Consumer & Shopper Journey Framework

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The Consumer & Shopper Journey Framework initiative was developed and facilitated by The Partnering Group and emnos working with leading retailers and manufacturers from ECR Europe.

The Consumer & Shopper Journey Framework has been developed by representatives from retailing, manufacturing, experts in loyalty card analytics and specialised consultants from the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) business for ECR (Efficient Consumer Response) Europe.

As the core of this work is the goal of providing a clearer understanding of the changes and their causes that are occurring in the definition of “consumer and shopper value” and how retailers and manufacturers can leverage this understanding in strategies that deliver benefits for consumers and increased sales and profits for retailers and manufacturers. The new definition of “value” is being driven by a host of changes that are occurring in the marketplace, including the dynamics of the new economy, new consumer sociological and demographic changes, the enormous impact of digital communications on our daily lives, a more critical consumer, consumers’ expectations on sustainability, the rise of new health and medical needs, and many more.

In mid-2010, the ECR Europe Board invited a team of leading retailers, manufacturers and consultants to develop a more effective framework to help all segments of the industry answer the challenges of our businesses today and tomorrow. To accomplish this goal, it was decided that the focus had to be on developing and putting into practice an approach and set of tools that provided a deeper understanding of consumer and shopper needs, expectations and behavior and leveraged these insights in strategies and programmes that delivered on the new consumer and shopper value definition and increased sales and profits for retailers and manufacturers. The deliverable to accomplish this is the Consumer & Shopper Journey Framework (C&SJ Framework).

The C&SJ Framework has three components:

– An Insights Model which has been designed to gain superior insights about consumers and shoppers, their attitudes, their behavior as consumers and shoppers as they live their lives, with new and old retail solutions, and in both the physical store and the digital world.

– A Collaborative Business Process which leverages the insights in developing and delivering superior value propositions for the consumer, the shopper, the retailer and the manufacturer.

– A Business Planning Guide and Toolkit that provides data requirements, tools and methodologies for data poor and data rich business environments that enable the outcomes of the insights and business process to be implemented in highly practical ways.

A deeper understanding of consumers and shoppers starts with recognising that they are all different in what they did in their past behavior, as well as how their expectations will influence their behavior in the future. The Insights Model has two components:

– A Segmentation Model which addresses the different consumer and shopper segments based on similar behavior from the past and the different characteristics of each segment. This provides the basis for the definition of target consumer and shopper segments.

– A Consumer & Shopper Journey Insights Model that guides and uncovers insights along the steps of the Journey. This begins with how the expectations of consumers and shoppers form the basis for understanding the need for shopping and define specific “shopping missions”. By understanding these “missions” we then uncover insights into the choice of shopping channels (in-store, at- home, or on-the-go). Using insights into how shoppers make their purchase decisions and evaluate these decisions after the purchase, retailers and manufacturers can then develop and implement retail solutions that create uniqueness and loyalty by responding to their target consumers and shoppers with superior offers.

These Insight Models provide the fuel for a comprehensive and practical 3-step Collaborative Business Process:

– The process starts with an independent internal focus by the retailer and the manufacturer to understand their differentiation and uniqueness strategies and their business goals.

– The collaboration phase begins with the manufacturer and the retailer achieving alignment on the target consumer and shopper and on the scope and goals to be delivered from the collaborative effort.

– With this alignment in place, the process then guides the retailer and the manufacturer in the development of the value proposition to excite the target segment and the implementation of these propositions through integrated marketing and merchandising programmes.

The Business Planning Guide and Toolkit component provides guidelines and tools for using the outputs of the Insights and Collaborative Business Process models in a number of key business processes, including Shopper Marketing, Category Management, Assortment Planning and Joint Business Planning.

The concluding chapter of the report offers a roadmap to manufacturers and retailers, regardless of size and current level expertise, to follow in the development of the capabilities needed to maximise the benefits from the use of the C&SJ Framework. It defines the four key enabling areas and the specific areas that make up each of these enablers:

– Strategy Framework

– Business Process

– Information, Insights and Measurement

– Organisational Capabilities

Finally, a recommended development path from Getting Started to achieving a Leadership position in the use of the C&SJ Framework is described. This roadmap provides the direction to answer the “call to action” strongly recommended by all the companies and individuals that have participated in this landmark initiative.

To obtain a copy of the full report or learn more, contact The Partnering Group email at generalinfo@tpg-mail.com.