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The Evolution of Retail: Insights from Steve Dennis at NRF Singapore · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to the Retail Podcast and you may recognise
• 0:04
  the legend The Man. The strong start.
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  Which the Steve Dennis for and we'll, we'll get into Steve.
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  We're here at the National Retail Federation conference
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  here in Singapore and I had the great fortune.
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  Obviously I've been stalking you through NRF.
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  Yeah, New York purity has been have been tightened here.
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  Let's see to relate the legal team.
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  But I've been following Stephen when his new book came out.
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  Actually, this is the thing because I heard about it in the
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  US. Is it on global release now?
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  Almost all right. OK, Yeah.
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  You get a few markets a little bit later for reasons I don't
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  understand. UK is a little bit later,
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  Australia is another month on SO but.
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  Soon very hence why I couldn't get it when I went to the school
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  but admitted to saying that I stole this copy shop talk in Las
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  Vegas and the press room. It was me.
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  Sorry if you were like what happened to my version of the
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  book. Anyway, Steve, for those who
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  don't know you, why don't you give us a a quick overview of
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  who you? Are sure well I've been in
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  retail most of my career I did a couple of things a bit a bit
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  earlier I spent a little bit of time in the food business worked
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  for a big consulting firm, but in the early 1990s I joined
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  Sears Roebuck and company in Chicago some people will know at
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  one point Sears was the biggest retailer on the planet today,
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  not so much that's. Maybe something we'll we'll chat
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  about a little bit, but I spent time on corporate leadership
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  side most recently before I went out on my own.
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  I was at the Neiman Marcus Group as the head of strategy and
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  innovation and a few other things.
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  But the last is about 15 years now.
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  I've been doing strategy consulting.
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  That's morphed into keynote speaking, morphed into writing
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  and podcasting. And now I've written a couple of
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  books, most recent one, the one we were just talking about
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  called Leaders Leap. So kind of a Renaissance man.
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  And I think I'll have. Obviously I'll post such honest
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  leaders leap Yeah, so you you can see it.
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  And the first book was remarkable retail.
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  Remarkable retail, right, came out right as the pandemic was
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  starting. Not the best timing to release a
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  book by the way, but then I did a second edition a year later.
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  Just kind of update it for the the emerging post COVID world.
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  Oh, fantastic. So I guess before obviously
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  there's so many someone like yourself, there's so many areas
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  we can go in. I'd love to talk about your
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  thoughts on retail right now because in your podcast you
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  always start off with like the where are we?
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  What's the economy, the economy looking like?
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  Yeah, I just wanna from you've been around the world.
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  Like we're in June, you've already been around the world.
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  What are the things that you've noticed?
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  What surprised you? I think what surprised me
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  relative to the US in particular is how much more impactful a lot
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  of the retail is in in other markets.
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  Like I look at the shopping malls in the US and in Canada
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  and for the most part they're quite boring.
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  Then I come to a place like Singapore or Dubai or go to some
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  of the department stores in London, for example, and they're
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  just much more elevated. I know it's popular to say
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  experiential. I don't particularly love that
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  word, but I would say much more of an emotional connection, much
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  more elevated, much more fun places to be.
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  Yeah, with interesting things going on, not only the products
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  themselves, but the environments and just the energy.
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  Yeah. So that's one of the things I've
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  really noticed. I think it's a missed
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  opportunity for a lot of retailers.
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  A lot of the conversations, though, still kind of the same,
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  lots about AI. Certainly retail media networks
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  are managing as a point of conversation.
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  The interplay between digital and physical.
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  I mean, all these kinds of things are pretty common topics.
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  I think they happen to be. I'm looking out towards the end
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  of the year. What, what, what are what are
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  the highlights that you've got? Where else are you gonna be?
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  Where are people gonna find you throughout the year?
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  I'm hoping to travel a little bit less actually.
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  Alright, so most most travel domestically for the for the
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  balance of the year. It's been a pretty crazy year
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  and a half. I will I will be a shopper baby
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  grocery shop and you know, a few private events, things like
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  that. But yeah, China the last year
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  and a half between finishing my book and and some of the travel
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  has been a little chaotic. So I think I'm I'm old.
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  I need a bit of a rest. OK, let's get into the book.
