Doug Stephens on Amazon’s blind side and the future of retail

Supply Chain Scoop

In conversation with Doug Stephens, Founder and CEO of Retail Prophet, the consultancy Doug founded almost 10 years ago. Doug has spent over 25 years in the retail industry and is one of the world’s foremost retail industry futurists. Safe to say, retail is now completely different to what it used to be when Doug started out. In huge part thanks to eCommerce! His unique perspectives on retailing, business and consumer behavior have been featured in many of the world’s leading publications like the The New York Times, BBC, Bloomberg Business, TechCrunch, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and Fast Company. I am going to be talking to Doug about surprising developments in retail over the years, how the role of the stores is changing, which technologies are transforming supply chain, how a retailer can keep up with customer behaviour and how has the retail organizational set up changed over the years as a result of “omnichannel”. Questions Doug answered: What’s a development in the retail industry today which you absolutely could not have predicted 3 years ago? What’s a prediction that you made years ago which is now a reality? How is the role of the store going to change in the next 2-5 years? Which are the top 3 retailers according to you that are most agile and adaptable to the reality of today? And why? What are some of the most noticeable shifts in how functions and departments are set up within a retail company as a result of “omnichannel”? What can a retailer do to keep up with evolving customer behaviour and demands? What is the top technology that’s having a transformative effect on the supply chain function in retail? What’s your “prophecy” for the next decade of retail?