pic: Brian Moore
Sunday, 31 July 2016
Saturday, 30 July 2016
Amazon Dash = 'never forgetting' + 1-click 100% Availability = entry-level online...
Amazon Have Introduced Dash Device For Customers Of New Grocery Delivery Service
Following on from the launch its AmazonFresh grocery delivery service in London last month, Amazon has announced the introduction of its innovative Dash device, which it launched in the US last year.
The six-inch long device allows customers to scan a product barcode or say the name of a product to add items automatically to their Amazon online shopping basket. These items are then ready for purchase the next time the customer visits the Amazon.co.uk website or mobile app. Dash will be available for AmazonFresh customers, initially at no additional charge with their second AmazonFresh order, from now until 28 August 2016.
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| Amazon Dash |
“We’re all used to trying to remember the contents of the fridge and kitchen cupboard and scribbling down reminders on pieces of paper,” said Ajay Kavan, Vice President of AmazonFresh. “With Dash, at any given time, customers can keep track of products when they come to mind and scan to reorder groceries and household essentials as soon as they run out. At Amazon, we’re always looking to innovate based on feedback and Dash has been designed to continually learn as customers use it.”
AmazonFresh is now available in 128 London postcodes, allowing members of its Prime scheme to order a full weekly grocery shop from a range of over 130,000 products, which include major brands, Morrisons’ own label lines and offerings from local food producers.
NAM Implications:
- Combine ‘never forgetting’, 1-click ordering and ‘100% availability’ for an appreciation of what this move represents for Amazon…
- …and other retailers…
- Are you absolutely certain that you/your company, are optimising Amazon’s full potential?
Thursday, 28 July 2016
For the NAM who is still on the way to a work-life balance...
Pic: Fiona Cooper, Comelite Architecture and Structure, Edinburgh
HT Iain Laing, Kickstand Marketing
This brought to mind a fellow-NAM driving home many years ago, noticing increasing degrees of paper rubbish blowing about the estate, becoming more pronounced the closer he got to home..
Eventually he reached his driveway and found his four filing drawers and a cabinet strewn about the garden...
Tuesday, 26 July 2016
A Drone-fleet in your street?
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| pic: Amazon |
Amazon Prime Air getting serious....
According to reports today in The Verge, Amazon is partnering with the British government to expand its testing of delivery drones, paving the way for commercial air deliveries for UK residents.
The expanded testing involves Amazon working with the UK Civil Aviation Authority to focus on operating drones outside of the line of site of pilots, improving sensors for obstacle detection and avoidance, and having one pilot operate a team of multiple, semi-autonomous drones in unison.
This ground-breaking work will help Amazon and the Government understand how drones can be used safely and reliably in the logistics industry. It will also help identify what operating rules and safety regulations will be needed to help move the drone industry forward.
In other words, Amazon have a vision of replicating their traditional delivery system, via drone-fleet in the air...
As you know, home delivery works in terms of covering costs via high density geographical coverage - you realise they are No.1 when Amazon-man delivers your parcel along with one for next-door i.e. why not ask about the other package, next time...
Time to seriously elevate your partnership with Amazon, rather than following the competitive fleet?
See live footage Video
More detail here
Saturday, 23 July 2016
Tuesday, 19 July 2016
'Farm' packaging - an opportunity to sell more British meat?
Given the ‘dawning realisation’ that non-UK i.e. Brazilian and Thai meat, is being sold in Britain without its country of origin being declared, two options are available:
- Reactive: Government insistence that country of origin be declared on all meat products…
- Proactive: UK branded meat products to emphasise local origin
Given that this situation has been known to the meat industry for years without appropriate government action, perhaps Option 2 has more appeal?
In other words, there appears to be a real opportunity for local producers – and pro-active retailers – to brand meat heavily and emphasise local sourcing, and by inference suggest that competitor products not thus labelled contain Brazilian and Thai-based meat…
In the current climate, this approach should resonate with at least 52% of the UK population – after all, if Brexit was not about nationalism…?
NB. According to packaging regulations, the country of origin is the last place where a product is processed....
- Reactive: Government insistence that country of origin be declared on all meat products…
- Proactive: UK branded meat products to emphasise local origin
Given that this situation has been known to the meat industry for years without appropriate government action, perhaps Option 2 has more appeal?