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  I mean, I as a in my stolen copy, I've read, you know, the
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  first, the first part where you talk about your career is
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  serious. And ultimately I get the sense
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  that you're poking businesses to do more than the sense that I've
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  got. But you tell me.
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  I mean, world's the journey that you're going to take a reader on
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  through the. Book, yeah, the, well, the
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  impetus for the book it a lot of respects was in some way, shape
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  or form. And this really did start when
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  not, not right when I got to Sears, but into my career at
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  Sears in the 90s as Sears was really losing relevance, losing
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  market share, profit performance was deteriorating.
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  One of the things that of course we talked a lot about in the
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  management side and I was working on is how do we regain
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  our glory? But the bigger question is how
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  do you go from being the biggest this powerful retailer on the
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  planet? Yeah, and and go through this
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  dissent and ultimately basically Sears doesn't even exist
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  anymore. Then as I got to Neiman Marcus,
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  which is much stronger company, there were still lots of
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  opportunities that we didn't seize, lots of market share.
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  We let in some respects not let but happening that we were
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  leaking market share to many competitors.
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  And then as a consultant, I spent a lot of time working with
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  clients, studying companies that have failed to keep up with this
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  massive pace of disruption. And so one of the questions that
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  kind of kept coming back to me was, well, if the world has
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  changed so much, because I think everybody would agree the retail
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  world, yeah, absolutely quite a lot across the last 2025 years.
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  But, you know, just even in the last three or five, if the world
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  has changed so much, why have you changed so little?
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  And in some cases, the you is the brand.
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  In other cases, it's new, the leader, Yeah, because we just
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  see time and time again companies that go from iconic
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  positions in many cases to either irrelevance or in many
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  cases, complete extinction. Yeah.
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  So that was the question I wanted to take on and I wanted
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  to try to take an on in a way that other people haven't
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  covered and hopefully give some advice that's useful.
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  So one of the frustrations I have in in when people refer to
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  retail, they're sort of everyone in the same bucket, irrespective
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  of whether you're working IT operations, watching, don't
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  think HR and the type of retailer that you are, you know,
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  fast moving goods or whatever type, right.
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  So from your as you were writing the book, who did you have in
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  mind as the reader? What type of executive?
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  Because although it's for the exec, yeah.
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  What type of executive did you? Have in well, primarily as I was
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  writing it, my focus was on those leaders that really drive
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  strategy because if you're going to transform that for the most
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  part has to be coming top. Now, I think there are plenty of
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  lessons to be taken away for people in different positions,
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  but for the most part it's really directed towards the
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  C-Suite, the board, apps, investors, but people that can
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  really influence the long term strategy.
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  So. It's actually been crossing the
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  street. There's more business orientated
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  rather than lead to. All this is about just to be
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  clear, it's not a retail book is I believe it has applicability
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  for for profit companies. Yeah, nonprofit companies,
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  retailers, hotel industries, you know, whatever any kind of
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  business that is facing significant disruption and needs
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  to transform to minimally keep pace, but ideally create
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  distance between them and the competition.
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  I I think that the lessons here, even though I draw my retail
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  experience, I use retail examples.
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  I use plenty of other examples as well, so it is very much
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  industry agnostic. OK.
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  And, and to be fair, as I was reading that it, it almost felt
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  like one of these Harvard Business Review type things
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  that, you know, it's like a business lessons from the modern
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  executive. Yeah.
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  Well, what I was trying to do is I guess yes and no.
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  I mean, I one of the things I absolutely didn't want to do.
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  Yeah, I always make it overly academic.
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  There are a lot of great books, including books that I have in
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  the big biography that I reference, books like the
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  Innovators Dilemma, Blue Ocean Strategy, Good to great.
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  These are fantastic books, but I think they are often too left
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  brain, too intellectual, too academic in their approach. 4 or
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  500 pages, 50 case studies. And I wanted to do something
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  that is serious but much more inspirational.
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  And I think part of what those books Ness is, they often point
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  out the flaws and strategy, and that's incredibly useful.
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  Yeah, but I wasn't necessarily going to add much to that, to
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  that equation. What I wanted to say is even
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  yeah, and I do make some struggles and points.
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  Yeah, sure. But even if you ohh not just
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  eating that my experience has been that many leaders and it's
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  definitely my experience at Sears is definitely experiencing
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  and Marcus, it's been my experience with clients.
