European retail falls on hard times

Wasn't the #ecommerce around for years? apparent #disruption coming their way.. Why is it so slow to adapt & adopt change? Is it because of human nature to stay in their unchanged status aka #comfort_zone... until there's no escape? Machiavelli said: if your intelligence (as a ruler) tells you about a revolt in its infancy stage, then you're so late.. In other word: you'd #predict it, and be prepared, instead of waiting it to hit

Potentially a dark moment for UK consumers and the retail trade. Everybody understands the need to adjust costs but in a digitally transforming world surely we should be thinking differently about how to change the way we deliver to keep up with customer experiences while still cutting OPEX. Of the major retailers thriving with their digital transformations (a whopping 40% from our June research on Digital Genome DNA) 85% of them were able to focus on innovation and get OPEX cuts with their digital transformations greater than those whose focus was on OPEX cuts only. Fresh should be managed differently not abandoned. We have A.I to do this and we have IoT sensors.

Even Tesco struggles to solve the productivity challenges around fresh food counters. https://lnkd.in/fAFS_xd

Late last year, well-known cafe chain Patisserie Valerie announced that it could be “at the brink of going bust”. Sadly, the company was unable to secure the financial lifeline that they so desperately needed and officially collapsed into administration on January 22nd, this year. Inevitably, hundreds of the cafe group’s stores and concessions (including some Drucker’s branches) will close immediately, resulting in the loss of about 900 jobs, according to The Guardian. Whilst parent company, Patisserie Holdings has been accused of fraudulent activity, this has not yet been confirmed; and of course, it’ll be a real shame to see the demise of a cafe that was once favoured so much by Brits. Particularly when Chairman, Luke Johnson and various other shareholder’s have personally invested millions of pounds into saving the business and its employees. So, what do we think? Needless to say, there’s far more to this story and I’m sure we’ll learn all the details as it unfolds; but how many of us saw this coming? Was it all too obvious? What does it take for a cafe/ coffee shop chain to survive in the UK, where brands such as Costa Coffee and Starbucks are still *clearly* leading as industry giants? #hospitality #hospitalitynews