So what the hell do cows (and cow puns!) have to do with recruitment? I often get asked what the deal is with re:find and cows – you may have been wanting to ask yourself if you’ve ever visited our website.
Well, unbeknown to most people, my family are Scottish dairy farmers! My family continue to run a few farms up on the West Coast. So, you could say it’s in the blood. But even though working in recruitment is a far cry from the fields of Scotland, I’ve never fully left behind my admiration for these fantastic animals.
Even my favourite artist is cow-themed…a lady called Caroline Shotton, you can check out her work here.
So, hopefully, that explains all the cows.
To discuss anything recruitment or cow-related you can email me at James@refind.co.uk.
Everyone gets nervous before an important meeting or interview. It doesn’t matter how much you may have prepared, there are some common intrusive thoughts that always manage to worm their way into your head the night before and cause you to think about possible escape routes should the worst happen. Through our executive search experience, we can help.
But worry not, you don’t need a getaway car parked around the corner to survive an awkward interview. There are tried and tested things that you can do to overcome these embarrassing moments. And who knows, if you flip the situation successfully it could work in your favour and become an example of how you have managed uncomfortable situations.
The person that you are meeting isn’t focused on you
If you notice that the other person is frantically typing on their laptop and hasn’t said in advanced that they may be taking notes or replying to a work email, then your brain may go into overdrive and wonder whether they are mind-numbingly bored in your presence.
Read the situation and your audience, and if you’re still not confident that you’ve got their attention then politely asking questions to advance the conversation could resolve any worries that you may have. If they need to rearrange to a more appropriate time, then this gives them chance to do so
Being too early can be just as awkward as being too late
When travelling to an interview you can sometimes misjudge the traffic and end up an hour early…. It’s better than being late and although tempting, it might not be the time to show them how keen you are!
The chances are that whoever you are meeting is busy and won’t be sat waiting around for you an hour before (or after) your scheduled appointment, so if you know that you’re going to be too early go and grab a latte and steady your nerves. 15 minutes is plenty early enough to get there.
You forgot your presentation or interview materials
This problem can be easily resolved by planning properly. Try not to rely too heavily on paper materials, which can be misplaced or lost. Instead, ensure that you have an offline copy of your work ready and waiting on your laptop that you will be able to bring up regardless of the wifi situation.
And if your laptop dies, make sure that you’ve sent an email to yourself with all of the key documents on, so you can at least access them on your phone as a last resort. After your meeting, ask the person that you’ve been with if they would like you to email over a copy of any document that you’ve just used so they will be able to access them when reviewing your meeting.
Everybody has at least one awkward interview story, and how you deal with any embarrassment can say a lot about you and how successfully you manage situations. Also, a little bit of humour can go a long way, and we can all be united in our common awkwardness.
To have a chat about your interview contact me at carl@refind.co.uk.
Carl Hinett is our Director & Executive Search Specialist.If you’ve got a hard-to-fill role and need some help, get in touch
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In my case, chemistry was at the heart of the recruitment
company I started nearly 5 years ago.
My degree was in organic chemistry, the main purpose of the
degree was to make a chemical called Chrysanthemic acid. Now, you weren’t just
measured on succeeding in making it, but on the purity of the final chemical
that was made, as well as the % amount that you made from the starting
chemicals.
This meant that you had to work out the processes needed to
make this more effective – i.e. you needed a more refined process.
Refined: ADJECTIVE
“Developed or improved
so as to be precise or subtle.”
When launching my business, people were always saying how
poor recruitment firms were and that they didn’t do a great job. I didn’t want
my firm to be perceived in the same light.
I took the decision to launch a business that would
continually try to improve and refine what it did until it became refined
(refind!)
Now, unfortunately, someone had taken the web domain I
wanted, so it made sense to think of an alternative, hence the name refind
(Well we do find candidates after
all.)
And so re:find was born…
To chat to me about re:find you can email me
on James@refind.co.uk.
