The strongest companies in the retail industry are those that continue to navigate the disruption and continually shift their focus on what matters most. The Retail Transformation Show continues to guide you to do that and the podcast is now celebrating it’s 6th birthday. To celebrate, join Oliver Banks and take a look back at the past year and some of the iconic golden nuggets shared in solo shows and with special guests. Listen in to the first part of this best bits episode.
Listen to this episode for:
- Highlights from different episodes, featuring expert guests and from Oliver Banks’s solo shows.
- Takeaways on topics like new business models, becoming human-centric, avoiding short-term thinking, collaboration and much more.
Steve Dennis: Overcoming the timid transformation
Oliver welcomed back Retail expert Steve Dennis in episode 292: Leaping The Transformation Gap. His latest book, Leaders Leap, explores the seven significant and personal shifts that a leader must take to successfully embark on transformation. Without fully committing, a company is left with a “timid transformation” and is presented with an ever widening transformation gap.
Collaboration to overcome silos
Organisational silos constrain companies and can even be destructive to the overall success. And whilst we all recognise that they’re unwanted, they continue to exist. So in episode 266: Achieving Alignment Across Silos, Oliver shares how you can take a different approach to tackling silos in your company.
Entrepreneurial skillsets to adopt
There is a similarity between entrepreneurs and transformation professionals. And a start-up’s culture also has many similarities with companies that are adept at change and transformation. Tune into episode 289 as Oliver explores Igniting A Start-Up Spark In Big Business.
Julie Smith: Uncertainty is a good thing
Julie Smith, author of Coach Yourself Confident, joined in episode 279: Being Confident Despite Uncertainty. And fairly early on in the conversation, she shares the concept that uncertainty might not be the bad thing that we often assume it is.
Consider people, not just cost saving
In the tough economic environment that our industry has traded through, cost savings are an inevitable route to help protect profitability. However, simply cutting costs, especially from the frontline workforce, has a number of implications. And forgetting about the people involved is a major danger. Discover more and what to do in episode 273: Blending Labour Savings And Service Levels.
Philippa White: Why business is broken right now
Philippa White, author of Return on Humanity, encourages us to become more human centric. She articulately argues that the world of business has lost its way in search of the primary goal of profitability. However, ironically, by not being focused on people, we hamper our overall success rates. Listen to Philippa White in episode 293: Becoming A Human Centric Company and be prepared to challenge your own perceptions.
Overcoming short-term gratification
Many organisations (i.e. the individuals in those organisations) face huge pressures to deliver short-term goals. However, when faced with this pressure, it’s easy to embrace short-term thinking, which can be significantly detrimental in the longer term. Listen to episode 274: Short Term Gains, Long Term Pains (part 1) and episode 275: (part 2) to learn how to avoid the temptation of short-term gratification.
Embracing new business models
Shifting business models represents a disruptive transformation and certainly is a longer-term play. But with major challenges to future profitability for companies across the retail industry, it’s essential to start considering opportunities of alternative or additional business models. Listen to episode 310: Beyond The Classic Retail Business Model (part 1) and episode 311: (part 2) to explore the most opportunistic business models that align to retail businesses now.
Our brains are naturally lazy
People are vitally important to transformation. However, as a species, it seems that we’ve evolved to be resistant to change and transformation. Dive into neuroscience and learn how our own heads work in episode 288: How Our Own Brain Blocks Meaningful Work.
Taking intentional action
Alongside more fundamental transformations, such as embracing a new business model, continuous improvement represents the chance for companies to drive marginal gains that can add up to sizeable benefits. Join Oliver Banks for episode 276 and learn how to take The Small Steps To Continuous Improvement.
Problems are unlikely to automatically resolve themselves
Transformation initiatives are always going to face risks, issues and problems along the way. In fact, Oliver would argue that if there aren’t any then it’s just that you don’t realise that they’re there! Tune in to episode 294: The Inevitable Transformation Challenges and discover how you can boldly face into the challenges in your strategic change programmes and projects.
Learn more about the Retail Transformation Steering Wheel
Over the past year of the podcast, Oliver’s new book, Driving Retail Transformation: How to Navigate Disruption & Change, launched. There have been multiple references to it and as the book was published, the podcast featured 5 episodes to dive into the core framework: The Retail Transformation Steering Wheel. Tune into these episodes to find out more about the book, and learn more about the Steering Wheel that sits at the heart of it.
- Episode 280: Driving Retail Transformation: Book Launch Special
- Episode 281: Understanding the Problem
- Episode 282: Understanding The Solution
- Episode 283: The Human Side Of Change
- Episode 284: Building Momentum To Deliver
Discover more about the book at DrivingRetailTransformation.com
Look out for more Golden Nuggets
The golden nugget review continues in the next episode. So look out for episode 320.
Also, check out the golden nuggets from previous years. Find them on this site or listen on your usual podcast app.
- Year 5: episodes 263 and 264
- Year 4: episodes 211 and 212
- Year 3: episodes 158 and 159
- Year 2: episodes 106 and 107
- Year 1: episodes 54 and 55
And of course, stay tuned for more episodes of the Retail Transformation Show, coming out every week.