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  It's been my experience studying companies.
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  Most of the time, those leaders know what to do.
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  Yeah, but they don't do it. So what I wanted to get into is
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  not to say here's how you come up with a new strategy.
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  Yeah. You know, if you're in the
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  department store business, you've known, at least in the US
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  Yeah, it's true in some other markets as well.
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  You're the department services as one example.
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  You've known for more than 20 years that you are haemorrhaging
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  market share to many of them, all competitors as well as
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  folks, folks like Amazon. Yeah, every year, Macy's, JC
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  Penny, those brands, every year they're performance has gotten
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  worse. Yeah.
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  Every year the data shows that this, this is going.
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  Yeah. And why?
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  Yeah. But half measures availed them,
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  Nothing. They have been doing very
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  instrumental things that have made have not made a significant
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  difference. So why?
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  Yeah, in a lot of cases, it's the failure to breakthrough, the
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  denial that they are facing, the throwing motion crisis.
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  It's fear. It's sworn.
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  It's these kinds of things. Yeah.
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  I wanted to take on what are these mindsets that prevent
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  leaders from doing the things they know they must do.
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  Make some strategy once along the way.
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  Yeah. But I mostly wanted to get into
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  this idea. How do you become fundamentally
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  a more courageous leader? And that's really not OHH, I'll
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  take it on by the Clayton Christensen's and yeah, there's
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  no matter how important those looks at.
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  And I did create protecting Christians course, obviously
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  he's obviously passed away, yes. So I love it.
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  Ohh, I don't wanna give you I don't want you to sort of spoil,
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  but readers journey. But is that like you said, you
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  you come away with several, the reader will come away with
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  several things, right. What peeing was like the thing
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  that you felt again, the one thing, you know, practical
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  advice or a executive reading your book will come away.
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  Obviously you said there's going to be some, you know, four or
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  five different conclusions. So one thing for you that was
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  like, as you were reading, it was like something you get
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  goosebumps when something comes into your head.
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  That's that's strong, but well, so just quick context.
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  So one of the things I talk about kind of the heart of the
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  book or what I call these seven mind leaps.
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  And it's where I challenged the reader to say, OK, I approach
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  things in one way today. Yeah, but I want to move you to
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  to a different way of saying. So there's seven of those.
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  But the one that I think answers your question is the chapter
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  that deals with the OR that's titled Safe is Risky.
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  And I think that what we see a lot is that we think that
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  incremental change is actually the smart thing to do.
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  It's slow and steady sort of wins the race.
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  And that was probably true and it still is true in some cases.
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  But when you look at the pace of change frequently becoming more
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  exponential than linear the slower you go in the face of
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  shifting consumer demands, shifting technology,
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  particularly Jenna is. And I obviously something we've
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  seen, you know, disruptive editors coming along with slower
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  you go the further and further you fall.
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  Yeah. And that rightly risks an
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  existential crisis. And we've seen this laying out
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  or even see the exception. So.
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  So somehow we have to understand that that this incremental
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  change is often the most risky thing we can do.
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  Yeah. And and change our relationship
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  to risk. But it's hard.
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  You know, we're just not wired as a species.
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  Yeah, too. Yeah, absolutely.
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  You know, we've been taught through evolutionary biology to
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  protect ourselves. And, you know, my own experience
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  as a leader, oftentimes, like, I don't want people to see that I
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  don't know what I'm doing. I don't want people to see that
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  I'm afraid a lot. Yeah.
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  I don't want to get fired because I go after some ideas.
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  So there's a lot of personal and cultural barriers that often
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  keep companies from taking the risk.
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  They must, you know, go back to the department store example.
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  It would have been far wiser 20 years ago for Macy's to have
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  made significant investments in office retail.
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  They have lost massive share in cosmetics to players like Ulta
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  and Sephora. It's, it's, it's so crazy how
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  much value is migrated. Alta is an example.
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  I know they're on us, so may not resonate with their leaders, but
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  also just in their small stores, they've gone from nothing.
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  The 1400 stores, their market value as just selling cosmetics,
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  yeah, is more than five times the value of all the top five
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  U.S. Department stores combined.
