The Management Change Required By Brands To Become Customer Centric

Adrien Nussenbaum gave me a nice quip last week - "Very often, the best form of change management is to change management."

As the world changes, many companies miss the boat because the changes happen so subtly at first, and then it's far too late once it's obvious to everyone.

For several hundred-million dollar brands that grew up selling to Macy's—and for whom Macy’s has been by far the biggest customer—what do you do?

Ultimately, it is a problem of change management. How to go from where you are (D2C-challenged) to a place where instead of your retail customer (you know, the one that is placing all those multi-million dollar orders every season?) being the center of everything, the real consumer is the center of everything.

Often it's not the employees that don't get it. In fact, usually the ones that wanted to change left the building long ago. It's management that doesn't get it. That same management tends to drive away all but the employees who are just along for the ride or the ones who have expertise / vested interest in the old situation. Kjeld Lindsted added that “It's hard to find and retain people who know how to take risks, so orgs end up filled with careful people [who are] really good at maintaining things but who don't really understand why.” So true - and even worse are the ones actively resisting everything new because it doesn't fit the model.

It's not that these brands never had talent; it's that now they have the wrong kind of talent. Particularly at the top. No digital DNA. No sense of the transformative power of technology. No brand risk-taking.

There’s a lot at stake. Not all companies are agile enough to embrace D2C, or realize too late that this is what they need to do to survive. Gil Garcia adds that “Most brands did not want to jeopardize the steady and somewhat reliable stream of income from their wholesale channels by going D2C and possibly offending their retailer customer base. It’s easy to stay in your comfort zone and stick with the steady income stream, even as it dwindles, instead of the one that is a little fuzzy and outside of management’s core competencies.” Many people started entirely new D2C businesses just a few months ago. Even people who didn't know a thing about D2C. They are learning as they go, because they have to. We all have to, to stay nimble and ready to embrace change.