Shooting from the lip
behave… We are racing towards a gamechanging revolution in how products are made and sold, where and by whom,” she said.
The predicted changes are: An increase in no-name and other private brands, and the ability to demonstrate tangible value to shoppers – from loyalty points to cashbacks;
Improved delivery and collection options – including interesting innovation, from township bicycle deliveries to “click-and-collect solutions”;
More next-generation stores with unique technologies: “Digital connectivity, augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology are rapidly transforming how retailers and manufacturers engage with shoppers,” said Masojada.
Moving away from just selling groceries, to lifestyle services – whether in healthcare, nutrition, beauty advisory services, parenting support, or in hospitality and banking.
“The latter will be further facilitated by the explosion of cyber cash, mobile payment technology and digital payment apps,” said Masojada.
Then: going “Woolworths Green”; an increased focus on local community; and ethical trading.
Exciting for retail. But there’s a profound concurrent opportunity beyond retail: the potential to harness innovation for our most difficult societal problems.
The large retailers’ massive machines to handle logistics, human resources, training, financial, procurement and risk management all closely resemble the requirements of running sprawling spheres of government.
The private sector has far greater motivation, agility and licence to innovate, as we know. But government usually misses a trick too.
Most government communications tends to focus on claimed success – which is fine for reputation management and winning elections, but not terribly helpful for problem-solving.
Innovation has two parents: it’s born out of necessity, by people who use deep insight into systems, to innovate improvements, efficiencies and solutions.
And it’s born out of “learning transfer” – applying learnings and tech to entirely unrelated spheres of life.
This ability to join the dots, to see linkages between things, which no one else can see, informs Elon Musk’s particular genius, as this column argued in May last year.
The imminent assault on the normal, by the retail chains, offers government an opportunity to radically improve its own delivery.
But the private sector will be able to contribute only if it understands government’s complex and sometimes boorish spiders’ webs of constricting legislation and compliance.
Which means that government’s biggest chance of innovating may come from talking not about its successes, but about its failures, challenges and greatest frustrations. By playing open cards. With an accompanying invitation to go wild:
A licence to innovate.