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  So abysmal performance, Yeah. But you know, you have to see
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  and respond to that instead of just trying to make your core
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  business incrementally better. So I think this understanding or
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  changing our relationship to rest, I think is a really
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  fundamental thing. So that's that's the thing I
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  think I would most like people to see.
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  And you know, it's easier said than done.
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  Like that's a nice hippy thing to say.
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  Trying to give examples. Of I said on conclusion said
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  there's no spoiler alerts still get the book yeah we need to get
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  through the seven things if if I feel so incredibly because it
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  feels like my own episode of remarkable reach out He's also
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  going for you apart from your Co host is missing in terms of just
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  quick tangent I think we were both set.
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  I'm curious on your opinion on the CEO of Macy's and their new
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  vision of going into what's then blue, their new.
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  Form bold new strap they've got. Bloomberg Careers.
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  Mercury. Which might not available
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  anywhere else on every race, but I'm just curious ringing or saw
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  or heard what he was seeing at Congress, sure that I'm not
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  gonna get to turn that around. No, it's.
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  OK, it's. All too little, too.
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  Alright. I mean, I hope they will, but I
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  think ultimately it's too little, too late.
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  And one of the problems, particularly with the publicly
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  traded companies, is that end, you know, we faced this, I would
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  say it's years, more than 20 years ago.
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  Even if we had a brilliant, bold strategy to turn things around,
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  yeah #1 there's no way you're going to get Wall Street to
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  support things you need to do. I mean, Macy's needs to change.
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  I mean, I just think they started too late.
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  But yeah. But even if that's not true and
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  I'm wrong about that, they have to go so much faster and it's
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  going to take many billions of dollars.
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  They have to completely reconfigure their real estate.
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  And the business is, you know, it's been decelerating for 20
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  plus years. Maybe it's a little bit pulled
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  out of their dot. So I suspect their performance
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  might include through marginally, but they're they're
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  not going to be growing market share to any significant degree.
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  And the nature of that business is very difficult.
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  But I wouldn't say and I don't know Tony sprang at all.
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  I know people that I know that know him say great things about
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  it. I'm sure the impression.
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  One stage. Yeah, presentation.
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  Yeah, Yeah. And, you know, to me, it's like
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  when bad jobs happen to good people willing to believe he's a
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  great guy. His predecessor was a great guy.
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  But, you know, when you watch the last 20 years happened to
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  you, the reality often is that options are not available to you
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  anymore. Yeah, I think the door probably
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  shut on Macy's five or ten years ago.
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  I hope I'm wrong. Yeah.
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  The best thing that could probably happen to Macy's
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  through their success is for a couple of the other major
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  sources to go out of business because it's a shrinking pie and
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  if they could somehow grab more share.
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  But a bunch of things have to happen.
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  And I, I, I will unfortunately be pretty sceptical about that.
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  So the lesson, you know, really for for company, but still have
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  the ability to change is if you're losing relevance, if
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  you're not aiming higher and the value that you deliver to
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  customers and and and perform in a way that they exceed your
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  competition and you aren't moving faster, then now is the
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  time. Yeah.
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  Because as time goes on and as the pace of change accelerates,
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  you just fall further and further behind.
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  You might get longer, you can't catch up.
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  He talked to you but so much longer, but I wanna be
• 17:50
  respectful to your time. The show 4 that we've got called
• 17:53
  the Doppler ourselves here, Steve.
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  It's been absolutely fantastic to catch up learning about the
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  book. So the book wobble on hopefully,
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  I mean this podcast will go out imminently.
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  So it will be on general release.
• 18:05
  You can get it from. Yeah, you could.
• 18:07
  You could really pre-order if it's not available in your part
• 18:10
  of the world. Yeah, you can preorder it
• 18:12
  everywhere. I'm pretty sure side to the
• 18:14
  book. And yes, there's a how about my
• 18:18
  at stephenpdennis.com. Just go to book.
• 18:21
  You could see it. But yeah, you could pre-order it
• 18:23
  anywhere. It's also immediately available
• 18:26
  everywhere on Kindle and on Audible.
• 18:28
  So, but you might have to wait a few weeks to get your hands on a
• 18:32
  hard drive. OK, fantastic, Steve.
• 18:34
  Thank you so much. Thank you.
• 18:35
  Sir, pleasure.