IORMA’s Market research efforts are focused exclusively on the OMNI Channel revolution and its impact on business decisions and strategies. Our goal is to answer the important questions, giving our clients the critical data, insight and advice they need to profit in today’s always-on world.
IORMA’s research methodology is designed to respond to every facet of our clients’ research and advisory needs. It begins with a foundation of key trends and market facts, driven by primary research and data. Our experienced analysts continuously scan the ecosystem, read industry news, attend events and meet with market players to provide a balanced approach to creating key insights in our research deliverables for our clients. Finally, and most importantly, we provide clients with the implications stemming from these fact-driven insights. These implications allow our clients to better understand and exploit the revenue opportunities enabled by the Omni Channel revolution.
Through our innovative IORMA Data Hub we examine lucrative opportunities in and around the ecosystem. This new product family and our new research delivery platform combine of actionable research highly targeted forecasts and surveys, daily news analysis and more to provide our clients with actionable insights about growth opportunities.
Our research reports form the core of our offering, with qualitative analysis focused exclusively on the transformational effects of Omni channel. Analyst insights draw on a wealth of proprietary IORMA data from exclusive continuous surveys conducted with thousands of enterprises and consumers, along with in-depth Market monitors and comprehensive forecasts
Armed with exclusive IORMA data on the, enabling technologies, and emerging business models across the ecosystem, we provide timely, actionable and accessible research that helps clients make informed business decisions today, as well as plan for the future. Our research gives clients the market advantage they need in an increasingly challenging economy.
Example of areas/highlights we cover include:
- Surpassing customer expectations to increase loyalty and spend.
- Understanding key learning’s from the eCommerce industry to maximise profits in Retail.
- Multichannel, Cross-channel, Omni-Channel: Converging the space between offline and online.
- The rise of the tablet: Exploiting the desktop experience in a mobile device to increase conversion.
- Harnessing online customer data to optimize personalization, improve conversion and drive revenue.
- How will eCommerce change the future of retail?
- eCommerce in the Boardroom: Streamlining your digital offering for multichannel and moving from bricks to clicks.
- Profitable overseas expansion: Successfully leveraging your business internationally
- Exploiting social media: Driving footfall in-store and online from enhanced consumer engagement.
- Optimization of mobile commerce: Understanding the mobile trends and the customer journey.
For further information about IORMA’s Market Research services please contact us at :
t: +44 (0)207 096 1729
See the VISA Commissioned new study report on trends, data and forecasts concerning B2C e-Commerce in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA).
Download a free copy of the report here :
Global ecommerce and the MENA Region … a view from IORMA
The continuing, accelerating growth and impact of the Internet on a global basis and its enabling of a new high-speed, low energy almost free infrastructure of borderless global instant online everything 24/7/365, is seeing unparalleled impacts on society and economies globally.
Citizens around the world increasingly use advanced technology and global communication networks to live, work, socialise, be informed and entertained though the use of online services via personal devices such as PC’s, Smartphones and computer tablets (e.g. the iPad) and SMART TV’s.
One dimension and sector being affected by this accelerating technology led evolution, concerns the technology enabled consumer and the sale of goods and services to those consumers, both domestically and globally.
Nowhere is the impact of this “e”volution being felt more than in the Retailing Sector.
As the Tsunami of the internet sweeps across continents globally, so it is bringing in its wake a complete transformation of the way that consumers buy products and services that they require, compared to the long established methods of store based retailing.
Especially in the United States of America and the United Kingdom, as eCommerce/Online retailing is increasingly becoming the norm (driven by technology enabled consumer demand) so the traditional high street shops and out of town Retail Parks/Branded Retailers are having to embrace online shopping in order to survive and compete with the lower cost based and more eco-friendly form of Retailing provided by the new breed of pure online retailers.
As a result, the established store based major brand retailers are adopting the OMNI-Channel approach, whereby they consumers can do their shopping by whichever method of shopping is most convenient and attractive to them at any given moment … Online, at the physical Retail Store, or a combination/hybrid of both.
The consumer can then benefit from all the new attractions and benefits of online shopping, blended with the traditional benefits and traditional Trust aspects of store based shopping.
Now for example … the consumer can visit a local physical store/showroom, view, touch and feel products, then using their smartphone instantly view price comparisons to see where they can purchase the same product at the lowest cost.
Now for example … the consumer can view and order products online, then have those products delivered to the retailer’s nearest store for collection, if the consumer is not at home all day to receive deliveries.
Now for example … the consumer can order products online but return them (for reasons such as “does not fit”, “colour not right” etc.) to the retailer’s local store without the inconvenience of having to return items though a Post Office or arranging a collection at home.
Walmart, the World’s largest retailer goes OMNI-Channel too …
“We are uniquely positioned to give customers anytime, anywhere access by combining the smartphone, online, and the physical stores,” says Walmart CEO Mike Duke.
