenient way to keep needed products on hand. But that’s not the only reason as offering the usual discounts and free delivery through a basic 3-level (bronze, silver, gold) free membership feels somehow basic to the consumers who find other ways to access such table-stake perks anyway.

With the war in Ukraine and Covid locking down a part of China, inflation is skyrocketing. As a result, consumers are forced to lower their discretionary spending, and they tend to discontinue their subscriptions whether it’s for Netflix or goods.

But still, brands and retailers need to pimp their loyalty programmes, and paid membership remains an option to consider for funding more interesting and exclusive perks that customers agree to pay for as soon as programmes match their expectations. Firstly, customers want high benefits that balances out or exceeds the fee amounts. Secondly, they want benefits that can be used immediately and as frequently as possible. Finally, with everything else in retail right now, they want experiences. Illustrating such expectations and following up with last year’s Exclusive about subscription retail, the IADS gathered the latest initiatives in paid membership.

Higher benefits

Pret A Manger has a subscription service and it’s not new: customers pay a EUR 20 fee per month and can benefit from up to 5 beverages per day. Whereas it’s unlikely that all subscribers will extensively use their 5 beverages every day, the perks of the programme are way higher than the fees. It shows that attracting new members comes with strong benefits clearly outweighing fees. In fact, consumers expect to receive at least a 150% return in perks when compared to the subscription fee. As a result, brands and retailers considering a paid program must make their value extremely visible.

In US pharmacy retail, the CVS CarePass programme charges a USD 5 monthly fee and offers its members 20% off on all CVS Health brand products in addition to services like free shipping and a 24/7 pharmacy helpline. Knowing the high price point of drugs in the US, the discount rate is really appealing compared to the reasonable monthly fee.

Some recent initiatives like renting fashion are a great push to the subscription business. In the luxury department store area, the Japanese group owning Daimaru-Matsuzakaya launched in March 2021 a new subscription-based rental service to try to escape the traditional inventory-based business model. The new service allows customers to rent up to 3 high-end women’s clothing items from brands such as Marni or See by Chloé, for a monthly fee of approximately USD 103. Fees are rather low when compared to the cost of 3 items from premium or luxury brands. While acquiring more loyal customers, the department store hopes to achieve a USD 55 million turnover by 2026 thanks to a projected 30,000 customer base.

Whereas it’s too soon to know if such a business can be profitable in itself, it will be interesting to check if the Financial Times is right: in an article from September 2021, they argue that the subscription model works best for higher priced-items. Anyway, it seems like a win-win deal: for the department store, it’s about increasing customer loyalty while reducing inventory. On the customer’s side, it represents a new access to luxury products, and an answer to sustainability concerns.

Now and always

Customers want to use their membership perks immediately upon sign-up, and very frequently: 50% of cancellations occur within the first year of membership. In that case, the main reason is that they are not using the benefits enough to justify the membership fees.

Walmart launched a membership programme in September 2020 primarily designed to compete with Amazon, the ultimate champion when it comes to immediacy and recurrent usage. Walmart+ members pay a USD 98 annual fee and are offered perks like an app allowing them to skip the checkout line, unlimited free deliveries with no minimum, member-only game console releases, up to 85% off on prescription drugs, discounts on gas, and special promotions and events. Also, at a time when customers were afraid of potential product shortages, they have enjoyed a true competitive advantage: early access to the 2021 Black Friday deals. Now accounting for 32 million members, Walmart+ can boast about amazing statistics: Cowen analysts estimate 12 million US households have a Walmart+ membership and 69.6% use it at least once a week. Members currently account for about 13% to 14% of the total Walmart.com business.

On the brand side, On Running sports shoes released a running shoe monthly subscription in April 2021. Dedicated to serious and frequent runners, they pay GBP 25 per month to subscribe (rent) their pair. When the shoes are worn-out, the customer can stop the subscription or request a new pair. Once it arrives, customer can send their old shoes back to On Running, who takes care of recycling, an additional perk answering customers’ environmental concerns.

In fashion, Ralph Lauren launched a rental subscription service in March 2021, a first for a luxury brand. The service aims to be a new channel for customers to engage with the brand. Starting at USD 125 per month, subscribers can access a constantly renewed range of clothing. Members curate their own online closet before receiving their shipment. Once they are done with the clothes, they can choose to either send them back and have them replaced by new styles or purchase them at exclusive member prices. On top of creating loyalty, the ‘Lauren Look’ is also a great opportunity to generate direct customer feedback and gain a better understanding of their expectations. As for On Running, the initiative also answers the growing consumer concerns about overconsumption.

Still, offering discounts remains a mandatory perk. In that perspective, Vasquiat is an interesting alternative free membership model when it comes to immediate discounts. Founded by Spanish influencer Blanca Miro, Vasquiat is defining itself as “the marketplace for discovering the most exciting emerging brands in the world.” What’s more important is that they “disrupt the traditional model by creating a new category: the discounted pre-order.” Vasquiat’s members can pre-order styles from the next season's collections at up to 40% off. The sooner they buy, the less they pay, reversing the usual end-of-season discount model. Then, the closer the collections are to their official release date, the smaller the discount is, until eventually reaching the full retail price.

Experience and emotion

Even though they remain table-stake perks, free delivery and discounts are not enough to lure and retain customers for paid membership programmes. Consumers are looking for differentiation. In that sense, they are expecting exclusive offerings, personalized and more emotional experiences, or member-only content.

In that perspective, Volvo launched a new car dealership concept inspired by clubhouses in 2021. Opening first in Amsterdam (now available in 6 other cities across Northern Europe), Lynk & Co is more than just a car dealership. The club house is the promotional face for a hybrid SUV that members can rent starting at EUR 500 per month (including insurance and maintenance service). The brand's strategy is simple: focus on car sharing through a subscription system (which is especially relevant in a city like Amsterdam where people don’t need a car on a full-time basis), and attract new customers through the services offered by the clubhouse. It includes a lounge area with a bar to host DJ sets, exhibitions, as well as workshops, film screenings, etc… These events are of course reserved to members who feel nurtured with the emotion of being part of an exclusive club.

In an attempt to compete with Amazon, Best Buy launched a USD 199.99 membership programme in April 2021, designed to basically offer great customer service. Among various perks (such as free 2-day deliveries, up to 24 months of product protection, dedicated phone teams, extended 60-day return and exchange window), the 24/7/365 tech support and product installation in particular offer a security sentiment and a safe product experience to members. The membership, called ‘Totaltech’, also includes ‘My Best Buy’ programme perks (including reward points and exclusive deals).

Food is highly about experience and emotion. Shinsegae department store in Korea came up with an interesting initiative: a fresh fruit subscription service which has proved very popular since its inception in April 2021. As part of the “VIP Gold” loyalty program, customers can subscribe to the service for a monthly fee of approximately USD 194 and they have a selection of seasonal fruits delivered to their door on a weekly basis. Tips on how to store and eat the fruits are also included as part of the package. This new service follows up the launch of a bread subscription service: subscribers can pick up bread in store every day for a monthly fee of approximately USD 42. Shinsegae’s goal is obvious and clear: “attract people to the store, which could lead to the purchase of other products.”

When it comes to paid memberships, the wholesale club model in groceries is also a true lever to loyalty. But it can do more: it can help create a sense of belonging, which will give customers more reasons to visit and push them to significantly increase their purchases. It’s the case with Store X supermarkets (a division of Alibaba in China). With its USD 40 yearly membership, Store X targets a group of young, affluent, digitally savvy shoppers expecting to be treated differently, and willing to spend more for better services and shopping experiences. The first Store X opened in Shanghai at the end of 2020 and became profitable within two months.

Conclusion

So far department stores are sticking to free membership through their loyalty programmes, but they have been revamping them for a few years now. A few months ago, Harvey Nichols in the UK did so with a 5-level ‘classic’ programme where money spent equals reward points. Depending on the level customers will reach, points are converted into benefits revolving around discounts and (more interesting than in other programmes) experiences appealing to many different customer groups: 10% off food & wine, bars & restaurants and beauty & grooming, 15% off fashion vouchers, double points booster, free drink in store, ‘kids eat free’, pamper hamper, birthday gift, dining or beauty school experience, wine or crafty beer box.

While it would be very costly for department stores to design perks and experiences worth a paid membership, the model needs to be considered anyway (and despite the recent subscription model setbacks), especially if focusing on big spenders that are not really impacted by inflation and who are always expecting additional reasons to visit stores. In that sense, the Soho House business is a model to look at as experiences are part of the equation: at Bloomingdale’s, the Loyalist programme has been redesigned to include a new shopper segment, the ones spending more than USD 15,000 per year. Representing less than 1% of the customer base and mostly women in their forties, these ‘Top Of The List Unlocked’ status members receive elevated benefits such as a 2-star Michelin cooking class at the Baccarat hotel, and even have a private Instagram account to reserve the latest designer styles.

Credits: IADS (Christine Montard)

PRINTABLE VERSION HERE

*Best Buy is one of the most recognized examples of successful company turnarounds in the past decades. In 2012, the company was ailing, sales were declining (although the company was not yet in the red) and a sense of common purpose was missing within the teams. The turnaround was not executed via a purely financial approach, cutting costs and increasing profitability, but took another standpoint, betting on the human side of each and every employee to reinject meaning and will to achieve something bigger than them, together.

The ongoing digitization of department store companies involves integrating new and very different teams, reinventing the jobs of the existing ones, and finding a common motivating purpose for all of them. In that sense, there are some similarities between what Best Buy went through and what IADS members are currently trying to achieve. This is the reason why we invited Mr Hubert Joly, CEO of Best Buy from 2012 to 2019, to share with us his experience and retrospective understanding of what he achieved during his tenure.*

Introduction

Hubert Joly, a graduate of HEC Paris (business school) and Sciences Po (political sciences school), is a senior lecturer at the Harvard Business School and the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Best Buy from 2012 to 2019. Before this experience, he has held various CEO positions at Vivendi and Carlson Companies, after having been partner at McKinsey for 13 years. Under his leadership at Best Buy, the share value rose from $20 to $70, the company had 5 uninterrupted years of growth and the online share of the business doubled, reaching 17% of the total sales for a turnover of $6.5bn (post-pandemic, online sales  have tripled, and represent 40% of the business). He was also instrumental in redesigning the management team structure, by helping the Board of Directors increase the proportion of female leaders. He has been ranked as one of the top 100 CEOs in the world by the Harvard Business Review, top 30 CEOs in the world by Barron’s, and top 10 CEOs in the US by Glassdoor. Hubert Joly released his book, “The Heart of Business – Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism”  in 2021, which was sent to IADS members prior to the exchange.

Interview

IADS - When you took over Best Buy, things looked bleak – tell us what it was like and why you accepted this position?

HJ – In 2012, everyone thought Best Buy was going to die in a context where brick & mortar retailers were considered dinosaurs. In addition, I did not have any background in retail at the time. However, after making my due diligence, interviewing Best Buy alumni and employees, and making my own mystery shopping visits, I understood two things:

• Customers needed Best Buy: they wanted to touch, feel, see, and experience the products,
• Vendors needed BB, as it was a great way for them to showcase their R&D investments.

I also realized that all of Best Buy’s problems were self-inflicted: incoherent pricing, poor customer experience, and deteriorating infrastructures (stores). This meant that it was possible to have a grip on these problems, and fix them.

IADS – You have turned around the company in a few years. What do you think was key to this success while so many others in the retail industry tried and failed?

HJ – There were actually two phases to turn around the company and generate growth.

The first phase, “Renew Blue”, was all about the turnaround itself. We are not talking about strategy or vision here, but pure execution: we were fixing what was broken. We pinpointed all the issues and addressed them one by one: matching Amazon prices, investing in customer experience, offering better shipping experience including next-day delivery, investing in stores or partnering with vendors…

This is what we did. The “how” part is more interesting though! The usual recipe involves cutting costs, especially reducing the headcount. In our case, this would have meant closing stores, when a lot of them were profitable. We preferred to have a human-centric approach. This meant two things:

• Listen to the frontliners and see what was wrong. I spent the first week on the job visiting stores and talking to teams, to understand what was going on. All I had to do was to listen and make sure they had the right answers and tools from the leading teams.
• Create positive energy within teams by showing them that they are placed at the centre and listened to.

For me, headcount reduction was really the last resort, I preferred to focus on reducing non-salary expenses (for instance, finding ways to reduce the rate of TVs being broken during handling!),

The second phase, “Building the New Blue”, was launched once we knew the foundations of the company were solid again. We reflected together and defined what company we wanted to be, and how to accelerate our growth. This can only be done by pursuing a noble purpose and putting people at the centre. That’s my idea of leadership.

IADS – To what extent the turnaround was a 100% human adventure, or a human adventure supported by systems? How did you manage this transition from an infrastructural point of view?

HJ – In electronic consumer goods, 90% of the shopping decisions involve a digital touchpoint at some stage, or even start digitally, so of course, emphasising digital solutions was the long-run approach. Every meeting I led always started by discussing e-commerce and digital, and we increased investments in the website. But systems are human-powered, and decisions must be made by someone, so we also invested in employee tools to adopt agile ways of working and spread a digital mindset within the company. That was a true asset for Best Buy during Covid-19 and allowed us to easily transition to contactless pickups and other solutions when stores were closed.

IADS – How did you prioritise the adoption of solutions and make decisions on investments?

HJ – The two phases were different.

The first phase was about eliminating pain points, understanding what was not working and fixing it. For us, that was the search engine, which we redesigned. Then, we worked down the list of remaining pain points and prioritised them by how important they are to the customer journey and business impacts.

In the second phase, the lens was different. We had defined our purpose: enrich people’s lives through technology, and that meant that we were not anymore only addressing tech fans, but also people who needed help with tech. That meant pivoting on several angles: from B to B, to B to C, from being a retailer to something else. Partnering with vendors was key, as they understood that it could be beneficial for them too, and that helped co-fund the needed investments in stores and systems.

IADS – You diversified your leadership team, the board – why did you feel it was important and how did you do it?

HJ – Simply put: I do not think we could have done anything without diversifying the teams. How do you want to address the world if your teams do not reflect its diversity, from a gender, ethnic, background or education perspective? Leaders need to create an environment where they can leverage diverse team members. For example, in Chicago, if your sales team doesn't speak Polish then you might not sell much. Same thing in Orlando for Portuguese, to address Brazilian customers.

For me, diversity is a business imperative. As leaders, we know how to sell business problems: how to attract, develop, and retain customers. These same methods need to be applied to employee retention and attraction. If there is not enough diversity represented within the organisation, you need to understand why it is not drawing these types of profiles, because that is putting you at risk.

IADS – How did you trickle down the changes until the base of the pyramid? How did you share, in a concrete manner, your Noble Purpose with frontliners?

HJ – It did not trickle down. Many companies have worked on defining a purpose.  But let’s be honest: a company’s purpose is corporate speech that doesn’t mean much to frontline workers. Frontline workers need motivation, not corporate speeches. And motivation comes from within, it is intrinsic.

This is what I call the “human magic”. I give you an example: in 2018 a young boy came in with a broken dinosaur toy. He didn't want a new one, he wanted a cure for his dinosaur. Two employees understood what was happening and they started a ‘surgical procedure’ to make the dinosaur feel better. In reality the toy was swapped with a new one, but the boy believed that it was still his original toy and was happy to have it repaired. To be honest, I can’t teach employees how to “cure” a dinosaur, and I do not know about KPIs measuring the number of cured dinosaurs per quarter. So, these employees did that just out of pure motivation. They wanted to make customers happy.

Once again, the “how” is key: how do you make sure that all your employees share the same approach? Not by having a top-down Power Point presentation. Our strategy was to be an inspiring friend to customers, but also to ourselves. So, one day, we closed all our stores on a Saturday morning, and broke the teams into small groups, asking each employee to share their own story and a story of an inspiring friend. Everyone understood, independently of their hierarchical level, that the others were more than employees or co-workers: they were human beings with their complexity. They realised that they needed to treat each other and the customers as human beings and as inspiring friends, rather than walking wallets.

Also: training is important, but it does not work if you return to a poisonous environment. Top-down scientific management approaches don’t work. Bottom-up and inside-out approaches should be prioritised. Here are the ingredients that worked for us:

• Allow every employee to connect to what drives them and connects them to their work,
• Create an environment where there are genuine human connections and where people feel seen.
• Allow for autonomous work.
• Offer a learning environment with individualised weekly coaching.
• Provide psychological safety.

We need to move away from the model where the leader is seen as the superhero who knows everything. Today’s leaders should show signs of authenticity, vulnerability, empathy, humility, and humanity!

Conclusion

**IADS – What is your view on retail after the pandemic? Where are we?

HJ –** 10 years ago, the debate was all about the dichotomy between online and brick-and-mortar. That is not the case anymore. For me, the dichotomy is now between great and mediocre retailers, and their purpose.

Purpose is an intersection of what the world needs, what you are uniquely good at, what you are passionate about, and how you can make money. The crucial question retailers should have to ask themselves to be successful is to know if they would be missed, and why, if they did not exist. Retail is being completely reinvented around purpose, people, and great execution.

To conclude, I remember my conversation with Tim Cook in 2012 about the bad press Best Buy had then. He told me to focus on doing my things and being successful, without minding the press. Department stores are in the same situation today. Keeping the focus is key.

