I started working on the online grocery model for a large retail chain more than 10 years ago. The Golden Age of Big Hopes : we had no clue about the 'path to purchase', category management, revenue management or how to optimize our pick / pack / ship processes, we didn't know what best looks like for merchandising and analytics were made on an excel spreadsheet.
We had all the obstacles and constraints you can dream of, 80 % of them were coming from the inside : do not disrupt the traditional business in any way, do not compete on price, sell our distributor brands first, do not push 'online only' offers or services, do not pull our consumers from the store or pick them from our databases, do not advertise in store, etc etc...
I remember talking to large brands in #petfood at the time to sign a deal and the guys in front of me kept pointing at the hard facts : why should we do this ? who will buy petfood ? how are we gonna ship 15 kg bags ? did we have any numbers to prove our case ? We ended up with one brand that had enough vision and appetite to go for it, the same brand that has 30+ % share today.. guess why ?
Petfood today is the largest category in CPG's online in the US.
Our leadership was somehow engaged yet not willing to spend extra money on this, our buyers were not prepared, skilled or comfortable to talk to CPG's about an opportunity we couldn't size. Our IT services were nor fit neither capable of handling large dynamic product catalogs and pricing algorithms. The marketing team was hilarious when we knocked at their door asking for support and content. The customer service team was too busy to be bothered and the CRM team too proud to look after their hefty 6M loyal consumer base. We built our picking routes and timed them ourselves, we designed our carts and trained the people, we equipped them with scanning gear and we used the store TV screens to display our last day performance and thank you messages + each day targets, before the store will open in the morning. We digitalised our incentives and promotions and transformed a static monthly offer into a dynamic, tailored daily proposition, winning over a million active consumers in a few years.

We went from 1M€ to 100M€ in 3 years, with 400 stores fully equipped. Winning store by store, consumer by consumer. There is no fairy tale or magic recipe in grocery. We tried every possible online model you can imagine in goods or services : wine, music, travel, insurance, car rental, mobile. We failed miserably in music, we won in car lease and became n°1 in truck rental. We lost in travel and became number 1 in online catering, in 2 years. We had such a success with our dedicated online Wine offer we had to stop, we had no more stock, you know : the French and their wine !
The category buyer at the time told me one of these sentences you should never, ever write in an email :
- Christophe, i know my products, i know my consumers. The day you're gonna sell 200 euros wine bottles online i will start to sell Soft Drinks !
I came to him a friday morning with a case of Coke cans, to thank him for his wisdom ...
We could forecast the demand and connect with our category buyers to tell them what the category looked  like online and what they should look at, we proposed some tests you couldn't do instore, we pushed the idea of the endless aisle. In 2 years, we won the trust and sponsorship of everyone, bottom up. We were not the young nerds anymore : we were Insights provider, we were the GrowthEngine. We learned our lessons the hard way, without DATA, without partnerships with brands, without sponsorship from the board.
Imagine what it was like : 5 guys with a fraction of the budget given to the offline trade, sent on mission to win in that space. The company was doing something like 13Bn€ at the time, with 1000 stores across the country, while we were running after our first Million € like midgets. A 40 years legacy of local stores well anchored in the landscape. 40 years of a culture built on efficient yet rigid promotions, price, the hard reality of the shelf, the management of stock, the face to face customer service and a ton of promotional paper catalogs sent every month to your mailbox.

