September 2021retailtechinsights.com 19RETAIL IS DETAILTHEY SAYThe problem with this statement, is that whilst it's important to be in the detail, know everything about your business, it's products and services and the customer, it often leads to what I have seen; analysis paralysis. "Show me a full business case and I will fund it". What I have noticed, is the sheer fear of teams and leaders not getting out of their own way. Often, strangled by politics, position, power and team size, hampered by measures that drive the wrong behaviours; Sales instead of NPS, ROC instead of sales growth, Annual increases in budget envelope, rather than cost out, and so on. Why put the storage and compute team under one manager, when you've already been a VM Shop for 10 years and you're going converged or cloud? Creating documentation and monolithic PMO's to add control, when actually you add waste, cost and lose control, filling in forms and writing documents, missing the opportunity entirely. Why not move the data scientists to work closely the technology teams that build and secure the platforms they use, when you can create a divide instead? So, let's go back a step. How many times have you had a great idea? Your gut tells you it's going be great for the customer, but you need to test it. You've spent two weeks building a pack of analysis, it's involved time from other teams, who believe it and you just want to try it. The cost is minimal; in fact, the cost of the trial is less that the time taken to produce all of the documentation that you need to take to the investment committee, but you know the process, hunkers down and just go with it, because if you don't, you have no chance. Finally, the paperwork is done, you've spent the final two days, checking format, grammar, spelling, capitals or not for the brand name. You submit the document for pre-read, one week out from the committee date, so you're now about four weeks in. The committee is here. You put on your best shirt, maybe a jacket, jeans and shoes. (You want that Digital Native look). You walk in confidentially; the committee has an air of Dragon's den. Will you survive, or will you retreat, broken? The investment committee rejects the idea as they need a full business case. Let's assume the role pays $100,000, that's about $8,000 of time to produce the paperwork. Add in a few more people and you are probably up towards $20,000 of effort. This culture doesn't support innovation, it prevents it. You don't see Amazon or Google doing this? Now I am not saying, let everything happen, as the focus on the business can shift and resources can be wasted, but there any many great examples of innovation support. A business needs governance and good cost control, but governance can go too far. At Amazon, they have pioneered a Lean Canvas approach, no PowerPoint, but simply write down your idea, almost on a napkin, but in the style of the marketing pitch. What this does is, it Stuart Freer is the chief digital and data officer of Mecca Brands. In addition, Stuart is an experienced C level leader and passionate digital evangelist having over 21 years of technology experience within retail and higher education in the UK and Australia.Stuart FreerCxo InsightsBy Stuart Freer, Chief Digital Officer, MECCA Brands
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