You can view more about James Cumming our
change and business transformation specialist here.
Hiring an
Interim Executive? You need to get it right! Discover the 8 step process you
should follow, by downloading our free eBook here.
International success is one of retail’s holy grails but despite notable wins, Kingfisher’s results today show it is one of the most elusive of prizes.
As one senior retailer with extensive overseas experience told me, things are always going wrong in at least one important market. He questions whether it is actually possible to be successful on a truly global basis.
There is plenty of evidence to support that view. It’s not just Kingfisher that has beat a retreat from markets once seen as great opportunities like Russia and China. Tesco has too. And Walmart, which hopes to offload Asda to Sainsbury’s, is another case in point.
Global ambition is frequently spurred by the idea that there is today an ‘international consumer’ who wants the same whether they live in Swansea or Shanghai. The success of Asos, which describes itself as “a global fashion destination for 20-somethings”, is typically cited as proving that point.
While such a generation may be nascent, the particularities of place and people still matter hugely, as the travails of B&Q’s owner show. The mixed success so far of the ‘One Kingfisher’ strategy, including greater product in common across its markets, illustrates that starkly.
Uniting consumers
Kingfisher can certainly claim some advances from the strategy and it can point, as it did in its results statement, to the fact that “sales of our unified and unique ranges continue to outperform non-unified ranges”.
However, its overall performance was poor and the architect of the strategy, chief executive Véronique Laury, is to depart when a successor is found.
As Whitman Howard analyst Tony Shiret noted: “The news that Laury will be leaving the group… effectively means the company is calling time on her ambitious One Kingfisher transformation plan.”
Whether you put Kingfisher’s difficulties down to unaddressed differences in consumer tastes in various countries, generally tough conditions or the disruptive influence of the gilets jaunes protests in the important French market, the point is that international success is extremely difficult to achieve.
Gone are the days when giants could simply replicate abroad the model that brought success at home. More than product, what perhaps does unite consumers around the world is shared aspiration and behaviour.
Everybody wants a better life. Increasingly everybody is conducting more of their lives through smartphones. That’s evident from China to Africa, where pan-African etailer Jumia has grown to the extent that it is planning a Wall Street IPO that could value it at $1bn.
And while Walmart is scaling back its interest in the UK, it is upping the ante in India, where its $16bn acquisition of Flipkart shows that it is how shoppers buy as much as what they purchase that is seen as most likely to bring future success.
Bold moves
That same combination of aspiration, combined with the desire for convenience, speed and value is what has driven the rise of one of the big contemporary international retail success stories – Amazon.
But the ability to key into unifying behavioural patterns isn’t restricted to the new online giants. Ikea, which itself has had its ups and downs, has perhaps been more forward-looking than its rival Kingfisher.
The Swedish furniture titan is boldly nailing its colours to the mast of urbanisation, which is occurring across the world, and developing new formats in response. Similarly, Ikea initiatives such as renting furniture are driven in reflection of changes in how people live rather than just product.
Whether Ikea’s bets pay off remains to be seen, but it looks as if its ideas could tap into transforming times more than some of the shifts Kingfisher has made.
Ironically, Kingfisher owns one business that does reflect the common desire for speed and convenience – Screwfix, which can offer click and collect in just one minute.
It’s a business that has been built through intimate customer knowledge that is then executed upon with flair. That’s a foundation stone of retail success anywhere in the world.
Click here to read the original article from Retail Week.
To discuss this article further, you can email me on danny@refind.co.uk.
re:findhelp businesses find the talent they need to deliver transformational change. Clients call us when they need change to happen quickly and effectively. We are Executive Search and Interim Search specialists.
Click here to read about what we do specifically in the retail sector.
The world of retail has always been competitive and fast moving. In the current climate, where few are making sustained headway on sales and margin, agility and demand responsiveness are at an even greater premium. For me, this is about supply chain performance where failure can threaten survival, and excellence can transform a company’s market position and financial performance.