WalmartLabs is now housed in a boxy office tower in San Bruno, California, a few miles south of San Francisco. In just over a year, it has helped Walmart.com revamp its search engine; presciently identified the potential of the now red-hot “social gifting” market, where companies use social media cues to suggest presents; and this fall launched a test that offers same-day shipping to customers.
This last move is a clear signal of Walmart’s serious intent to compete in digital e-commerce–and blunt the looming threat of Amazon, which has its own same-day shipping experiments. Having marginalized Barnes & Noble and Best Buy, Jeff Bezos has his eyes on a bigger target. Amazon has been moving aggressively to sell Walmart staples such as diapers, soap, pet food, and cereal, even letting customers subscribe for items they want to receive regularly. Walmart is the world’s biggest grocer, and a central part of its strategy is that the millions of folks who visit its stores weekly to buy food will purchase a lot of other stuff. That’s key reason Walmart’s 2011 revenue of $419 billion dwarfed Amazon’s 2011 sales of $48 billion.
www.walmartlabs.com
The future favours online as the consumer migrates to online…
- Social Networking (more effective than search engine advertising ?)
- Twitter, Facebook, online social media is a way of life now for “world of mouth” communications, especially for younger generations
- Big Data
- Digital Communication leaves a growing “electronic footprint” of consumer behaviour. Merging of vast amounts of data from a wide variety of sources enables very precise and sophisticated personalised digital marketing
- Smart Consumer Devices/widening range of methods for connecting online
- Ever smarter Smartphones, Tablets (iPad), Internet Connected SMART TV’s, Internet connected transportation (cars, planes, buses/coaches)
- Faster Telecommunications
- Ultra-fast high speed broadband networks (1 Gbps or 1,000 Mbps) and, 4G high speed and capacity smartphone networks becoming ubiquitous globally
- Digital Downloads
- Increasing migration from physical products to digital downloads, (music, video, books, computer games, computer software)
- Global Markets – With global reach of the Internet and phone networks, the ability of consumers to shop 24/7/365 online anywhere in the world and for brands/retailers to reach consumers world-wide at vastly lower costs than those involved with traditional national/regional/international physical store and distributor infrastructures
… and 3D Printing
UK Government trying to encourage foreign investment in the British retail and consumer industry in the current climate. UK Trade & Investment used the opportunity of the Olympics to host a Global Business Summit on Retail, Food and Drink, promoting the UK as a leading destination for investment in the sector and a platform from which to grow internationally. Speakers and delegates included some of the industry’s leading UK and international figures, and even our own Prime Minister made an appearance to encourage further investment in what is already viewed by many as one of the best environments for retail in the world.
But there was one topic that seemed to stimulate more debate than any other, and unsurprisingly this was based around the use and effect of technology, referred to potentially as “the next industrial revolution”. However, it was not the typical topic of the use of the Internet in delivering international growth, although Nick Robinson did demonstrate how ASOS is becoming an international ecommerce superstar. Nor was it surprising that Britain continues to lead the way in e-commerce, nor that mobile payments are already upon us. And we are of course already conscious of the need for store-based retailers to provide higher levels of service to customers in order to compensate for a 10% cost disadvantage over pure online retailers as highlighted by Sebastian James, the recently appointed CEO of Dixons.
So what did grab the attention of some of the finest minds in world retail? The final session of the day prior to Mr Cameron’s closing remarks was left to John Andrews from the UK’s industry association for e-retail. The “big bazooka” was the topic of 3D printing, highlighting existing uses of the technology in industry (for example creating spare car parts) as well as the increasing affordability of 3D printers for the retail store and home environments. Instant digital distribution! Mass customisation is on its way! Soon, we as consumers are likely to be ‘printing’ at least some products that are tailored specifically to our individual requirements, from personalised chocolate bars to high heeled shoes. When asked how significant 3D printing could be to the retail industry, John Andrews commented: “Think of the Internet 20 years ago, no one had ever really heard of it”. And everyone knows how much the Internet has changed retail…
Jonathon Martin, Partner and Head of Retail, Spayne Lindsay & Co. LLP
Opportunities for the MENA region
With a relatively young, technology aware population and a modern telecommunications infrastructure unencumbered by ageing infrastructures, the MENA region has a powerful opportunity to take a dominant position for the region and its International status.
A dominant position in the area of the future of consumer goods retailing can provide the foundations for a MENA region which can possess and benefit from:
- A highly educated human skills base for the National, Regional and Global Digital Economy
- Advanced technology services
- A sound economic environment
… and subsequently position the MENA region to provide the scale of economic regional benefit already provided through the existing Oil based Industry, as Digital Commerce becomes the “New Oil” within a Global Digital Economy becoming ever more pre-eminent in the forthcoming decades of the 21st Century.
John Andrews, CEO, IORMA