I would also add that I believe that we, as business leaders, have a huge role to play in the society. We cannot predict the business environment or the future, but we can decide what kind of leader we want to be and how we want to contribute to the world. I have 3 guiding ideas:

• Having a purpose,
• Being clear on my principles - key ideas we have about how we want to lead and drive the business,
• Doing our best- we control what we do and how we lead our teams

Credits: IADS (Selvane Mohandas du Ménil)

PRINTABLE VERSION HERE

Nordstrom announced on the 1st of March the launch of their own Retail Media Network (RMN) with the “Nordstrom Media Network” initiative. Trade marketing and side advertising revenues from brands are not new to retailers. So why is this piece of news interesting for department store companies? Let’s look at the US grocery market to draw some learnings.

What are we talking about?

Retail Media Network (RMN) is a vehicle for retailers to market to brands with individualized advertisements to customers at a chosen point of interaction with the retailer’s ecosystem. The concept is not new: “traditional” retail media, which includes product sampling, in-store displays and featured placements in catalogues, initially focused on increasing shopper engagement and sales for the benefit of the retailer, which was often asking brands to pay to have their products shown at or near the point of sales, to increase the likelihood of a sale.

However, the concept significantly evolved in 2021 with the digital acceleration as an answer to some of the challenges created by the Covid-19 pandemic, for the following reasons:

• Brands, when going direct due to the pandemic, realised that their marketing initiatives could lead to a waste of investments: with no option to sell their products (both their wholesale and retail networks were closed) brands had to digitize fast, and quickly realized that they could create a direct relationship with customers without having to rely on retailers. However, they also realized that the advertising and marketing investments needed for such a strategy, especially online, were quite heavy and also posed questions in terms of ROI offered by the existing providers.
• Retailers were in need of compensating the Covid-19-induced margin loss:  they found themselves with traffic-building brands going direct to customers and leaving their premises, while also witnessing their margins shrinking, due to several factors, either structural (cost of free shipping, price-related competition from massive online pure players, investments in sustainability as requested by customers or regulation) or contextual (inflation, rising logistics and raw material costs due to the 2021 supply chain bottleneck, worsened by the 2022 Ukrainian-Russian war). As a consequence, they were eager to create new streams of revenue.
• A natural opportunity arose from this context: Retailers also digitized (or increased their digital competencies) and realized that, with the knowledge of their own customers they were able to amass (shopping habits, buying patterns, all collected from both online and offline points of contact), they could create such new stream by monetizing this first-party data to brands, who in turn saw an opportunity to improve the ROI of their marketing and communication investments.

Why did it start in the US grocery market?

Pre-pandemic, Food & Beverage and Consumer Pre-packaged Goods brands were struggling to grow in a saturated market (grocery brands’ average growth in the US in 2018 was +1.9% and average profit growth was +3.2% p.a. over the last 10 years). In terms of advertising, they were also lacking both connection and understanding of their customers (Dunhumbby evaluates that the top 10 brands spent $800m on advertising in 2021, with a cumulated customer database 90% smaller than their retailers’ ones) leading to a low ROI on advertising and communication investments.

The future was also looking bleak, as Google plans to remove cookies in 2023, which will prevent advertisers to implement audience targeting on 99% of Chrome users (2/3 of worldwide internet users). In a world where it is expected that post-Covid, the shifts in terms of grocery spending might stay, especially in terms of online buying (9% of the total UK grocery market in 2020, +54% in growth in the US the same year), that means that they would have to spend more, for the same result than before.

Benefits for all

In parallel, retailers, looking at the precedent set by Amazon (77% of the US-based CPG brands work advertise on Amazon, generating a total revenue for Amazon of $21.33 bn in 2020 and $31 bn in 2021), saw an 80%-like margin offered by retail media a welcome lifebuoy as their margins, structurally slim, were even weaker due to the massive increase of online sales during the pandemic (coming on top of the pandemic related costs themselves, in terms of payroll, benefits, incentives…).

This was a match! Brands saw in this new proposal the possibility to create highly-specific and objective-based campaigns around real shoppers and not personae, using a variety of touchpoints, and being able to measure the contribution to sales of the marketing investment made. Retailers recognized a possibility at the same time to create a new source of revenue but also a way to improve and reinforce relationships with key brands.

Benefits of Retail Media (Emarketer, Coresight)

![Coresight exclusive

![coresight exclusive 2

The Retail Media Network market value is estimated by Emarketer at $31.49 bn in the US only, and forecasted at $41.37bn in 2022, $50bn in 2025 (20% of the total digital ad spend). The worldwide market is estimated for 2022 at $50bn by Forrester and $100bn by Boston Consulting Group.

Now, most of the major US grocers (but not only) have or are venturing into Retail Media Networks activities: Albertsons, Best Buy, Carrefour, Dollar Tree, Gopuff, Lowe’s, Kroger, Sainsbury, Target, Tesco, Walgreens or Walmart. They all use the size of their loyalty program membership to push forward opportunities sold to interested advertising brands.

This trend is extending to the department stores world, as Macy’s and Nordstrom now also operate in this field (respectively from 2020 and 2022).

A use case example: Mondelez and Carrefour

Mondelez realized that, while pre-pandemic they were focusing on children and teenager biscuit brands, representing 68% of their online sales, the Covid-19 crisis favored the online emergence of a new category of customers, aged over 55 and sensitive to other products. These new customers represented half of the 2.8bn new households using Carrefour’s drive-thru offering in 2020 (quite an opportunity!).

Mondelez teamed up with Criteo (a Carrefour partner) to ensure the campaign visibility throughout the whole buying process: promotions on e-shelves and dedicated locations, targeting by keywords or context of the aisle visited by the relevant e-shopper (for instance, having their products visible when customers were using ‘coffee’ or ‘hot drinks’ as keywords).

As a result, they had a Return on Ad Spent exceeding 3 (1€ spent led to 3€ earnt in sales), with a 30 to 40% higher visibility when compared to the former target, and a conversion rate 14% higher than for customers who were not exposed to the campaign.

Is that the perfect opportunity for department stores?

When looking at the numbers published by the various players (additional revenue of $1.55b in 2021 for Walmart and $105m for Macy’s) one could conclude that this new business is a silver bullet for department stores looking to generate new streams of revenue.

However, McKinsey identifies 3 main risks with the implementation of a retail media network:

• Brand’s allocations to retail media networks can cannibalize the funds that they would normally allocate to trade marketing, which would in the end go exactly in a reverse direction in terms of the retailer-brand relationship than where a good retail media relationship strategy is supposed to lead./nbsp]
• A shift in the business relationship: retailers become clients to brands, which also would have serious consequences in terms of retailers’ organisation and their team’s self-perception (including the loss of a sense of purpose),
• Lack of core capabilities to properly meet CPG brands’ needs and maximize their spending.

Should all department store companies follow the lead of Nordstrom and launch their own retail media network initiative? While such a venture might be helpful and full of promises, CEOs need to remember that, while many of their companies are already major advertisers, retail media network initiatives require a completely different set of tools and skills to excel at it:

• Ability to provide advertisers access with a clean customer database (size does not matter, but its quality, and the number of active customers do),
• Closed-loop measurement and the ability to fine-tune the offer in real time according to the ever-evolving data privacy regulations are also key for the long-term,
• The behind-the-scene tech is also, of course, crucial, both in terms of reach (operations on multiple locations and channels) and scalability.

In reality, RMNs are a very interesting perk which could contribute to improving companies’ profitability, but such an implementation is neither easy nor painless: just like the topics of digital transformation and sustainability, we are witnessing here an additional layer of (optional) disruption which will require new teams, new systems and additional investments (see Dr Christopher Knee’s comments on how to respond to disruption here) at a moment when CEOs have many other options when it comes to put their organisations’ focus and allocate resources.

Credits: IADS (Selvane Mohandas du Ménil)

Check out the retail review in pictures here

PRINTABLE VERSION HERE

*The IADS visited Rome for the World Retail Congress early in May and took the occasion to visit La Rinascente and Coin Excelsior, among others, for a store review and an innovation spotting session.

To what extent has the Covid-19 pandemic forced local department stores to evolve, in the same way that Paris, Madrid, London or Milan had to follow suit? Has Rome, which is usually lagging behind the economical capital of the country, managed to take that opportunity to upgrade its department store scene?*

La Rinascente

La Rinascente, a former IADS member from 1959 to 2008, takes its origins as early as 1865 with the Bocconi brothers opening a clothing store in Milan, soon followed by branches in Rome, Genoa, Trieste, Palermo and Turin, under the name Alle Città d’Italia. When purchased in 1917, the new owner, Senator Borletti, asked the Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio to find a new name, and he came up with La Rinascente, reflecting its rebirth and new approach: a “democratic” approach to luxury appealing to high and middle-income classes./nbsp]

The company teamed up with UPIM in 1928 (as well as Jelmoli in Switzerland which remained a business partner until 1965) and increased its retail footprint across Italy in terms of store numbers (5 La Rinascente, 150 UPIM stores, and 105 supermarkets at its heyday in 1970) and partnerships or acquisition (JC Penney Italia, Auchan..) until it split in 2005. La Rinascente s.p.a. was then created and later purchased by Central Retail Corporation in 2011.