The term supply chain is now as ubiquitous in both the press and government pronouncements. However, the interpretation and scope of supply chain management by people and organisations is varied. Recent research by Cranfield, led by Professor Richard Wilding, found that the senior supply chain manager in around 70% of companies had a place on the divisional or operating board. This is a position that has emerged from nothing in only the last ten years. However, the same research showed that the scope of responsibility varied greatly across the 238 manufacturing companies surveyed.
What is supply chain management?
The essence of supply chain thinking is about improving the end-to-end processes within a business and with its suppliers and customers, to maximise sales and margin potential. So the reported fragmentation of responsibility is interesting. For me, supply chain management is about the integration of planning with sourcing, making and delivering. While the research was carried out mainly with manufacturers, the parallels with retail are strong, with supply chain now having a place on the board, but directors’ responsibilities are not consistently framed across the retail sector.
Should supply chain calls the shots?
No, this doesn’t mean that supply chain people should call the shots across the business; that would drive a left brain and relatively uncreative retail world and spell potential disaster. From my experience, boards generally see supply chain as a source of risk and disruption. The well-catalogued failures over the years have taken their toll and supply chain operations are perceived as having a negative potential. Suppliers, warehouse operations and systems, parcel operators and others are all seen as potential pitfalls and points of cost with no upside at all.
For most retailers the planning, buying and merchandising functions (right brained and creative) are not perceived as organised as ‘supply chain’ functions. The paradox is that the financial and reputational risk from lost sales, markdowns and disposals from the planning of flow control processes are worth typically more than double the entire cost of the physical distribution operations.
How do retailers get it right?
So retailers are damned if they don’t get the operations right, but they are doubly damned if their planning of buying and distribution is lacking. Buying and merchandising is central to retail supply chain management and the real challenge is to manage the tensions between left and right brain thinking, to drive real customer value. By doing this well retailers could see a 5% improvement in like-for-likes and 2% to 3% in net margin. Most CEO’s would kill for that right now and they need to think about their organisational dynamics to get a new balance.
The multichannel challenge
Multichannel is coming up on the rails so fast it will soon be the outright winner; the problem is that multichannel risks are driving in cost and margin erosion faster than the growth. Right now this is still ‘land grab’ time. Right brains have control and are rushing headlong – and while pursuit of growth is not wrong, it should be challenged if it comes at too great a cost. The fulfilment cost options need to be clearly understood and Boards will need a tighter grasp of the new operating system in order to make balanced long term choices. Again a consistent offer, well presented and executed by a trusted brand, at a cost that does not erode margin too fast, will be the future. Successful multichannel retailers will be judged by how little they have eroded value, as they have embraced the new normal of e-retailing.
So what about the future?
Going forward, Boards will need to recognise these twin realities and put in place processes to bring both the left and right brain tensions to their table, well informed by real cost and net margin data. Only then will they make decisions that can protect the business from major surprises. It is both essential for survival and the opportunity for transformation.
Click here to read the original article from Retail Week.
To discuss this article further, you can email me on danny@refind.co.uk.
re:findhelp businesses find the talent they need to deliver transformational change. Clients call us when they need change to happen quickly and effectively. We are Executive Search and Interim Search specialists.
Click here to read about what we do specifically in the retail sector.
A change-advisory board (CAB)
delivers support to a change-management team by approving requested
changes, assisting in the assessment and prioritisation of
changes. A CAB is an integral part of a defined
change-management process designed to balance the need for change with the need
to minimise inherent risks.
The CAB members should selectively be chosen to
ensure that the requested changes are thoroughly checked and assessed from both
a technical and business perspective. The considered change will dictate the
required personnel to convene in a CAB meeting.
