The omnichannel lie: 80 percent of retail companies do not have an omnichannel strategy
If you want to be successful in today's competitive retail business, you can't do without a well thought-out omnichannel strategy. After all, customers want one thing above all else: to be able to find out about goods and make purchases conveniently via all channels.
A new survey by Roland Berger shows where retail companies are still lacking the most: 80 percent of companies still do not have a clear channel and omnichannel strategy. Seven out of ten respondents rate their competence in this field as insufficient. And a whopping 78 percent of retailers are unable to offer a seamless shopping experience (customer journey) between online and offline channels. Around 100 retail companies from Germany, Switzerland and Austria were surveyed for the study entitled "The Omnichannel Lie".
Omnichannel in Switzerland "a big construction site".
"Omnichannel is a major construction site for many Swiss retail companies, which is often only in an early concept phase," says Matthias Hanke, Roland Berger Partner in Zurich. In addition to the issues mentioned above, Hanke sees the biggest challenge in terms of efficiency, reliability and effectiveness of fulfillment. "Often, there are only limited scalable concepts regarding the strategic design of the last mile and the partnerships required for this," adds Hanke.
Different levels of maturity in channel strategy
For the current study, Roland Berger experts surveyed companies from the food retail, textile retail, consumer electronics retail, mail order and online retail sectors. Based on the responses, four different maturity levels can be categorized with regard to channel integration:
- Champions: Only 4 percent of the participants are among the champions. They are characterized by a large number of possible customer touchpoints, a high share of online business in sales, and a strongly integrated customer journey.
- The pioneers: This group includes 16 percent of the companies surveyed. Although they are advanced in their multichannel approach, they do not yet feel the pressure to activate all sales channels. This is because the online share in their product category is still low.
- The followers: With 48 percent of respondents, this is the largest group. These retail companies still have deficits; they are not yet really fit for a successful omnichannel strategy.
- The laggards: One third of retail companies still completely lack the prerequisites for a sales strategy across all channels; and this despite the fact that competition is increasing strongly - especially in the online sector. Here, the need for action is particularly high.
Important factors for a successful sales strategy
For companies to achieve omnichannel maturity, important prerequisites are indispensable. These include, for example, an appropriate corporate culture: "Companies should break down internal silos, keeping departments and sales channels separate from each other. Only in this way can cross-channel thinking become established and contribute to the company's success," recommends Roland Berger Partner Tobias Göbbel.
In addition, the roles and strategies of the various channels should be clearly defined to avoid overlaps. It is also very important that companies build strong competencies in the areas of data, programming and marketing and ensure an end-to-end digitized value chain. "In this way, retail companies can better understand their customers' wishes and fulfill them with appropriate products, information and sales models," Tobias Göbbel summarizes.