In other words, there appears to be a real opportunity for local producers – and pro-active retailers – to brand meat heavily and emphasise local sourcing, and by inference suggest that competitor products not thus labelled contain Brazilian and Thai-based meat…
In the current climate, this approach should resonate with at least 52% of the UK population – after all, if Brexit was not about nationalism…?
NB. According to packaging regulations, the country of origin is the last place where a product is processed....
Monday, 18 July 2016
Post-Brexit opportunity: deck clearance vs. re-arrangement of deckchairs?
Governments’ pre-occupation with maintaining the ‘status quo’ provides us all with a temporary window where clarity of vision and a modicum of decisiveness can help us to conduct a fundamental clear-out of anything that does not contribute directly to business goal achievement.
In practice, this means getting back to basics, big time, while others still try to make sense of what is happening…
Essentially, despite the unprecedented Post-Brexit market conditions, in business we survive by driving sales or cutting costs, or a realistic combination of both. As we try to come to terms with Brexit fall-out, resulting in increasingly savvy consumers ‘making do’ and postponing purchase, thereby taking demand from the market, all growth will have to be achieved at the expense of competitors. In other words, we need to meet consumer needs better than the other guy, with tin contents always exceeding what it says on the label, whilst all costs that do not directly contribute to satisfying market need, have to be cut, to prevent others doing it for us…
1. Clarifying consumer and retailer needs
Despite our familiarity with the brand and an inclination not to try fixing what seems to be ‘working’, latest annual reports from both supplier and retailer show that companies are generating inadequate rewards for risk in the post-Brexit climate.
In fact, low or even negative interest rates – read between lines of Bank of England announcements – are causing companies to take false comfort from lower returns ‘in common with others in the same boat’…
In unprecedented times, random cut-backs can represent unacceptable risk. For this reason, consumer need has to be a starting point in establishing the real fit of our brand with the market, better than alternatives available, at both functional and emotional levels.
It is also crucial to keep in mind that consumers will increasingly buy easier, faster, closer, and more often, continuing to cause structural change in the retail market. In other words, given that the discounters are growing at the expense of brands, we all need to find ways of working profitably with Aldi and Lidl.
Similarly, our trade package comprising Product (brand performance) Prices and Terms, Presentation (how the offering is expressed) and Place (supply-demand chain and in-store logic) needs to be really tailored to individual customers, and demonstrably so. All excess will need to be trimmed back to release resources to augment inadequacies elsewhere, and not simply supplement margin.
Again, a cursory analysis of a customer’s latest annual report will indicate how our offering should be recast in order to show how it directly impacts and drives ROCE improvement. The fact that the buyer never mentions ROCE is not to say it is irrelevant, even in Post-Brexit times. In fact ROCE performance drives the entire business process. Those in doubt should reflect on the fate of companies that ignored this principle, even in the good times…!
2. Buying Mix Analysis – optimising competitive appeal
Our trade and consumer offerings are meaningless unless placed in a realistic market context of available alternatives, meaning related to other offerings to which retailers and consumers have access. Buying Mix Analysis can help
3. Driving Sales
Having identified degrees of competitive appeal above, a supplier is in a position to seek ways of driving sales. Again there are only four alternatives:
While driving sales, knowing our competitive appeal and using customer/shopper need as the ultimate benchmark, we need to eliminate any redundant attributes of the offering, anything that is not actively contributing to customer and brand profitability. We thereby strip away anything that will not jeopardise the appeal of the offering, but will reduce cost…
In practice, this means reducing manufacturing, packaging and distribution costs by sourcing locally, lowering ATL expenditure to match actual consumer usage of media and redeploying where necessary. It also means communicating one-to-one with actual and potential users, and eliminating anything that is not fit for that purpose. In the same way, all trade terms and investment need to be related to expected performance via 100% compliance, with partners that adhere to the spirit rather than just the letter of the regulations, with trust as the essential ingredient…
5. Driving retailer ROCE
Using the output from 1-4 above, all moves should be incorporated into the retailer’s ROCE model, demonstrating how the brand is increasing net margin and improving capital rotation, taking overall ROCE from latest Annual Reports to where it needs to be (In spite of near zero interest rates, ROCE 15%, Net Margin 5%, Stockturn to 20 times/annum and Gearing 30% or below) without jeopardising the supplier’s own ROCE, in order to preserve their autonomy for both companies, better than the competition.
