Consumer-Centric Ecosystems for Consumer Goods Manufacturers and Retailers

Article by Robert Hetu, Gartner Research Director Fellow Gartner analyst Ellen Eichhorn and I partnered on new industry vision research to highlight the changing landscape of retail and consumer goods industries.  Consumer-centric ecosystems will enable manufacturers and retailers to engage people of all ages, races and income levels to experience the digital acquisition of goods and services. Developing these ecosystems will help CIOs to more directly enable strategic digital business transformation.

Key Challenges

• CIOs must adopt a modular and inclusive approach for their enterprises’ digital portfolios, considering neighbourhoods, income levels, cultures and age differences. Having these granular insights allows for laser-focused marketing to specific consumer subsegments.
• CIOs must gain an understanding of the consumer behaviour patterns that drive consumer-centric ecosystems.
• CIOs must develop a portfolio of products and services that supports consumer-centric ecosystems.

Recommendations CIOs and IT leaders:

• Work with a team of business and IT leaders to create an industry vision for consumer-centric ecosystems. Do it with a sense of urgency and simplicity, and limit details or concerns of feasibility.
• Research how other industries — such as automotive, insurance and direct door-to-door — have become savvy in identifying and reaching their target consumer groups. Identify best practices, differentiation and overlap.
• Identify key differentiators within your consumer base that can facilitate direct appeal to a common set of needs.
• Design a malleable construct to allow flexibility in the ecosystem structure. Requirements may change many times, based on the findings above.

Identify an architecture and applicable toolsets to enable the agile and rapid development of modular, consumer-centric ecosystems. ​

Read the complete research note here:

Industry Vision: Consumer-Centric Ecosystems for Consumer Goods Manufacturers and Retailers Article by Robert Hetu, Gartner Research Director