The group now operates 9 stores in Italy, including 2 in Rome (of which the Via del Tritone store opened in 2017), the Turin location opened in 2019 and the Florence location opened in 2020, each different and designed to be destinations by themselves. The latest public information about its total turnover is €800m in 2019, and the 2020 performance is estimated at -30 to -40% of that number. E-commerce has also been launched in the wake of the pandemic in 2020.

The IADS visited the Via del Tritone store in Rome. It opened in 2017 after 11 years and a total investment of €200 mn. It spans over 8 floors including a 2-floors terrace at the top, with an unusual floor plan:

• Exhibition area in the basement,
• Luxury accessories at the entrance on the ground floor,
• Cosmetics on +1,
• Women’s and Men’s fashion on +2 and +3,
• Shoes and contemporary accessories on +4,
• Home goods and food on +5 and access to the terrace.

Initially planned to open in 2012, the delays were due to the findings of major archeologic treasures, that are now on display in the basement of the store: the remains of a Roman aqueduct. This is the reason why La Rinascente decided to take advantage of that to set up its exhibition area there (usually used for commercial popups rather than cultural shows). At the time of the visit, an immersive and very well-executed pop-up dedicated to vintage design was on display.

What is striking in the building structure (apart from the fact that it also incorporates the remains of the Palazetto, a building from the early ‘900s) is the cavedio (a courtyard) which acts as a well of light and spans across the whole height of the building from the ground floor to the top floor. As a consequence, even though this is an invitation to go from one floor to another, circulation can feel somehow a bit cramped as each floor is organized with this empty volume in its middle. It also allows to embrace almost the totality of the department in one glance, but this can also be a drawback too, as there is almost no possibility to surprise customers with the pleasure of discovering something that was not seen when arriving on the floor. As a consequence, visibility is key for brands, and they are all rivaling to make sure they can be spotted from the escalators or the floors, leading sometimes to an overwhelming feeling.

The execution of the food floor and the access to the terrace is extremely well done: all products are presented in a manner which makes them very attractive, and one must say that the terrace is among one of the best available in the city (and advertised as such in Roman hotels to tourists).

For anyone with the habit of larger and probably more traditionally-structure department stores, the feeling left after the visit is the one of a well-executed store, with a very good array of brands, but somehow with a difficult circulation and an offer which is hard to read. This is mainly because of the dual structure: a ground floor and an underground which are easy to navigate and quite clear, while the top floors, which are all organised around the light well, propose an entirely different experience, navigation and product offer reading.

Coin Excelsior

Coin was founded in 1916 in the Venice region and evolved into various formats until becoming a department store per se in 1957 in Trieste, in a former Ohler department store location. It then expanded across the country and now operates 39 stores of various formats, including the Coin Excelsior one which is more upmarket than the traditional Coin stores (mixing the Coin brand name with Excelsior, a concept store owned by the group and specialized in high-end fashion). The group also owns OVS (midmarket apparel department stores) and UPIM, which was bought following its split with La Rinascente in 2010.

The IADS visited the Coin Excelsior located in via Cola di Rienzo, a “contemporary department store” which opened in 2014 with an investment of €8mn and spans over 3 floors and 4.300 square meters.

Although during the visit it was clear that the store reflected its age (on this positioning, 8 years seem a lot), one must say that the way it is structured and merchandised is quite surprising, with a few interesting innovations.

First of all, this is, like El Corte Inglés and other IADS members, a department store which includes a supermarket in its basement, even though it is quite small. What was striking however was the use of technology in a simple way and with clear incentives for the customers:

• Cash desks are fully automated, with a steward navigating to help customers. Payment points are very visible and designed in a way that they come naturally as a conclusion to the shopping journey (allowing to clearly define a navigation direction, which is quite useful in the Covid-19 context).
• An app, heavily advertised on-site, also allows an evaluation of the savings made by proposing to compare the prices.

Even though the supermarket zone is small, it allows to draw a certain type of customer in the store and connect it to the neighboring populations.

Rather surprisingly, upon exiting the supermarket, customers have to cross a food zone where they have the option to either eat on site or pick up their meal. They have no other possibility than crossing it to go to the rest of the basement, which mixes Home & Decor, kids’ fashion, lingerie and toys. For each category, the set up is well executed (end even very immersive in the case of the Home & Decor offer, sold under the Coin Case private label name), but the transition between them is quite abrupt and even disorientating.

Similarly to the basement, the ground floor mixes different categories:

• Cosmetics and perfume with the usual suspect brands, all displayed with their own branding in light shop in shop structures,
• Jewellery, including a Tiffany’s store which has a separate entrance on the street in addition to the in-store connection,
• Lifestyle, with Nespresso and Dyson, both of them with significant spaces and which are, according to Coin, quite successful both in terms of driving traffic and sales. Coin is increasingly entering partnerships (similarly to Manor and others) to expand its offer and access new customer bases,
• Jewellery and leather goods, with low and mid-market brands,
• A “Lifestyle hub” which includes tech, gadgets and even electrical cars. The name of this zone is not properly displayed and can be somehow confusing, which is all the more surprising that Coin advertises it as its new experiential showroom / concept store / space of discovery designed to attract a younger clientele (this new space has been launched in nationwide Coin Excelsior stores as a new concept in 2021).

The overall impression left on the ground floor is a profusion of brands expressing themselves on dedicated spaces, with an interesting (and surprising) curation and juxtaposition, but, just like this is the case in the basement, transitions between unrelated categories give the feeling that this spatial organization was made out of necessity rather than with a specific store planning vision in mind.

The first floor is dedicated to Women’s and Men’s Fashion, displayed both in shop-in-shops (including an impressive All Saints space) and in corners, and mainly in the mid-market segment. The Men’s section is displayed with floating furniture suggesting that the offer constantly evolves, while the Women’s one is structured with fixed fixtures. Also, the space and mezzanine allow giving a great view of the concept store part of the ground floor, as well as the Art Deco architecture of the building.

When leaving the building, the impression that is left is somehow confusing: there are many great ideas and brands or categories juxtapositions in the store, but ultimately it is difficult to identify who is the actual target customer or even the positioning of the store: while the Coin Casa, bakery on the basement or the fashion offer suggest that this is a store addressing a classical and middle-market customer, the Tiffany’s store at the entrance or the co-operated Dyson and Nespresso stores give the impression that Coin Excelsior is trying to stretch itself to the luxury category, and therefore trying to address all customers with one bait.

*Is Rome a Dolce Vita for department stores? While it has been an obviously historical touristic hotspot, when it comes to retail, Rome is more famous for its local and family-owned stores, rather than its department stores.

La Rinascente Via del Tritone, the second flagship of the company after the Milan store, addresses international luxury customers according to a robust playbook, but, due to the structural efforts it had to make to adapt to the city’s specificities (especially the archaeological treasures hidden in its soil), the result is somehow disappointing when compared to other players located in other cities, including Milan.

Coin Excelsior, on its side, displays many innovative concepts and initiatives, however, the store organization and difficulty to understand its positioning makes it a store that is difficult to understand.

It seems that, unlike in other European cities which took the opportunity of Covid-19 to work on their offer, positioning or brand perception, there is still some way to go for players in Rome in that perspective.*

Credits: IADS (Selvane Mohandas du Ménil)

What: While the market is growing and customer demand is increasing, no player has yet found the magic formula guaranteeing profits and ROI.

Why it is important: Department stores have embraced BNPL as one of the available options on the market to provide customers with various payment options. They are paying a hefty amount for that on their sales, and the question to know whether this is justified or not remains.

Buy Now Pay Later is an industry that represents several billions across the planet, however, none of the industry’s major players (Klarna, Affirm, Afterpay, Zip) are profitable. In addition, they are facing raising concerns both from their customers (retailers who are wondering if the fee they pay justifies a sale that they would have probably done anyways) and authorities (worrying about the impact of debt on individuals).

BNPL solutions, which claim to reinvent credit, started to gain traction during the 2008 financial crisis, especially within the younger generation, and that traction increased during the 2020 pandemic. It is expected to represent a total market value of USD 438bn by 2025.

