We are living in an age where it feels like the future is arriving faster and faster. The accelerating capabilities of AI bring excitement & hype in the media; skepticism, uncertainty or even fears in many people; and real opportunities for businesses ready to harness them.
With any technological advancement, rather than asking: what is it?; what can it do?; how intelligent really is it?; we believe the more important question to consider is:
What future do you want to create?
For us at Quorso, a future that inspires us is one in which smarter orchestration of data, human and artificial intelligence make business better: for customers, for employees and for our planet.
Imagine you are a large retailer with a large store network, complex operational challenges, a deep supply chain and big ambitions (or maybe you already work for one!)
What does your business look like in a future where you, all your customers and employees are thriving, whilst living sustainably?
We are already seeing the beginning of five major transitions in the shift to sustainable retail…
Products: from sustainable alternatives to sustainable by default
- Every product is tied to accurate data about its social, environmental and economic impacts, including rich data to tell the story of the positive impact it has
- Greater emphasis on product aspects like quality, durability, repairability, provenance, wellbeing benefits, etc.
- Product innovation has eroded the “green premium” so even entry-level options/product lines meet sustainability criteria aligned with the global goals
- Thus, customers can feel great about every purchase they make, confident in the positive impact they’ve created
Services: from one-off purchases to subscriptions and services…
- In a sustainable and circular economy, individuals and households don’t need to own as much stuff
- Products in many categories (such as occasional-use tools) are more commonly exchanged, borrowed, rented or subscribed to rather than bought
- In some of those cases, there’s potential to up-sell services (e.g. assistance from skilled local experts or training/skills courses to help people up-skill where they want to learn)
- Local repair shops are able to repair and repurpose products and components, extending their life or giving customers value back when they are done with a product
- Packaging, when needed, is circular – people either bring their own or use packaging-as-a-service, borrowing it from the retailer and returning for refill or re-use
Customers: from customer transactions to a community of relationships…
- You are seen by customers as a trusted partner in helping them make positive, healthy, sustainable choices – that are good for the customer, their wallet, their family, their community and the planet
- Many products and services are locally sourced and/or directly benefit and contribute to a healthy and circular local economy
- Each store is a hub embodying your brand and embedded in its local community, serving it in the ways it uniquely needs including helping those who have fewer resources
Employees: from high churn to loyal champions…
Employees feel secure in their job and highly motivated by the ethos and impact of your company.
- Employees are knowledgeable about all the positive facets of each product or service offered by the company, and can help guide customers to make the best choices for them
- They are given the knowledge and skills they need to continuously grow and excel
- They know the company has their back and looks after them, in good times and especially in challenging times
- They are able to get involved with things they care about at work and directly see the positive impact that creates
Measurement: From profit to purpose…
Growth is measured in terms of all the forms of value and positive impacts created, customer loyalty and employee happiness.
- It’s for profit and also for good
- The purpose of the company is beyond profit, which is now the norm and expectation for all companies
- Multiple metrics matter, including:
- Customer satisfaction, happiness & loyalty
- Impact on economic, mental, physical and environmental health of local community
- Employee happiness and retention
- Social and environmental impact driven through the supply/value chain
- Product development, innovation and supplier engagement efforts are oriented towards choices that maximize positive impact across all dimensions of value created
What changes are already happening that accelerate these shifts?
What can you do today to position yourself for leadership in this transition?
Leading companies are…
- Continuing to embark on the path towards embedding purpose at the core e.g. via B Corp accreditation
- Using internal carbon pricing to maximize their decarbonization velocity
- Partnering with suppliers to get sufficient data to understand the positive and negative impacts of their supply chain
- Trailing eco-labelling for at least a subset of products to help customers make positive choices
- Starting to pilot more and more services and local community-based offerings
- Developing package reuse programs
- Investing more in innovation towards more sustainable product lines, which bring growing revenue and profit as demand scales up
- Adopting reporting standards that will increasingly become mandated in most global jurisdictions
How does Quorso support and facilitate the 5-year transition?
- Our tool makes it simpler for retailers to balance priorities across multiple interrelated KPIs and metrics
- Our New KPI module can be used to “steer the ship” towards those KPIs with rapid, iterative learning and optimization throughout the store/knowledge network
- Missions with smart insights enable rapid dissemination of emerging best practices and actionable data to the frontline
- Smart surveys create crowdsourced intelligence from the frontline to inform senior field leaders and central teams
- Insights module enables rapid learning, iteration and intervention based on frontline reality
- Targeted use cases can be set up in Architect to rollout and scale-up pilot initiatives and we help communicate and orchestrate rollout throughout all levels down to the frontline
What are you doing to accelerate your shift to sustainable retail this year?
Whether you’re already using Quorso or interested to try it out, we would love to work with you to roll out one or more low-hanging fruit sustainable use cases to support all of the above i.e. those where there are already store-level data, active initiatives and store-level action is required to support/accelerate them e.g.
- Energy efficiency (e.g. impact tracking of best practice operating procedures or outlier/exception detection to flag up hotspots quickly)
- Driving specific promotions of sustainable choices (e.g. launch of a new range of plant-based ready meals)
- Driving shift in product mix towards sustainable choices (e.g. to more energy-efficient appliances, electrification, plant-based choices)
- Missions tracking the key metrics that matter for the pilot and rollout of new initiatives (e.g. carpark EV charging)
Come on board, let’s create the future we want together!