A CAB offers multiple perspectives necessary to
ensure proper decision-making. For example, a decision made solely by IT may
fail to recognise the concerns of accounting. The CAB is
tasked with reviewing and prioritising requested changes, monitoring the change
process and providing managerial feedback.
How do you manage a CAB effectively?
Here are four good tips to running a
CAB:
1. Get the agenda out early and encourage discussions before the CAB. Don’t wait until the last minute to publish the upcoming CAB schedule. One of the frustrating things about attending CABs is that attendees often don’t really know much about the changes until they get to the meeting. Publish the list early so attendees have a chance to get up to speed on the proposed changes. This way, they can get with change requestors and sponsors before the meeting to get a clear understanding of what is proposed. If you don’t, then your CAB will be overtaken with efforts to solve any personal issues people have with proposed changes.
2. DECISION MAKERS attend the CAB. The CAB members should be selected based on their knowledge and meaningful input to the meeting. What happens when CAB invitees can’t make it and send their designated hitters? Simple: ensure that then people attending have the authority to speak on the behalf of the person they are sitting in for. There’s nothing more frustrating than discussing a change and a key role says “I don’t think I can speak on that, I’ll have to get approval from my boss.” If they can’t speak on behalf of their boss, then they don’t need to be there. You can either clarify this need with the attendees before the meeting, or reschedule the discussion to a later CAB when the key personnel can attend.
3. Know your decision thresholds. Do not attempt to approve a change that is bigger than you. Follow your organisation’s governance guidelines and determine the rules to decision making. This means that you should know exactly what thresholds (pound amount, risk level, impact, urgency, etc.) you are capable of approving.
4. Careful not to get into “rubber stamping.”
Many CABs get overwhelmed with complex and
numerous changes. The pressures of getting through these changes during a
meeting are enormous. This often results in sloppy approvals that may not
receive proper assessment – and can cause incidents once deployed. Ensure that
every change request receives the proper attention by scheduling enough time to
discuss them. Also, be careful not to blindly approve a request simply based on
who is requesting it. I remember a situation where a CAB approved a change
simply based on who was requesting it. This “rubber stamp” approval resulted in
a poorly managed deployment that caused several hours of downtime. The lesson
learned here is that it doesn’t matter who is asking, every change must have
the proper amount of analysis and scrutiny.
To discuss
this article further, you can email me on danny@refind.co.uk.
re:findhelp businesses
find the talent they need to deliver transformational change. Clients call
us when they need change to happen quickly and effectively. We are Executive
Search and Interim Search specialists.
Click
here to read
about what we do specifically in the retail sector.
As we head into 2019, we’re facing a pretty uncertain time. While 2018 was a year of growth for many retailers and brands, accelerated by tax cuts and low unemployment, 2019 is more precarious. The stock market is in flux, many retailers are facing the reality of steepening tariffs, emerging markets are flexing their muscles as they take on a greater share of global growth and it’s anyone’s guess on which way the wind might blow fickle consumers and their expectations for connectivity around every transaction.
That said, you could also say that the glass is more than half full and that these challenges also present opportunities for savvy retailers and brands willing to face the winds head on. Here are 10 key points on what the retail industry should expect in 2019.
Click here to read the full article by Forbes but here is an overview:
1. Retailers will get personal with zero-party data
Consumers are becoming more aware of their rights thanks to Facebook and GDPR, which is making way for a new age of privacy and personalisation. If 2018 was the year that marketers were forced to wean themselves off third-party data sets, 2019 will be the year they shift to “zero-party data.”
2. Small is the new big
Digitally-native and niche brands have come on the scene over the last couple of years, and 2019 will be the year that the growth of these brands will eclipse the growth of traditional retailers – and not only in their online businesses.
3. Customer-centricity will go mainstream
Retailers have been saying they want to “put the customer at the center of everything they do” for the past two or three years, but have struggled with how best to scale this. In 2018, retailers learned that simply monitoring social media is not enough. We believe that, thanks to the adoption of technologies like Voice of Consumer (VoC) Analytics, 2019 will be the year that the industry actually makes the customer-centric model happen. Offers a robust solution that enables them to determine what their customers want and also to deliver it – with speed and at scale.
