Retail and consumer goods

Despite high-profile attempts at innovation, the industry has failed to reduce its environmental impact so far.

Many companies have become disillusioned with sales in the international marketplace as old markets become saturated and new ones must be found. How can they customize products for the demands of new markets? Which items will consumers want? With wily international competitors breathing down their necks, many organizations think that the game just isn’t worth […]

A Q&A with Barbara Martin Coppola, IKEA Retail's chief digital officer.

Nike is a champion brand builder. Its advertising slogans—“Bo Knows,” “Just Do It,” “There Is No Finish Line”—have moved beyond advertising into popular expression. Its athletic footwear and clothing have become a piece of Americana. Its brand name is as well-known around the world as IBM and Coke. So it may come as a surprise […]

How Nespresso used a simple business model canvas to change face of the coffee industry.

Your organization can become more decisive—and can implement strategy more quickly—if you know where the bottlenecks are and who’s empowered to break through them.

Retailers need to target customers with the right deal at the right time. Here’s how to nail the “next best offer.”

A simple approach to boost customers' visibility into how a garment was made.

Discount retailer Dollar Bill's has been struggling to maintain its margins over the past two years because of inflationary pressures, delays on imported...

The Internet promises to give marketing the same boost in productivity that new operational strategies have given to manufacturing.

Most companies plan how they manage employees, but how many consider how to manage their customers? Given how important customer-employee relationships...

A second generation of electronic commerce is emerging, one that will be shaped more by strategy than by experimentation. The battle for competitive advantage will be waged along three dimensions: reach, affiliation, and richness.

New technologies can be dazzling. But do they represent the future of retailing? Have the fundamentals really changed?

How the company finances its growth.

The Chinese shopper is finally becoming more like her counterpart in the rest of the world — at least, in some ways. Our recent research suggests that people in China are making fewer visits to stores and are spending more on each shopping trip. For instance, in 2010, Chinese shoppers went to a store every […]

An advanced AI model considers much more than what competitors are charging.

Your experience as a customer in retail stores can teach you valuable business lessons to apply to your own organization.

Augustin Rey, the president of Emilia, a century-old clothing retailer in Spain, is determined to revamp the company's merchandising strategy and redesign...

2010 was the year that proved that logo change is not always for the better. Gap got taken to the cleaners when it updated its branding and Tropicana came a cropper when it removed the iconic orange and straw from its packaging. Perhaps with these debacles in mind, Starbucks waited until 2011 to unveil its […]

Harry Truman famously begged for a one-handed economist. Why? He was sick of his economic advisers saying “on the other hand.” Charles Schultz expressed similar frustration here. The idea that economists hedge their bets or disagree constantly with one another is a feature of the discipline. We see it today over issues such as the […]