Comments made by Sir Terry Leahy, the former chief executive of Tesco, that the company was at its best when it used insight into consumer behaviour to innovate and respond to trends, reinforces the need for more retailers and suppliers to focus their strategies on the shopper.
Bridgethorne says the comments by Sir Terry underpin the belief that only insight-driven strategies will help suppliers be successful in the increasingly changing retail grocery landscape.
“In his comments, Sir Terry Leahy says that Tesco has lost its sense of identity and its connection with customers though he is keen to point out that Tesco’s new chief executive Dave Lewis has already has emphasised the need to focus on customers,” says John Nevens, co-founder of Bridgethorne.
“We know that insights lead to better understanding of shopper motivations and behaviours. This in turn leads to better RoI and more effective operation. By elevating the shopper to a more central position in your thinking you can make your commercial activities far more informed and your commercial spend genuinely optimised.”
Adopting this approach is essential for suppliers, Nevens adds, if they are to adjust their business strategies in time in order to exploit the fastest anticipated growth channels of convenience, discount and online. Nevens says still too few suppliers base their business strategies on shopper research and data analytics.
Bridgethorne says competitive advantage can be created by using retailer EPoS data more effectively, unlocking the data to provide commercial teams with the resource to manage performance, identify growth opportunities and develop sales across categories, products and retailers.
Bridgethorne commercialises insights for its clients by incorporating them into tried and tested tools and processes which can help clients, their products and their categories to grow. This range of services in Category Management, Shopper Marketing and National Account Management are designed to provide positive return for clients and their categories ensuring budgets and spend are optimised.
Ends.