Post-Brexit survival will allow for nothing less…
In practice, this means getting back to basics, big time, while others still try to make sense of what is happening…
Essentially, despite the unprecedented Post-Brexit market conditions, in business we survive by driving sales or cutting costs, or a realistic combination of both. As we try to come to terms with Brexit fall-out, resulting in increasingly savvy consumers ‘making do’ and postponing purchase, thereby taking demand from the market, all growth will have to be achieved at the expense of competitors. In other words, we need to meet consumer needs better than the other guy, with tin contents always exceeding what it says on the label, whilst all costs that do not directly contribute to satisfying market need, have to be cut, to prevent others doing it for us…
1. Clarifying consumer and retailer needs
Despite our familiarity with the brand and an inclination not to try fixing what seems to be ‘working’, latest annual reports from both supplier and retailer show that companies are generating inadequate rewards for risk in the post-Brexit climate.
In fact, low or even negative interest rates – read between lines of Bank of England announcements – are causing companies to take false comfort from lower returns ‘in common with others in the same boat’…
In unprecedented times, random cut-backs can represent unacceptable risk. For this reason, consumer need has to be a starting point in establishing the real fit of our brand with the market, better than alternatives available, at both functional and emotional levels.
It is also crucial to keep in mind that consumers will increasingly buy easier, faster, closer, and more often, continuing to cause structural change in the retail market. In other words, given that the discounters are growing at the expense of brands, we all need to find ways of working profitably with Aldi and Lidl.
Similarly, our trade package comprising Product (brand performance) Prices and Terms, Presentation (how the offering is expressed) and Place (supply-demand chain and in-store logic) needs to be really tailored to individual customers, and demonstrably so. All excess will need to be trimmed back to release resources to augment inadequacies elsewhere, and not simply supplement margin.
Again, a cursory analysis of a customer’s latest annual report will indicate how our offering should be recast in order to show how it directly impacts and drives ROCE improvement. The fact that the buyer never mentions ROCE is not to say it is irrelevant, even in Post-Brexit times. In fact ROCE performance drives the entire business process. Those in doubt should reflect on the fate of companies that ignored this principle, even in the good times…!
2. Buying Mix Analysis – optimising competitive appeal
Our trade and consumer offerings are meaningless unless placed in a realistic market context of available alternatives, meaning related to other offerings to which retailers and consumers have access. Buying Mix Analysis can help
3. Driving Sales
Having identified degrees of competitive appeal above, a supplier is in a position to seek ways of driving sales. Again there are only four alternatives:
- Encouraging customers to sell more of our current lines via full availability, adequate facings, tailored promotions and optimising shopper marketing, better than the competition
- Selling our new products to current users, building on the trust established in our current products
- Attracting new shoppers of similar profile to our brand-consumers to the store and offering them our current brands
- ...and even selling our new brands to new traffic, who knows?
While driving sales, knowing our competitive appeal and using customer/shopper need as the ultimate benchmark, we need to eliminate any redundant attributes of the offering, anything that is not actively contributing to customer and brand profitability. We thereby strip away anything that will not jeopardise the appeal of the offering, but will reduce cost…
In practice, this means reducing manufacturing, packaging and distribution costs by sourcing locally, lowering ATL expenditure to match actual consumer usage of media and redeploying where necessary. It also means communicating one-to-one with actual and potential users, and eliminating anything that is not fit for that purpose. In the same way, all trade terms and investment need to be related to expected performance via 100% compliance, with partners that adhere to the spirit rather than just the letter of the regulations, with trust as the essential ingredient…
5. Driving retailer ROCE
Using the output from 1-4 above, all moves should be incorporated into the retailer’s ROCE model, demonstrating how the brand is increasing net margin and improving capital rotation, taking overall ROCE from latest Annual Reports to where it needs to be (In spite of near zero interest rates, ROCE 15%, Net Margin 5%, Stockturn to 20 times/annum and Gearing 30% or below) without jeopardising the supplier’s own ROCE, in order to preserve their autonomy for both companies, better than the competition.
Post-Brexit survival will allow for nothing less…
Saturday, 16 July 2016
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