‘The only thing constant in life is change’
Heraclitus
The world of retailing is constantly evolving. The digital environment we live in plays a large part in the changing landscape of the retail sector, and keeping pace with the needs of your customers is a constantly revolving task.
Deloitte’s Technology in Retail - From centre stage to supporting player, looks at how bricks and mortar retailers can take advantage of technology to offer meaningful and memorable customer experiences.
In the report, Tom McLeod, CEO of Myagi, a Melbourne and San Francisco based staff training company, talks about ‘mindset’ as the most important way Australian retailers can successfully integrate the physical and digital.
“Technology is an opportunity for physical retailers, not a threat. Retailers need to be proactive in how they work with technologies in their industries.”
McLeod gives the example of Walmart in the US. It’s one of the world’s biggest traditional retailers and now has an online business worth $15 billion per year.
The reason for success like this, he says, is that smart retailers in the US saw technology and ecommerce as an opportunity as soon as they first emerged on the scene.
McLeod says while it’s hard to compete on size and scale, Australia can learn from other countries. His advice: To take in all the knowledge you can gain from overseas and translate that to what you know about your local customer.
So how do you adopt this kind of mindset so you can manage the present and proactively prepare for the future, while remaining competitive?
Thinking your way to success
Cate Trotter of Insider Trends says the right mindset embraces and encourages innovation, and has a healthy attitude to risk.
This way of thinking will:
Make it more likely for you to be an early adopter of new technology to benefit your business
Prevent you from disregarding technology in its early phase
Keep you experimenting and thinking about new developments
Prepare you for technology which develops and expands over time, rather than quick, short-term fixes
Open up the channels for collaboration from both within and outside the company
Help you remain flexible to meet the changing needs of your customers
When you’ve got a proactive mindset, you need your technology to keep up. The Infinity unified commerce platform supports change and growth because you can innovate quickly to deploy new services, channels and devices. Let us show you how.
More on mindset
The mindset revolution originated in the education sector, where Dr Carol Dweck and her colleagues observed how students reacted to failure of their learning goals in two different ways - either they were devastated or they rebounded to go on and try again. Dweck coined the terms ‘fixed’ mindset which sees intelligence as static, and ‘growth’ mindset where intelligence is developed and improved over time.
The concept also has relevance in the business sector, where companies can benefit from those with a growth mindset, who believe their talents can be developed, and feel more empowered and committed. Those with a growth mindset also receive more organisational support for collaboration and innovation than those with a fixed mindset.
We adapt our mindset to our clients needs...