However, BPNL have to cover the cost of an ever-changing technology, employee retention and customer acquisition. Even though the market is growing and all players are accelerating, none of them have found a way to make operations profitable. Payment Dive believes that this situation is going to worsen as competition on this market is increasing and even coming from more traditional players such as credit card companies.

Buy Now, Pay Later: market players see their losses widening 

What: A piece on the dramatic situation of UK and US shopping malls, and how mall owners are trying to change the situation.

Why it is important: The secret sauce for modern retail is to become a place to be, and not a place to purchase.

According to the FT, the high street in Croydon, south London, reflects the collapse of British retail, with the remains of former retail splendors: Grant’s, Allders, which disappeared in 2012, an empty shopping mall, Whitgift.

However, landlords and local councils are teaming up together to repurpose those spaces. The Whitgift shopping center is going through a significant revamp and redevelopment plan. This is highly needed, as the US and UK have been covered by huge malls including anchor department stores, a model which does not have sense anymore today and open up a circle of underinvestment.

The new plans (the FT interviewed the new CEO of Hammerson, Rita-Rose Gagné) imply to mix again retail together with homes, workspace, and leisure facilities. Lowering the weight of retail itself is also important, and this is the reason why Hammerson is implementing wellbeing and gym facilities, cultural and sports events, as well as last-mile logistics spaces. Food /amp] Beverage used to account for 5% of the retail mix in the 90s, it now represents 20%.

The Financial Times questions the remaining time to achieve such plans in a context when mall owners start to be a bit short of cash, and mentions that true regeneration can only be done hands in hands with city councils.

The rise, fall and rebirth of the shopping centre 

What: Subscription models are facing an increasingly unfavorable context.

Why it is important: Some department stores have looked at this model to generate an additional revenue stream. However, the perks provided with subscription models need to be significant enough to make sure customers will not decided to cancel them out of necessity.

Subscription services boomed during the pandemic for obvious reasons: practicality of the format, curiosity, access to new products, and no-brainer approach. In addition, the government stimulus also helped this retail format to develop: prior to the pandemic, US customers had on average 1.5 subscription, and this number rose to 5 at the end of 2021, with an average USD 38 per subscription for an estimated total market size of USD 15bn.

However, analysts found out that 14% of customers are now intending to reduce their exposure to subscriptions, due to fears of the inflation, need to cut their budget, and concerns for the environment. This would affect the 3 existing models (replenishment, curation and access):

• Replenishment: customers might trade-down the premium products they receive at home to go back to stores buying the staple brands and save on overall costs,
• Curation: since the products sold with this approach as usually more discretionary, the pressure will also be  high to have them cancelled as non-essential products during a revenue crisis,
• Access: this might be the most resilient model as such retailers usually charge a lower fee.

Forbes believes that the reasons why subscription models were successful in the past few years (people had more disposable income, more free time and could not go to stores) have now disappeared and this calls for a reinvention of the model.

The Great Unsubscribe 

What: The Robin Report reviews the forces re-structuring the US market, post-pandemic.

Why it is important: Fewer malls, but more stores: it is all about experience, surprise and supporting the customer. One do needs to remember that in the US the retail footprint per capita is remarkably high, which means that the conclusions drawn in this article do not necessarily apply to other markets.

The Robin Report reviews the trends induced by the pandemic and their consequences i eight points: the physical store became more important than ever as shown by the decrease of the Macy’s store closure program or the decision of Warby Parker to open more stores, however this comes as a reflect for stores to be a center for services supporting online selling. The fact that remote working is here to stay means that online is inexorably gaining market shares (even though its growth has slowed down in 2022) leading to a new phenomenon: more stores, but in fewer malls.

The author forecasts that in the future, online will represent up to 70% of sales, which is a challenging figures we do not necessarily agree with.

Did the pandemic change retailing dramatically? 

What: Commuting patterns are changing, which in turn pushes transportation authorities to change their approach.

Why it is important:  Being at the heart of cities, department stores need to carefully follow the decisions taken in terms of public transportation offering to local citizens and adapt: product offer, opening times, and capability to sell by distance.

A new subway line has opened in London, however, The Economist mentions that this might not be the biggest news when it comes to public transportation in London: since last September, usage of public transport has not changed, the metro is used at ¾ of its 2019 levels, and buses at four-fifths.

It seems that in England, customers have stopped using powered transport, especially during weekdays, suggesting that people are more reluctant to go to work than to go shopping or drinking (rush hour has declined most). This change of habit is not related to contamination fears: they feel safe, but simply do not wish to travel for work.

The ones who are fortunate enough not to have to travel for work (white collar workers) are deserting subways, while the ones that can not have to commute (buses).

As a consequence, some cities are adapting and scrapping plans to expand their urban travel networks or changing their timetables, potentially creating a vicious circle, which, by worsening the service, will convince even more people to change their travel habits.

The future of public transport in the UK 

What: Even though offices remain now half-empty, the use of public transportation in London is surpassing the 2019 levels when it comes to entertainment.

Why it is important: Department Stores, which are located in the heart of the cities, need to adapt, with matching product offers and opening times. Aligning the office hour is no longer relevant, which raises some questions when it comes to being able to recruit a new generation of salespersons willing to work during different hours.

The Financial Times argues that, while remote working is here to stay, customers are also changing their habits to spend the same amount of time and money in cities than before, even though they are not commuting there for professional reasons. People are not willing to go back to cramped trains every morning and evening, but are perfectly willing to entertain themselves: morning rush hours in the underground have halved compared with prepandemic levels, but the number of people using the subway late in the evening is almost back to normal. The author argues that, while offices are half-empty, attendance to football matches and restaurants or pub bookings are now higher than in 2019.

This trend has been witnessed in many cities across the planet, showing that customers are slowly adapting and creating new consuming and commuting habits.

Death notices for the city are premature 

What: Korean department store companies are strongly benefitting from their local customers’ appetite for luxury goods.

Why it is important: Since Korea is a market driven by fashion and beauty, the ability of international department stores company to position themselves as references is key to making sure they capture Korean customers once they are able to travel again.

Shinsegae, Lotte, and Hyundai account for the top 9 department stores in the country (the tenth one is Galleria in Seoul), and they increased their sales performed in stores by +12% during Q1 2022, especially Shinsegae (+18%). It is understood that apparel sales drove this growth.

Analysts see this healthy growth also to be related to international travel restrictions, forcing customers to spend money at home (rising prices have also been mentioned however this has not been a factor for apparel and accessories). This means that high-end players, with a proper offer in luxury brands, have made particularly well.

How Korea’s big 3 department stores are killing it right now 

What: The Asian version of dollar stores is storming the world and opening new stores in many countries at a fast pace.

Why it is important: Competing on pricing is getting impossible as this breed of discounters is able to mix the appeal of low priced items with carefully designed products proposed in a desirable environment.

The Robin Report delves into Miniso and Daiso, the new dollar-shop concepts coming directly from Asia and which are storming Europe and the US.

Miniso is a Chinese venture relatively new to retail (2013) and has opened since its arrival in the Americas in 2017 110 stores (half in the US and half in Canada). In the US, even though it is still California-centric, it is looking to have a national footprint. Its strength lies in original and localized designs (products are designed by Finnish, Danish or Spanish creators and are localized through a clever use of local IP license holders). The variety of goods is impressive, with a focus on toys, houseware and home decor, featuring many Western well known brands. Miniso also dedicates 40% of the space in store to experiences, which is a strong differentiation factor from traditional US one dollar stores.

Daiso is a Japanese company, founded in 1977, which operates 2,300 stores in 24 countries, in addition to the 3,600 stores it operates in Japan. The product offering includes thousands of skus from apparel to food to home, and is a reminiscence of Muji, but on a budget. Most of products are private label, with the original label in Japanese and a minimal translation.

Both have limited e-commerce operations.

The Robin Report sees both as a serious threat for the existing US chains, Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Five Below or Family Dollar.

Do you know Miniso and Daiso? 

What: WGSN Beauty Live offered an outlook of the main consumer trends and ideas for the coming 2 years.

Why it is important: Further to the IADS Cosmetics & Beauty meeting held in March 2022, this event offers an interesting perspective on the future of the category.

WGSN Beauty Live

What: Advanced personalisation techniques are setting a high bar for fashion brands, 71% of consumers expect personalised interactions with companies.

Why is it important: Declining brand loyalty among customers and increased competition for attention from social media platforms, along with tightening regulations and moves by Apple and Google to modify access to third-party data, are all impacting the ability of brands to connect with customers online. Now more than ever, personalisation can hold the key for brands to capture market share.

Offering hyper personalisation will require companies to reimagine how e-commerce operates. Search-based shopping is likely to shift to the individualised discovery of products and styles offered in the right size and fit. All customers will have a curated experience on their own versions of brand websites and marketplaces, from landing page to payment, akin to their experience on social media feeds. With this, companies will use personalisation technology to build experiences that drive customer engagement and, ultimately, loyalty.

