Several messages were very clear from the World Retail Congress (WRC) in London this week — it’s an uncertain world that isn’t going to get more certain any time soon, the industry is evolving at speed, and retail business models need to adapt to drive growth.
That latter point is the key one from a report produced by WRC and EY that was presented on the first day of the event.
Called Adapting the Retail Model for a New Growth Plan, it highlights the enduring strength of the retail sector, which over recent decades has weathered the online shopping boom, smartphones, social media, financial crises, a global pandemic, supply chain disruptions, geopolitical instability and inflation.
But it added that retailers can’t afford to stand still and by drawing on various information sources has come up with some recommendations to help retailers grow.
Those sources include interviews with retail leaders, proprietary EY research (such as the EY Parthenon CEO Outlook Survey and the EY Future Consumer Index), plus data from Coresight Research, Oxford Economics, Capital IQ, Euromonitor, MarketWatch, ThredUp, and Business Research Insights.
So what are its conclusions? It said the retail leaders it spoke to identified six priority areas to accelerate progress.
The first of these is leveraging existing assets to provide B2B services. Retailers are “recognising the untapped potential of their infrastructure, expertise, customer base and investing in these capabilities to unlock revenue growth opportunity across the supply chain”. That means both “upstream, through offering additional value to suppliers, and downstream through acquisitions and bolt-ons that shift them into a media- or platform-led offering”.
Second, it said repurposing physical and digital spaces to deliver more service-based offerings is key. While online sales are still growing, “physical stores continue to play a vital role in driving revenue. Repurposing the store and truly measuring their success from an omnichannel perspective will be more important. We see retailers repurposing store space into community hubs, click-and-collect hubs, piloting rental, resale and repair services and more. In grocery and pharmacy, integrating health services such as in-store clinics and wellness programmes offers further opportunities to meet evolving consumer needs”.
Shedding underperformers, acquiring tech expertise
And it believes that reshaping businesses through strategic divestments and acquisitions to boost performance is hugely important. The EY CEO Confidence Index reveals “significant attention is being directed to streamlining portfolios and restructuring to save costs and free up capital to invest in future growth”. In fact, 49% of retail CEO respondents are planning divestments of poor performing, challenged and non-core assets in the next 12 months. The index shows M&A will play a key role this year although activity is likely to slow. Fifty-eight percent of retail CEO respondents are planning M&A in the next 12 months, primarily to access new technologies (37%), capabilities (35%) and vertical integration (35%).
Of course, embracing technology to unlock efficiency, enhance customer experience and power new business models is also on the list of priorities. EY said technology is underpinning the majority of retailers’ efforts to defend margins and drive growth with tech likely to be the most heavily ring-fenced expenditure category in retail budgets. Artificial intelligence (AI) will play a central role in such investments, with its applications split between embedding AI into current infrastructure and exploring new initiatives across various AI branches.
The fifth key point is investing to develop entirely new value propositions. “Retailers can leverage existing assets and make investments that take bigger steps by expanding or pivoting into brand new sectors”, EY said. “A move into technology, media, health, real estate or financial services could open new areas of growth. That’s an interesting point given how many businesses are moving into retail media and only this week the UK’s Frasers Group announced a big initiative on this front.
The final point is exploring partnerships to support new business models and enhance operating models. Delivery platforms and new entrants are transforming the retail landscape as they rapidly expand beyond their original focus areas to capture a larger market share across multiple retail segments. Online food ordering and delivery platform companies, which initially built their businesses around restaurant meal delivery, are now aggressively moving into grocery, convenience and other retail categories, leveraging their established logistics and technology infrastructure to diversify revenue streams and meet evolving consumer demands.
Ian McGarrigle, WRC chairman, said: “Leading retailers have consistently outperformed market expectations by investing in new business strategies and we know retailers are exploring alternative business models such as pre-owned, rental, subscription, repair, health services, media and logistics. However, these models face challenges in scaling and generating significant revenue compared to traditional sales. The key factors hindering their success are time and money.
“Large retailers have seen some success, but the revenue from these new models remains relatively small. The focus should be on profitability and growth, as newer revenue streams are growing faster and have greater potential. Retailers need to take iterative steps to build scale, leveraging customer data and gradually embedding new models to drive growth and profit over a five- or 10-year horizon.”
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