Following on from the success of SC Intent Group’s first virtual discussion in May, our Digital and Strategy Director Louisa Hosegood will be co-hosting another discussion on Tuesday 18th August, exploring ‘Direct to consumer: eCommerce strategy and mix’.
This is a discussion particularly targeted towards companies that are seeing an increase in B2C, or those thinking about introducing a new eCommerce offering.
The Supply Chain Intent Group - Direct To Consumer: Future Proofing And Making Profitable Decisions
**POST EVENT UPDATE – SUMMARY FROM LOUISA HOSEGOOD
“A great discussion with some retailers and B2B organisations, all different but one single voice – how can we find our way through the maze that is D2C?
ECommerce is a vast topic and we managed to span from omnichannel fulfil from store, to packaging and consolidated home deliveries, to the challenges of marketplace rules, Gen Z interaction with websites, to forecasting and stock visibility, and we still came out the other side smiling and sharing stories.”
Key takeaways
- We know eCommerce is spikey, how can businesses create flexible capacity? Omni-retailers have a great opportunity to be able to use all their assets to create that flex that pure plays can’t always?
- How can supply chain shape the eCommerce strategy? For example using supply chain cost to serve analysis to influence online product assortment and customer proposition levels?
- How to strike the right balance between sustainable packaging and customers’ desire for convenience and fast delivery when planning eCommerce and omnichannel?
- ECommerce is not just for B2C but increasing convergence with B2B demanding the same service levels and delivery times.
- ECommerce / D2C operations have often been grafted on to existing supply chains which inevitably puts them at a disadvantage to those that have been designed from the ground up. It takes a ‘blank canvas’ mindset to be competitive in this context and look to the future.
- Omnichannel retailers have a big opportunity to utilise all their assets and stock wherever it is located. Key to enabling this is a global view of inventory, distributed order management, a layer of AI, and a move to omnichannel forecasting
- Direct-to-consumer models offer potential benefits, not just in terms of additional revenues or higher margins but also for customer engagement, insight and loyalty.
How is your eCommerce operation performing, is it set up for future growth and profitability? Are you really leveraging the most from your omnichannel assets? We can help you translate your eCommerce strategy into supply chain and make it happen.
Topic: eCommerce Strategy
The Supply Chain & Logistics Intent Group is a free to join network of over 450 Heads from cross-sector enterprises, and in these challenging times has become even more pertinent to its members as it provides a forum to:
- Explore improvements and optimisation opportunities
- De-risk next moves or changes
- Test your thinking what works for others
- Identify shared challenges and solutions
- Future-proof their supply chain in changing environments
Specifically for B2C supply chains, their virtual discussions are designed for real sharing of experience and insights.
Louisa will be co-hosting the following discussion:
Tuesday 18th August
Time: 11am – 12.30pm
Future-proofing and making profitable decisions
Synopsis:
In such unprecedented times, eCommerce adoption has become a much more significant part of the mix, and has accelerated already existing trends. This means that many businesses will have scrambled to switch, re-balance, and cope. And much of that change will be permanent.
Now is the time to reevaluate and make plans that ensure your mix caters to your customers, is profitable, and flexible enough to cope with possible future uncertainty. Nobody can say for sure what’s around the corner, but it is possible to take steps now to safeguard your offering, to ensure you delight customers, and to build in the capabilities you will need to defend and win market share.
- Going direct to consumer: Creating the business case and strategy
- Channel mix: How does your proposition change in a multichannel environment?
- Flexible distribution: How can you build in agility?
- Making profitable decisions: Ensuring eCommerce remains profitable
More about Louisa...
Louisa Hosegood FCMA is Digital and Strategy Director at Bis Henderson Consulting. She has 18 years’ experience in retail and eCommerce, fulfilling senior supply chain leadership roles at some of the UK’s largest retailers – Marks & Spencer, John Lewis and Tesco. Until recently she was Head of Logistics Network Development at Marks & Spencer, where she was responsible for developing the strategy and design for a simpler omni-channel logistics network to support store and online sales of £5bn pa for the retailer’s Clothing and Home lines.
Over a ten-year career at John Lewis, Louisa held both the post of Head of Supply Chain Strategy and Head of Commercial Assurance – Operations, roles that encompassed strategy formulation and mobilisation, operational and commercial insight, executive communication and risk management.
Further reading...
Is your supply chain prepared for the new retail landscape?
Hot on the heels of our widely published whitepaper ‘Preparing supply chains for a new retail landscape post Coronavirus’, we’re pleased to introduce our NEW four part mini-series, providing a more in-depth look at four key areas Retailers need to review at this critical point in time…