Looking ahead in the luxury segment, hyper personalisation is set to also play out in physical stores. Store associates can leverage first-party data to provide customers with a unique experience no matter which store they enter, taking in-store clienteling to the next level.

Accelerating first-party data collection

Challenge: Changes to data privacy laws and restrictions on third-party data collection in various jurisdictions have rendered data management platforms and third-party cookies less relevant.

Solution: Brands need to maximise their first-party data collection to enable personalisation across platforms and channels.

Creating a 360-degree customer view

Challenge: When shopping for fashion, customers can generate a vast amount of data across channels and platforms, ranging from location data to website or app engagement time.

Solution: Brands need to establish a complete customer profile connected to a unique ID across data sources and channels. A customer data platform is needed to host all data assets and consolidate the customer view, as are rigorous data standardisation and cleaning processes.

Aligning the ‘human touch’ and AI

Challenge: Fashion customer behaviour can be difficult to predict, not least because of fashion’s rapid trend cycles and the low levels of repeat purchasing among individual shoppers.

Solution: Players need to develop advanced AI models, such as those that display products and photo styles best suited to the individual customer, or models that use advanced size and fit algorithms.

Scaling personalisation solutions

Challenge: A significant platform upgrade is required to deliver sophisticated, hyper-personalised e-commerce content, which is informed by thousands of data points and delivered across multiple channels with ultra-fast loading times.

Solution: A company’s portfolio of design and distribution tools needs to include content management systems that can standardise, centralise and distribute digital elements to support marketing alongside content delivery networks that help deliver thousands of unique landing and content pages.

Customer conversion costs are rising amid new privacy restrictions and limits on third-party data collection. Players can drive customer lifetime value by pushing beyond basic segmentation and ad hoc targeting to hyper-personalised shopping experiences across all touchpoints.

The opportunity in hyper-personalising shopping

What:  The first tech edition of the annual State of Fashion report from the BOF.

Why it is important:  Digital transformation is a strategic step, but also comes with a complexity that leaders must apprehend. This report is quite helpful in having the broader perspective and understanding of what is going on.

The Business of Fashion takes stock on what is going on in fashion from the technological perspective, in a context of acceleration (brands are expected to invest 3 to 3.5% in technology in 2030, from 1,6 to 1,8% in 2021). It explores all the key technologies, ranging from AI, machine learning and big data, to blockchain, cloud computing, digital workflows, IoT, RFID, robots and zero trust security. It identifies 5 key trends to look at:

• Metaverse reality check: even though the Metaverse is still more hype than actual business, the BOF expects the market to soar and advises brands to decide where to engage and prepare for the long term by having a foot in the door. 5 dimensions can be used: digital assets (NFTs…), digital experiences, gamified experiences, platforms and virtual worlds.
• Hyper personalization: 71% of consumers expect brands to deliver personalized interactions and are frustrated that this does not happen. AI, big data management, cloud computing and customer data platforms are all here to increase brands’ capability to develop specific models, scale them and establish personalization as a core capacity.
• Connected stores: 60% of customers still want to shop in stores, post-pandemic. Stores remain central in the brand set up, however they have to be on par with the expected experience, especially in terms of technology. Cloud computing, last-mile optimization, RFID, stock optimization are all here to optimize operations and make sure that they are efficient, fast and at the lowest cost possible. The keyword here is to bridge online and offline, of course.
• End-to-end upgrades: integrated digital processes throughout organizations are the top area for digitization. The upsides are numerous: a potential 50% increase in speed to market, up to 8% rise in full-price sell through and up to a 20% decline in manufacturing costs. To achieve that, again, AI, ML, big data, cloud computing and digital workflow are all here to help calibrating instincts with analytics, prioritize journeys and focus on change management.
• Traceability first: Reducing emissions in the supply chain is critical, but can be complex when suppliers are indirect. A centralized system for metric calculation, data collection and supply chain traceability is therefore crucial, and this goes through big data, blockchain, product passports and RFID.

The state of Fashion, Technology edition 

What: For the Financial Times, the current situation in China is becoming increasingly threatening for luxury groups’ margins.

Why it is important: Luxury brands are decades-old partners of department stores across the world. Any change in their profit structure might impact upwards or downwards their relationship.

Due to Covid-19 pandemic and travel restrictions, Asian tourists luxury spending has shifted from Europe to Asia, and increased luxury brands’ profits. However, the FT argues that an overdependence on China, coupled with a less lucrative business now that retail prices are becoming comparable to Europe and the US, might put the industry at risk.

At the same time, the war in Ukraine means that the rebound in Europe is unlikely to be swift, leading analysts to wonder if the Chinese tourists, once borders reopen, will buy back in the same quantities that they used to do.

Finally, the greatest risk, according to the journalist, is China itself, with the long-term consequences of the lockdowns, the zero-Covid strategy, and how it might impact consumption, display of wealth, and even salaries.

Why the luxury market needs to hedge against China 

PRINTABLE VERSION HERE

IADS recently held a meeting all about the cosmetics & beauty sector. Based on market research, the IADS team presented the most innovative brands from different segments of the cosmetics & beauty brand industry: skincare, makeup, haircare, fragrances, and everything in between! Check out a selection of these brands!

Skincare

Peach & Lily

The top destination for the very best curation of Korean Beauty productsand innovations from cult-favorite Korean Beauty brands. Spa-grade,toxin‑free, delightful, and accessible, K Beauty-inspired skincare with noharsh chemicals, dyes, alcohol, parabens, or sulfates.

Check out the Peach & Lily website here

Peach & Lily Instagram

Laboté

Laboté cosmetic treatments are made from medicinal plants andpharmaceutical ingredients selected for your skin through diagnosis.Treatments are certified vegan and cruelty-free. Take your skin diagnosisonline to discover your tailor-made treatment protocol.

Check out the Laboté website here

Laboté Instagram

Horace

Skincare line of natural products co-created with customers for men. Whena need is expressed, we formulate a treatment. Horace products areeffective, easy to use, good for all skin types, skin tones and hair.

Check out the Horace Website here

Horace Instagram

OUATE

Skincare line for little ones because children love to learn while having funand feel that joy that overwhelms them as they walk on the path toautonomy, OUATE transmits them the essential care gestures to take careof their fragile skin.

Check out the Ouate Website Here 

OUATE Instagram

Youth to the People

Consciously-sourced, nutrient-dense premium superfood blends and pairthem with clinical, pro-grade vegan actives, all made in California for thebenefit of skin’s health. All initiatives support non-profits and activistsworking to amplify diverse voices and increase inclusivity, build a more justworld, and save the planet.

check out the youth to the people website here 

Youth to the People Instagram

Makeup

Claropsyche

A makeup brand that seeks to saturate, liberate and inspire creatives. No Rules. Art supply inspired makeup products.

Check out the claropsyche website here

claropsyche Instagram

Dries Van Noten

Dries Van Noten clashes couture with streetwear. Refillable lipsticks, withmix-match cases in clashing top and bottom prints inspired by fashion collections.

Check out the Dries Van Noten website here 

Dries Van Noten Instagram

War Paint

A makeup line helping men feel confident in themselves using cruelty-free,vegan ingredients. Light & comfortable to wear looks natural & incrediblyeasy to apply.

Check out the War Paint website here 

War Paint Instagram

Pat McGrath Labs

The world’s most influential and in-demand makeup artist formulated andperfected her must-have collection of high-performance cosmetics,culminating in the launch of her eponymous brand.

Check out the Pat McGrath website here

Pat Mcgrath Instagram

Haircare

Pattern

Pattern - Meet your hair where it is & empower your curl pattern bynourishing your hair with affordable and effective products & safe ingredients.

Check out the Pattern website here

Pattern Instagram

Gisou

A haircare line that’s key ingredients are sustainably sourced from theMirsalehi Bee Garden by founder Negin Mirsalehi and her father. Honeyis the key to healthy, shiny, nourished hair. Rich in vitamins, minerals,amino acids and antioxidants, honey deeply nourishes and moisturizes torepair and restore dry, damaged locks.

Check out the Gisou website here 

Gisou instagram

SACHAJUAN

Haircare inspired by Scandinavian philosophies and powered by OceanSilk Technology. Simplify haircare by reducing superfluous products,ingredients, and routines.

Check out the Sachajuan website here

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Vilhelm

A fragrance line where each perfume is the culmination of a broad,creative and collaborative process, a blend of vintage and new that sparks recognition but not familiarity. It brings together around twenty fragrances conceived as olfactory stories.

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D'Orsay

Fragrance line where the scents are inspired by exploring the state oflove through to carnal desire, speaking of feelings and intimacy.

