Pressured retailers must review business model strategy

Wednesday, August 11, 2010 | Posted by: Fiona Cullinan
Categories: Research | Tags: innovation, report, survey, business models, retail, boardroom, Strategy

Insights from our latest sector survey, Pressure unabated: UK retailers contemplate business model change, should fuel boardroom discussions in the competitive UK retail sector, which has experienced a profound shift from the emergence of the internet as both a shop window and a retail outlet.

The report, carried out in conjunction with the Economist Intelligence Unit, surveyed 53 senior executives of retail firms in the UK and looked at five key elements of the retail business model:

• Value proposition
• Target markets
• Revenue-generation mechanisms
• Cost structure
• Value chain

The survey shows exactly where UK retail firms are making adjustments to maintain their competitive edge, looks at the internet challenge and which approaches are dominating the market there, and gives a series of views from the experts as well as a list of questions to put on the boardroom agenda.

A major finding of the research was the lack of urgency, even complacency, among two-thirds of respondents when faced with the need to change the ways they do business.

David Bush, Grant Thornton UK’s Associate Director, Retail Sector, said:

“Having taken aggressive measures in the past two years to adjust their cost structure, retailers are focusing their attention, in particular, on their target markets. Retailers need to turn the data that they have on customers into information, so that they are better at selling product that customers want, when they want it.”

Download the full report here: Pressure unabated: UK retailers contemplate business model change.

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