4. Retailers and consumers will begin to feel the weight of tariffs
Retailers will be faced with making decisions in 2019 to determine the categories and products they raise in price and push the cost increases onto the customers, and where they need to absorb the cost increases themselves. This may force retailers to evaluate whether it makes sense to exit certain categories if they cannot sell product profitably. We all wait on the outcome…
5. Algorithms take control
Retail has long been driven by savvy merchants who had a penchant for following their gut to the right product selections and it has been an art far more than a science. But as more retailers implement innovative tools to leverage consumer data – whether to confirm the merchant’s gut feeling, or to guide decisions altogether – 2019 will be the year when the true science of retail takes hold.
6. Millennials will flock to brands – they will want luxury
Millennial purchasing power continues to increase. By 2025, Bain & Co. forecasts that Millennials and Generation Z will represent 45% of the global personal luxury goods market. This is a great opportunity for luxury brands, but it’s also a challenge since younger consumers think and shop differently than their parents.
7. Baby Boomers will constrict spending in a much bigger way
Along with the growth of Millennial spending, comes the decline of spending by Baby Boomers. Millennials are expected to overtake Boomers in population in 2019 as their numbers swell to 73 million, while Boomers decline to 72 million. But the Boomer segment is still a huge cohort whose spending habits drive the economy.
8. Apple jumps the shark
A warning to Apple aficionados: The Crown of Cupertino is losing its luster. We haven’t seen any real innovation from Apple in years – with only incremental enhancements to the iPhone and Mac since 2010. Apple has grown revenues by increasing prices – the average selling price of an iPhone in 2018 was $765 which was up 20% from 2017, while unit sales have flattened out.
9. Amazon: Prime membership plateaus and prices increase
Amazon’s growth of Prime membership is showing signs of slowing down. At 55 percent, just over half of the U.S. is subscribed to Prime, which is about the same as in 2017. This was the first year that Prime membership did not increase. Some of this may be due to the fact that Amazon raised the Prime membership price in May to $119, but it is more likely a function of reaching a saturation point in the U.S. market.
10. The final divide of retail winners vs losers
2018 saw additional retail bankruptcies, and 2019 will be the year of the final shakeout. Most of the winners and losers have been decided, but several more will hit the mat this year.
As in any year, 2019 will have a tremendous amount of opportunity for those who spot the trends and position their companies to capitalise on them.
re:findhelp businesses find the talent they need to deliver transformational change. Clients call us when they need change to happen quickly and effectively. We are Executive and Interim Search specialists.
Click here to read about what we do specifically in the retail sector.
You can hardly believe that athleisure and vegan foods were previously untapped sources of sales growth in recent years. So what are the emerging trends which will drive consumer spend in 2019?
The rise and rise of ‘free-from’
One of the biggest growth categories in grocery over the last 12 months has been vegan food. UK retailers have grabbed the trend with both hands, and the UK was found to be the nation where the highest number of vegan food products launched in 2018, according to Mintel’s Global New Products Database.
Sixteen per cent of food products launched in the UK last year were badged as vegan, double the 8% in 2015.
The combination of increased awareness among shoppers of food provenance, sustainability and health benefits, as well as the burgeoning use of social media to find new product recommendations, will continue to drive the growth of vegan food in the years ahead.
The area of grocery that will deliver the greatest sales increase is in the free-from category – foods that are free from specific ingredients such as dairy, wheat and gluten.
The uplift will be driven by shoppers whose needs span from the necessity to cut out ingredients for medical reasons to others, similar to flexitarians – people who tend to eat vegetarian food but not exclusively – who want to limit but not exclude a certain ingredient from their diet for more general health or ethical reasons.
The free-from category grew by 18.5% in 2018 to hit £1.8bn and we expect the category to reach £2.3bn by 2020.
Wellness
A big beauty and wellness trend in 2019 will be savvy shoppers adopting a simpler approach to cosmetics and skincare, and expecting fewer products to pack a greater punch.
The craze around complex 12-step Korean skincare routines of last year has begun to be usurped. This is in favour of more straightforward Australian and Scandinavian beauty products, which leverage their natural ingredient credentials to drive sales.
The focus on natural products in health and wellness has led to the rise of another rapidly growing product category – CBD, a derivative of cannabis without any of the psychoactive qualities commonly associated with the plant.
CBD-infused products can be used to treat a variety of ailments including inflammation, arthritis, anxiety and PTSD. Today it is being deployed in a growing variety of health and beauty products from oils to body lotions and is on track to become a $22bn industry by 2022, according to consultancy the Brightfield Group.
US department store Neiman Marcus and UK health chain Holland & Barrett have both launched CBD-infused cosmetics lines this year, while Whole Foods has named CBD as one of 2019’s top food trends.
The trend of shoppers expecting health and beauty products to work harder for them is also apparent in the increasing appetite for personalisation in cosmetics and supplements. Mintel’s director of trends for EMEA, Simon Moriarty, believes personalised products will be a key growth category for the health and beauty sector this year.
Smart tech
In electricals, a key area of growth is likely to be smart-home products. Dixons Carphone’s go-to-market planning director Zeena Hill says voice assistants, which recorded a 130% increase in sales this year, will grow exponentially based on their ability to be synced with other smart devices in a customer’s home.
John Lewis’ audio and connected home buyer Katrina Mills, believes this technology will have implications for all areas of the home.
“In the kitchen, we have seen a rise in appliances integrating smart technology including Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, so automation will be more prevalent. For example, customers will be able to control their oven or coffee machines with simple voice commands or reorder food via their smart fridge,” she says.
“Another area of growth is home monitoring, which is mainly due to the category becoming much more accessible. The newest smart home monitors offer instant access via a dedicated app and often don’t require additional investment.”
Hill concurs that smart security systems, which delivered a 110% uplift in sales at Dixons Carphone in 2018, will be a key growth driver in the year ahead “as it appeals to both advanced smart-home customers due to simple integrations with other smart products and to new customers who understand the product benefits”.
According to Statista, UK sales of smart-home products will rise 16.6% and will hit a market value of $7.2bn (£5.6bn) by 2023, with household penetration hitting 43.5% from 25% this year.
The mindful consumer
An overarching trend impacting how shoppers spend across all categories is sustainability, with a particular focus on plastics.
A study by Kantar TNS of 1,260 people found 63% are concerned about reducing the amount of packaging they buy.
What’s more, the appetite for sustainability is driving market-beating growth in some categories. According to 2018 Nielsen data, sales of bath products grew at 1% overall but 14% when marketed as sustainable.
To monopolise on this trend ethical beauty retailer Lush has launched its first ‘naked’ shop in the UK this year, which exclusively sells products that are not packaged in plastic, while L’Occitane is offering eco-refills on products such as shower oils.
“Plastic-free aisles and products in retailers like Lush and L’Occitane won’t bring in enormous numbers of people because the people who really care about it are quite small in terms of the average shopper,” says Moriarty.
“But it’s a way to stand out and grow loyalty with shoppers who might go on to shop in other areas or shop there more often.”
The retailer is launching additional lines of loose produce and more sustainable alternatives to plastic in every UK branch.
“The issue we are seeing for retailers is that shoppers are aware and concerned of this issue in a way that we’ve not seen before now,” says Watkins.
“Ten years ago, food waste became a big topic for shoppers because they found out that on average a third of the contents of their fridge was thrown away. Saving money by limiting food waste is still a big way for shoppers to balance their budgets, which demonstrates that once these ideas are in customers’ heads they have longevity.”