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D+ For Care

Natural, scientific, and French, designed by women for women. D+ forcare is the well-being brand for women that provides dietarysupplements for beauty, well-being, stress, sleep, slimming, menopause,menstruation, hangovers, and more.

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Lightinderm

A unique deep skin regeneration system, usable at home, combining aphotobiomodulation device and capsules of serums concentrated inphoto-active ingredients. A triple stimulation: light, serum & massage toact effectively. 1 device 5 targeted programs: wrinkles and firmness,imperfections, redness, and radiance.

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Holidermie

Holidermie created products and tools to accompany active women ona daily basis so that they remain beautiful and radiant for longer, bypreserving and beautifying their skin from the inside out, bycontributing to their physical and mental well-being and by allowingthem to take care of their style even in the bathroom.

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Solaris Labs

Inspired by massage techniques and modalities that have been aroundfor hundreds to thousands of years they created tools that are holistic,modernized or high tech to optimize your routine and skin health.

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*Teaming up and buying together in order to reach scale economies seems like a natural step for international department stores, since the goal of these large retail organisations has always been to reach optimization in terms of procurement to maximize margins. In addition, since they are usually operating on national markets, an international collaboration seems logical.

This is the reason why international retail associations, such as the IADS, have explored the subject for years, trying to articulate a working solution for their members, be it at the material level for private labels, at the product or label level for national brands, or even by suggesting to team up to buy or create from scratch shared brands which could be seen as private labels for a group of stores.

We are reviewing in this paper a series of options drafted by the IADS dating back to 2001, in order to draw some conclusions and put them in comparison with what we know today.*

What are we talking about and why is it important in 2022?

Department stores are increasingly under the pressure of specialty retailers that have been developing internationally. Already back in 2001, as retail was becoming global, department stores' relative purchasing power was declining. The question of boosting their buying power was arising through international M&A activity, the development of synergistic formats or alliances, and through harnessing the strength of collective buying with several department stores. Post-Covid, the pressure is even stronger as brands are increasingly going directly to customers, as shown by luxury groups (LVMH, Kering) or large sports brands (Nike), to increase their margins at the expense of the retailers.

This overall situation is even more critical as competition is becoming much more aggressive, especially with the growth of e-commerce which challenges the margins that can be reached by retailers: while retail prices remain the same, customers now expect some services that were not generalized pre-Covid (such as the free delivery) which are putting pressure on the core business model. As a solution to recuperate some points of margin, department stores can work on their logistics (a notoriously difficult topic in 2021 and 2022), on their overall organization (size of the workforce, working methods and systems), adjust their business model (by monetizing their stores and digital platforms), but also by lowering their overall product and material acquisition costs.

But collaborative procurement is not just about "purchasing power". Even at a time when raw material prices are skyrocketing, most department shops compete on differentiation, style, and fashion rather than pricing. As a consequence, collaborative procurement is, first and foremost, a strategy to improve the attractiveness of the selection by elevating the status of department store-exclusive brands or collections.

To dig into the topic in a rational way, different aspects and constraints are to be taken into consideration:

• assess the issues with cultural differences and various consumer attitudes,
• review the different forms of collaborative procurement,
• review the framework and operational concerns for such a project.

Can collaborative procurement and cultural differences be reconciled?

There are 2 opposite ways to see cultural differences.

On one hand, customers are often considered too diverse to make international procurement successful and effective as tastes, styles, and sizes are too different. It is not difficult to figure out that ladies in Stuttgart will not be attracted to the same products as in Berlin, New York, or Paris. They can also have a different perception of brand names. Furthermore, customers’ rationale might also significantly differ: in one country, the price may be the most important element, whereas, in another, style is more significant. The lack of success or failure of some international retailers (Gap, Marks & Spencer or Muji for instance), when they trade outside their home country, highlights the challenge of dealing with the same concept in several countries. As a consequence, from this perspective, beyond all the operational challenges of joint procurement (quotas, price structures, import duties, sizes, etc…), the customer, who is the ultimate decision maker, does not buy in the same way, the same products, or in the same places. As a result, there might be no use in seeking collaborative buying.

On the other hand, customers are increasingly attracted to the same international brands, whether it’s Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren or H&M, Zara and now Shein. Such successes, especially vertical specialty retailers who hurt department stores most, prove that the same clothes can be sold all over the world. While brands are even more globalized in 2022 than in 2001, they are now succeeding in almost all countries, with harmonized image and communication channels making the brand’s perception equivalent everywhere.

Is there a way to reconcile both points of view? While cultural differences are unavoidable, many of the same products are sold at department stores (cosmetics, lingerie, hosiery, accessories, luggage...). An analyst stated: "The killer of department stores is going to be that they all think they're distinctive, while Mango feels it can sell anyplace." Although it may be simpler to organize common procurement in a single country, the retail environment shows that customers often respond to the same brands.

In 2022 though, department stores desperately need to differentiate if they want to survive against the competition, suggesting that department store-specific products might be worth considering, even at the international level between a handful of players sharing those exclusive items.

How can collaborative procurement be achieved?

As suggested in the introduction, there are many ways to consider joint procurement, at several different levels:

• Buying private labels from one another,
• Developing brands together,
• Subcontracting together special ranges,
• Harnessing buying power by teaming up,
• Acquiring a brand and operating it collectively.

When looking at each option in detail, there are pros and cons in each of them.

Buying from one another. Private label ranges are available at most department stores and may be of some interest to others. Differentiation has to be made between umbrella brands (Manor’s or Magasin du Nord’s store) for which often even the smaller stores can reach the minimum quantities required to make the labels work, and private brands which are me-too or exclusive life-style brands (The Mash Up at Breuninger or Chester & Peck at El Palacio de Hierro for instance) generating a higher mark-up and sales per square meter, but are at the same time much more expensive to develop and market.

Among the IADS department stores’ private brands, there are a few that others could pick up. A team could be given the task of putting together a catalogue of the main private brands as some of these might have the potential if several stores were interested to become successful international brands. One challenge would be to agree on an acceptable price structure making it possible to sell profitably, as well as to overcome internal opposition, as experiences in the past showed that the various buying teams could feel threatened by such a cooperation and therefore not really willing to work together.

Developing brands together. In this model, several stores get together in a structure that develops one or several brands. In the past, the initiative called EBO (European Brands Organization) was a joint venture between five department stores with equal ownership and entirely responsible for the collection's development (this structure does not seem active anymore nowadays). The first key learning from this venture is that it worked because stake-holding department stores had a similar size and positioning. The second one is that the venture must operate independently from its shareholders and have the latitude to sell to third parties as long as they do not compete with the shareholders. But building a lifestyle fashion brand is a long process and requires a long-term commitment from all parties involved. It may be easier to create brands for less glamorous non-apparel categories.

Joint subcontracting of special ranges. This model is all about commissioning existing well or less well-known manufacturers to develop exclusive ranges for a group of department stores, possibly with a separate brand name (the “Armani for Department Stores”, for instance). Nowadays, unique collaborations with brands could be seen as the modern variant of this model as any other variant does not seem valid anymore.

Harnessing buying power. An obvious option is to pool department store purchasing power on common items which could be easily listed. This would imply the creation of a purchasing organization that would act on behalf of the department stores when negotiating. In 2022, this option might be less relevant as some brands are questioning their very presence in department stores and are increasingly trying to go direct-to-consumer, meaning that such an option would relate to smaller, and somewhat less attractive brands, questioning the economic viability of this approach. With the supply chain disruptions and the high costs relating to digital, the department stores’ focus is put on margins as they are increasingly hard to maintain. Under such circumstances, harnessing the buying power on raw materials (cashmere, cotton threads, etc…) could represent an additional option.

Brand acquisition in collaboration. The ability to jointly acquire an existing or emerging brand is also a possibility for a group of department stores, although there is no modern example of such a venture. Other retailers do proceed to brand acquisitions, such as Farfetch with the acquisition of the New Guards Group (Heron Preston, Opening Ceremony…) or the cosmetic brand Violet Grey.

Anticipating the issues in order to move forward

In 2001, the attitude of buyers regarding collaborative procurement was not the most positive: their culture and training were focused on individual achievements, and in the past, they did not collaborate easily. Twenty years later, even though mindsets and working methods have evolved, it is likely that, to be successful, the human aspect and the international articulation and roles will be a critical point to be considered.

An alternative is to develop a separate organization. Creativity would be required when it comes to quotas and custom duties impacting price structure and quantities. Ordering procedures, logistics, and impacts on manufacturing quantities should not upset the position of the initial seller of the brand. Price structures should be reasonable as both the buyer and the seller should see some benefits. However, the key question remains to know whether retailers, who currently are steering their digital transformation and looking at all the CSR-induced changes they need to consider, would have enough resources and willpower to team up on a project managed with other companies, leaving them with a limited degree of control while requiring full involvement from their end.

