Anticipating changes in the retail industry through benchmarking

The client’s starting point

• A frontrunner in the retail industry
• Particular focus on employee employability and well-being
• A preliminary redefinition of responsibilities and skills associated with each job

Akoya’s response

• A synthesis of market trends and job evolutions for each of the scopes
• Targeted benchmark of innovative companies and interviews with experts in a range of business areas
• Group sessions to iteratively share the results of the benchmark and the methodological approach to be deployed to exploit the results

The whole story

Our client, a key player in specialized distribution, wanted to learn more about market practices regarding the roles, organizations, ways of working and skills required for different jobs across the company’s value chain. The aim was to provide insights, questions and inspiration for managers responsible for anticipating changes in their respective business areas.

As part of this project, Akoya Consulting was commissioned to gain a deeper understanding of these jobs by carrying out a prospective study of their development in the coming years. For each of the areas concerned (design, product management, quality, engineering and design, communication, project management), an external study was carried out to determine the major market trends, capitalising on Akoya Consulting’s knowledge and research capabilities. This preliminary study was rounded out by interviews with experts or managers from different functions within companies in the same industry, or companies recognised as particularly successful in the studied functions.

This study was accompanied by a number of sharing and coaching sessions for business line managers. These sessions enabled us to gradually narrow down the criteria for selecting companies for the benchmark, to structure the discussions with the experts, and finally to jointly determine the steps to follow in order to derive maximum benefit from these studies.

This work subsequently contributed to the ongoing discussions and action plans aimed at updating responsibility job cards, onboarding and learning paths, career paths and the way interfaces between business lines are organised.