While shoppers may not immediately reward the retailers that pay attention to issues such as single-use plastics, in the long term they are likely to punish those that do not make a concerted effort to be more sustainable by taking their shopping lists elsewhere.
re:find help businesses find the talent they need to deliver
transformational change. Clients call us when they need change to happen
quickly and effectively. We are Executive Search and Interim Search
specialists.
Click here to
read about what we do specifically in the retail
sector.
Hi, my name’s James and I am not a millennial…you can tell this by checking out my picture on LinkedIn. Although I still think I’m 18 years old, I now know for a fact – after a recent visit to a well-known high growth sportswear brand in Birmingham, where I was the one sticking out like a sore thumb in middle-aged chino brigade outfit, whilst all the cool kids were dressed like a scene from Gucci crossed with Men In Black – that I am most definitely not!
But I just don’t get it? Why is there such a big deal being made about this generation, I don’t think parents have ever understood the generation below them have they? Whether it was rock music in the 50s or rave culture in the 90s, it has always seemed a bit different, hasn’t it?
According to Wiki – Millennials also knows as ‘Generation Y’ or ‘Gen Y’, are the generational demographic cohort following ‘Generation X’ and preceding ‘Generation Z’.
And if you happen to work in HR – this seems to be the second worst thing people like to talk about. (That is after why hasn’t HR still got a seat at the top table. DON’T START ME!)
The thing I think companies do need to consider when recruiting these days is that information availability and choice are greater than they have ever been. I recently posted a blog that I wrote following an interview with Simon Brown, around his experience of a recruitment process – the gist of it was that it was not a great experience. I think a lot of this comes down to trust. Employers still seem to be stuck in the dark ages – micromanaging people, not giving them any freedom and expecting lots from them, but giving nothing in return. Check out most job adverts and you will see what I mean.
There are so many things that are easily done to build a productive and happy workforce – whatever the ‘generation’. Trust is the missing ingredient in my mind… many employers simply don’t trust people to do the job they are paid to do. I remember a senior MD (at a firm I used to work) told me as a newly promoted Director “INSPECT rather than EXPECT”. Seems a bit archaic today, but many people still have this as their mentality.
I don’t think that labelling an entire peer group is particularly productive – instead, we could all treat people like adults regardless of their age. Whether that be through the recruitment process, the onboarding process or throughout their career!
To discuss further, you can email me on James@refind.co.uk.
You can view more about James Cumming our change and business transformation specialist here.
Hiring an Interim Executive? You need to get it right! Discover the 8 step process you should follow, by downloading our free eBookhere.
Meet Generation Z. Impatient, frugal and with ambitions to save the world, the first generation of true digital natives demand a simple retail experience and substantial discounts from brands that have strong ethics. And yet, confounding expectations, they might not be quite as attached to online shopping as stereotypes suggest.
Categorised as consumers born in 1996 or later, this rapidly growing consumer demographic is shaking up retail in a big way. Gen Z has never known a world without mobile technology. Compare this with their older millennial cohorts who used floppy disks at university and remember a time before Facebook, and this defines how each generation acts both online and off. Gen Z will comprise 32% of the global population in 2019, passing millennials (31.5%) for the first time.
I have recently read a report titled ‘Generation Z: The shopping and work habits of retail’s chief disruptors’ and wanted to share some of the information. You can click here to access the original report. I think the report will help retailers better understand this group as consumers and employees and offer guidance on how to harness the spending power of a generation that could swipe before they could talk.
Here is an overview of what is in the report:
Gen Z’s shopping, technology and social media habits
What influences them to choose a retailer and make a purchase
How to create successful strategies to target this demographic
How to engage Gen Z as part of the retail workforce
re:findhelp businesses find the talent they need to deliver transformational change. Clients call us when they need change to happen quickly and effectively. We are Executive Search and Interim Search specialists.
Click here to read about what we do specifically in the retail sector.
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