Retail and Consumer Goods

Virtually no other commercial sector has changed so radically under the influence of digital technologies and increasingly volatile consumer buying behavior as the retail and consumer goods industry. High pricing pressure, e-commerce in B-to-B, margin pressure in B-to-C, shortened product life cycles, continual alignment to supply chains and customer-centric approaches (such as “Prosuming”) are just a few of the many challenging issues in this sector. The management of companies in this sector is therefore facing numerous internal and external challenges. Complex sales channels, increasingly driven digitally over the Internet, need to be leveraged and exploited in the best possible way, and production and logistics processes need continual checking and enhancement. Furthermore, the strategic organization of supplier relations is assigned a special role, as are product portfolio management and a company’s own value-add. Recent years have seen many companies position themselves to be more international with the aims of attaining higher economies of scale and opening up new markets. Systematic implementation of the strategies is required to safeguard the opportunities of these challenges and to leverage competitive advantages.