We believe that there are some possibilities of collaboration between department stores. After all, they individually spend huge amounts of money in product development. As a consequence, it should be possible to tap into private labels and take a few of these brands global. Processes could be designed to facilitate collaborative action, especially if developed early on. However, a key element would be that all companies teaming up together are of the same size in order to avoid any lack of balance, or they should only focus on a specific aspect of the collaboration, and not its entirety.

Credits: IADS (Dr. Christopher Knee, modern reading by Justine Fanget)

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Click here for a look into Blocher Partners 

Blocher Partners (bp) was founded 30 years ago in Germany by Jutta and Dieter Blocher. From the very beginning, their approach was transdisciplinary. Along with their client needs, they added new competencies to their practice: interior design, product design, but also marketing and communication solutions. Thanks to their recognized know-how in the development of retail spaces, they were soon labelled as retail architects. They could offer clients holistic concepts, always putting the customer in the centre of actions and the thinking process. For getting in touch with their clients in an early stage and really understanding their needs, Blocher Partners lately expanded their business by the field design strategy: early in 2022 ‘Blocher Partners sens’ was established. Erik Schimkat who leads the new entity, is an interior designer who has specialized in co-creative design research methods. These are of great importance when it comes to unveiling unseen potential and pushing ideas towards new boundaries. For this interview we had the chance to talk to both Jutta and Erik about innovation and transformation in the retail business.

Innovation and transformation

IADS - What is your understanding of innovation for retail in general? How do you translate that into architecture? Do you sense any kind of acceleration or a sense of emergency, especially with Covid?

bp Jutta - Innovation should be broken down a bit. Working for the retail industry, but also for the hospitality business or even when creating offices, we can see what companies have in common: they have to deal with uncertainty when it comes to bringing a new project to life. Innovation really lies in dealing with this permanent uncertainty, and in the ability to turn it into a suitable experience. Sustainability and digitalization are also big forces being part of the process.When it comes to innovation, we need to be brave enough to try unprecedented things. They might work for one company and not for the other: this is exactly the context in which we can provide efficient methods and offer viable solutions.

bp Erik - Companies often ask us to help them be more relevant. They are aware that it will take bravery and boldness for them to be successful in the future, but the more we move on together, the shyer they become. That's really the biggest challenge for us. Forcing us to take a step back, Covid touched on a raw nerve and critically highlighted what was not working. It allowed us to really think about spaces and usage. But we wouldn't say we felt a sense of emergency as questions were already there, Covid was acting more like a booster even accelerating the process. Finding the right solutions is just becoming increasingly complicated.

IADS - What are the limitations of architectures, if any, for modern retail? What can it do, or can’t do, to fix the issues?

bp Erik - As everything is becoming digital, architecture is not the first step of a project anymore. Since consumers can now shop online wherever, whenever they want, architecture is the possibility for a brand to ultimately be able to convey a strong brand identity. Architecture gives retailers the power to really decide where they want to be visible.

IADS - How did the sustainability concerns change your practice, especially in retail?

bp Jutta - As a company, sustainability is in our minds for many years. For instance, our HQ built 12 years ago received the DGNB certification, which was something pretty unique at that time. Since then, our design approach has always been very sustainable. It’s also been part of our clients’ mindset for many years, and even more with Covid and the overall climate situation worsening.

Does the store of the future exist?

IADS - What is your personal view of the store of the future (if such a ‘concept’ makes sense to you)? Do you want to mention any ongoing project that would relate to that vision?

bp Erik - Actually such a concept doesn't really make sense to us. Although it is especially important for us to develop visions, it would be far too specific to have a single solution for a store of the future. There are certain guidelines and trends that have to be considered when developing a retail project, but in the end, our efforts are put into finding the specific solution for a specific client and its specific target group. As a company, we try not to use the word future as it can put us immediately in the past somehow. That said, we understand why there is this need for such a notion as it would represent an easy and global answer to many questions.

IADS - Architecture and online: how do you articulate both to cope with the customer omnichannel journey?

bp Jutta - We developed a digital unit within the company over the past years, consisting of a network of experts from the digital field. The purpose of such a unit is to both provide a seamless experience to our clients, and of course to help them deliver a seamless experience to their own customer base. Once again, we work on tailored solutions which will be very different from one retailer to another. For instance, Breuninger is very much advanced when it comes to online shopping, and they have a very good digital unit we closely collaborate with. The situation might be very different with another retailer.

IADS - Retail is about people - customers -, but also and equally importantly sales teams. How do you take them into account in your projects? And in the future now that staff retention and quality of work environment are crucial to retaining talents?

bp Erik - Our methods include having all experts and stakeholders at the table when kicking off a new project. The question of the sales teams comes usually late in the process, but we consider it crucial to include them from the early stage of a project, like any other stakeholder. They have a very valuable impact on the design process because of their unique position on the shop floor, providing products and experience to the customers.  It might also be counterproductive to impose a new store design they will have to work with for years without involving them. Finally, because they feel seen and listened to, they often become ambassadors for the project

IADS - How do you manage creativity within your organisation? How are ideas generated and with what process?

bp Jutta - Our transdisciplinary approach is of some help in that matter, especially considering we need to make people work from our different locations, in Stuttgart, Mannheim, Berlin and India. We also have specific formats to develop exchange and creativity: we host something called ‘creative exchange’ where we invite external speakers on trends or innovation. We also have in-house talks bringing the whole company together. In addition, we're working on white papers, and we research ideas that we think are worth exploring. In the end, creativity works when we combine all expertise, and not only the design people as all people need to have a full understanding of what's going on.

IADS - Could you please tell us more about ‘Blocher Partners Sens’ new division? How are workshops and methods like LSP (Lego Serious Play) unique to understanding the client’s needs and developing an adequate project?

bp Erik - Blocher Partners Sens comes in at a very early stage of a project to work in a co-creative process with the client. Using different perspectives and methods, we are trying to find the best solution for the client. Everyone involved in the process is on the same page and the overall method ensures that everyone is taken into account. For example, the Lego Serious Play method allows everyone to have a voice, no one is louder or quieter. Everyone can come up with something creative (even when people are not part of the creative field) enabling them to have a valuable impact on the project. It starts with a perfect briefing in the early stage to really know what we have to work on, and the problems to be solved to reach a successful outcome.

We also use more creative methods allowing us to keep an eye on the overall project and make sure we are still on the right track compared to what was decided in the beginning. Blocher Partners Sens is also about communicating with all the project’s stakeholders, and about conveying the message of change. An evaluation is made after the project to assess what was good and what can be improved. It’s increasingly important in retail considering spaces are not set for years anymore.

Department stores and retailers

IADS - What is the role of a department store in 2022? How do you see its articulation with the city? In your view, is the European department store part of the 1% of public buildings (like a church, a city hall, a landmark...) or something else?

bp Jutta - It’s both, and something else! Department stores are city marketplaces where people can go without having a specific goal. Knowing that something is happening there is a good enough reason to go. The new KaDeWe flagship store in Berlin embodies this vision. The idea of public buildings fits with the idea of the department store: like a church or a landmark, it's a place where people find experiences.

In regard to this idea, Breuninger’s champagne bar is a very good example, as people don’t go there having shopping in mind, but for the experience. The EmiLu hotel we worked on in Stuttgart is another great example. The breakfast room, empty hence spooky most of the time, is open for everybody to have brunch until 4 pm. The place has been crowded since then. It shows that with more creativity, the hotel had a bigger chance to be in part of the city and become the “talk of the town”. This initiative also has a strong impact on the appeal of the hotel itself, as a place to stay.

IADS - How do we make sure that department stores will continue to be part of people’s lives? How is an architecture practice of some help?

bp Jutta - Whereas some became only ‘product portfolio’ over the years, department stores should go back to being places for experiences and discovery, their essence from the very beginning. Thanks to their size, locations and product offer, they have a true competitive advantage for experiences and discovery and a bigger chance to succeed when compared to other retailers. The challenge is more to make them understand the potential they have here.

Department stores can benefit from their great architecture (for some of them), from their restaurant offer making them a great place to meet friends. They offer a physical experience, and we are all craving for experiences.

IADS - Looking back: what did Blocher Partners learn with the various projects you ran with department stores? How working with department stores is different from other projects?

bp Erik - Department stores are very different as a lot of stakeholders are involved, adding complexity to uncertainty. On the other hand, they have more expertise, hence much more possibilities when it comes to what can be achieved. In the end, it might be more intense than working with smaller companies, but the results are often much more holistic experiences.

Contact:

Annette Willige

Head of Business Development

Tel: +49 711 224 82-452

Mobile: +49 152 54511169

Annette.Willige@blocherpartners.com

Credits: IADS (Christine Montard)