From beginning to end…from conception to consumption…nurture an inner pride that translates to a public passion, so that the flow of enthusiasm continues well beyond the selling process.
As part of your core business processes measure and monitor passion as though it were as tangible as gold coins because that is what passion will surely produce.
A successful supply chain is a fundamental pre-requisite for any retail business. Creating and managing it requires small fortunes of investment, complicated integrated technologies, coordinated and sequential actions, and large teams of employees putting in many man hours.
And in the context of retailers having to be both the “Beauty & the Beast!” to survive in today’s competitive market, an efficient organisation that does control the “beast of the supply chain” will go a long way to ensuring commercial success.
But what about the beauty?
Well beauty is certainly still in the ‘eye’ of the beholder and is also categorically in the ear, the nose, the taste and the touch of the customer. And whilst the physical product itself constitutes only one dimension of beauty along with store design, visual merchandising, brand communication and customer service, as the focal point and inspirational seed behind the other dimensions it is the most important contestant in the beauty stakes.
However with its inception so far away from the final customer both in terms of space and time, the product is the part of the “retail beauty chain” that is hardest to conceive, develop, control and deliver, time after time.
True beauty that engages with customers on both an emotional and commercial level can no longer be just skin deep. Nor can the enthusiasm of unconvinced store sales teams, the creativity of underwhelmed interior designers rescue sales success when beauty and passion have been absent from the product production process.
The product supply chain can no longer just be efficient and organised logistically and technologically, but it has to be emotionally charged, full of passion for the product from the first sketch, to the final stitch, to the delight of display.
As retailers we must build “The Passion Supply Chain!”
Modern retailers, if not complete masters, are well on the way to mastering the commercial and logistical hurdles of putting stock on the shop floor but in this hyper-competitive retail landscape efficiency is no longer enough to deliver the gains that could once be guaranteed.
Brand excitement and emotional connection are what drive sales success. Excited and emotional people are what inspire retail profit. A passion for product and for experience that flows from the drawing board to the till, from the boardroom to the stockroom is what has become the secret to commercial performance.
So let’s look at what retail passion is. It is a belief in the business that you work for, not only in what it produces and sells but in how it produces it, how it treats its people, how it views the wider world and how it benefits its customers over and over again.
“The Passion Supply Chain” is all about people because only through them will passion be transferred to the product, the places where you work and sell and to the final customer experience.
It is no coincidence that many new successful retail businesses have emerged from this wider passion, for whilst it is possible to introduce commercial practice to complement entrepreneurial enthusiasm it is much more difficult to introduce passion into a hollow production process.
So first we need to have inspiration in the product and the concept. We need product designers and buyers who cannot wait for the reality of their designs to see the light of a sunny retail day. We need manufacturers and craftsmen who delight in the process of production. We need marketing teams fully engaged and fuelled with enthusiasm to communicate the inspiring stories behind the brand and the product. And we need inspired store managers and sales assistants where the opening of every cardboard box delivered is an exciting adventure and an opportunity to wax lyrical to the first customer they see.
From beginning to end…from conception to consumption…nurture an inner pride that translates to a public passion, so that the flow of enthusiasm continues well beyond the selling process.
As part of your core business processes measure and monitor passion as though it were as tangible as gold coins because that is what passion will surely produce.
Be careful always to ensure that the initial passion exists at the beginning of your journey, monitor with care how that passion ebbs and flows through the stakeholders you entrust, examine how and why the excitement escapes, and evolve and solve the practical problems that cause your dreams to stall at every crucial step.
Emotional shoppers engage with beautiful product in engaging environments.
This is the “Passion Supply Chain!”
So what about you?
Are you an established retailer that’s lost its passion for life?
Or does the passion slip through the fingers of your supply chain stakeholders leaving nothing for your customers but a mirage of product expectations?