Redefining Retail

10The Perfect Storm

We opened Part I emphasizing the risks of both running backwards and allowing our experience of the past to guide our decisions about a fast‐approaching future. We have argued that the world changes faster than our companies and institutions can adapt, and humans are more prone to defend the status quo than to forge unexplored paths outside their comfort zone. Therefore, the majority of established companies struggle to maintain their position vis‐à‐vis new‐generation competitors and emerging technologies. Over the course of these chapters, we've focused on some of the most relevant challenges that retailers and brands currently face. But additional challenging elements need to be added to the discussion, including the macroeconomic headwinds that are impacting the retail industry from the outside in, and the inside‐out dynamics that interact with those driving forces. In the next pages we will turn to these angles, although with a caveat: since the complexity of the global economy, combined with the disruption the retail industry is experiencing, could never be covered in one book, we offer a curated exploration.

The title of this final chapter of Part I came from a series of conversations we had in May 2023 with a flagship consumer brand Global Retail Director, who asked to remain anonymous. He explained that many retailers are today dealing with the perfect storm that has resulted from a convergence of unfavourable conditions, which we lay out here: