This week I attended the DXC Digital Retail event in Paris, and that got me thinking…
In 1969 Sears, Roebuck & Co was the largest retailer in the world, had over 350,000 employees with it’s irresistable mixture of physical stores and unrivaled delivery services. They divested into Insurance, Banking, Real Estate, even handtools and furniture.
They were so big that they looked for a new HQ and ended up building what was, at the time, the tallest building in the world, the Sears Tower in Chicago. By the time, the office was complete the world had moved on. Today the tower doesn’t even have the Sears name.
The parallels with Amazon are massive, especially at this moment. Back to the Digital Retail event.
Listening to the discussion groups, everyone danced around the subject but they were all thinking of Amazon. However, what was obvious is that nobody thought that this was the end game. In fact, one CIO said it best (excuse any errors in translation).
“We’re all still investing in Digital looking for the pay back”.
With no obvious playbook for everyone to follow, the game is still open and how to play it depends on your clients, your brand and, of course, your product.
What does this mean for DXC’s clients? It’s time to innovate, change and see what happens. That’s almost obvious but it’s not an open door to change.
Since there is no playbook, it’s almost worth trying anything on the shop floor, it also means that this isn’t the time to drop the ball on the basics. The back office needs to be efficient, solid and dependable; almost invistible. Only this allows you to shine in front of your clients day after day.