Sounds like the eighties to you ?
It certainly did to us : welcome in the traditional Retail World. After 7 years I left retail and jumped the fence to join a CPG. Wild and strange encounter, it took me months to understand the  'philosophy' behind the brand. First roadblock i identified was the huge gap between us and the change happening outside, the critical lack of communication and collaboration with the online retailers, at best we were selling products, without a clue on margins or sell out.
To me there is a long list of success factors or critical things we must understand, agree and act on, i've picked seven key areas you can sponsor, develop or lead :
  1. Build a COMMON understanding of the CONSUMER : this is first and foremost. The biggest failure and waste of time is to have a different understanding on what the consumer want, who he is, how does he shop and what the basket looks like. You don't need to have the same fancy personas, but agree on a shopping mission and what role your category plays, constantly analyze and take data driven decisions on the path to purchase to make the right trade investments and efforts on search, portfolio, placement or promotions. The main disconnect here i believe is the lack of clarity on what can be done vs what should be done and by who. 
  2. Align at the TOP : nothing big happens without a step change in the way you collaborate. If you ever want to go beyond sales and take it to the next level of partnership, the discussion must happen at the top. Commitments must be made and short term action must happen, failures will be part of the game and should be accepted. Setting the ambition right & long term vision should be taken seriously by the leadership on each side, together with the right operating model to ensure you both have the operational side of things in mind, so the business can execute with confidence. Make this alignment a quarterly routine and adapt it to what your task force on the ground is reporting. One important fact is to agree on what is or should be the decision making process. This will ease some discussions and speed up the change.
    Translate that clearly throughout the organization  : each sales team is entitled with a mission but primarily will focus on their own objectives, if those objectives do not include what matters to you, no one will make it happen. Ask each team to build a scorecard with common objectives and indicators, they should do it and be proud of it. The scorecard should not only include sales objectives but other metrics across collaboration, efficiency, capabilities, DATA. Prepare to be wrong and ready to adapt it without questioning the bigger purpose.
  3. Find  MUTUAL VALUE first : maybe it's about cracking some pain points first, or solving that availability issue, or readjusting your portfolio, or completely reshaping the category and product pages. Focus on where there is a 'match' in common interest before to push for some tough negotiation. Unlocking mutual value for you and the retailer is a must have to grow the trust and eventually outgrow the category. Nothing beats a win/win scenario and pursuing the same target can only be done through strategic, joint business planning. Early quick wins are the smart choice before to rush on the more ambitious scenarios, they engage the teams and prove your pragmatism, provide insights you can rely on etc. Obviously, this is a major outcome you should look for from the discussion that will happen in your Top 2 Top alignement.
  4. Understand the OPERATING MODEL : it might sound like a simple and obvious one, yet you'll find out that the finance team isn't so clear about the P&L, the supply team is not so clear about the retailer operating model, the sales team is not so clear about the pricing model. A clear understanding of the various operating models of your retailers will enable you to reshape your value chain, adapt your capabilities and measure what NEEDS to be measured. Simply put : if you want to help them to sell your products and place your brand at the top, start by knowing more about the way they operate, their pricing model. Tesco is not Ocado and Amazon is not Instacart.Image : Instacart Revenue and business model. Read more here
  5. Be OBSESSED with EXECUTION : There is probably a fair amount of change management that needs to happen here. Often, execution is left aside and considered as a secondary activity that someone in your team or worse in someone else team will do. A strategy is nothing without perfect execution. Also, what online execution means and what it takes is foreign language to most leaders. That is the root cause of  some major misunderstanding in the role and importance of execution. The lack of education and awareness across the leadership is a bad excuse to consider execution as a secondary 'operational' area you don't really need to focus or measure. Stop being a wanderer, mouth and eyes open like you're on a trip to Disnleyland : become aware, educated, equipped with the basics. Imagine being a sales or marketing leader in the physical world and not understanding what best in class in store merchandising looks like, or how it should be measured and reported ? Imagine your eCommerce or digital marketing team trying to give you the big picture while you barely understand what "perfect page" means ? If you think this is optional or not strategic enough to be on your calendar, you are missing out BIG TIME and that train is going fast, very FAST. When country managers and Senior Executives ask me to stay with us during trainings or workshops, i instantly know we have a good chance of success. Do whatever it takes but don't make it too superficial, you think you can 'digest' some digital GURU insights if you have no clue what path to purchase means for your brand / category ? Soon, you'll end up with a leadership team unable to take the right decisions simply because they don't know what online merchandising, search, taxonomy looks like. Help yourself : help them. They will always be late and lagging, overwhelmed by the pace and the complexity of change in the digital space, they will fail at understanding the impact it has on your retail trade, on your brand equity and on your consumer advocacy. They will be uncomfortable to talk to your strategic customers because they don't have the basic knowledge on what customer experience requires and how they can help. You don't know how ? really ? you REALLY need an expensive consultant to give you a smartphone, take you through a store visit and come to the point where you have spent the last 20 minutes trying to find your products or worse trying to understand if this was a big pack, a small pack ? After all, ask yourself  : If you don't understand the purpose how can you be 'fit' for it ? 
    Note : Read more about customer experience here 


    Have a PASSION for EXECUTION, adapt your behavior and start visiting online stores, invite the teams to present what areas of execution are critical and bringing value. Encourage, reward and elevate the teams that innovate and push the boundaries so your brands, products, offers STAND OUT. Learn the direct relation between perfect execution and performance. Make it YOUR MISSION and role model the perfect execution scenarios, try to answer the fundamental questions first. You don't need to be an expert, yet you need to understand the expert.
  6. Share the DATA : that one is a headache, what are the crown jewels and how do you trade them ? what are you willing to trade and how to value DATA ? there is still a huge amount of progress to be made here. The first step should be to understand how comfortable your retailer is to share DATA and what are the reasons NOT to share. Unlocking some misunderstanding, aligning on benefits should be another discussion to have at the top. We often hear they 'won't share' or 'don't have the data' . Developing your competitive advantage through DATA is by itself a critical mission, get some inspiration here from this excellent article on #SwiftIQ
  7. COMBINE your CAPABILITIES : the rationale behind that mindset should change your way of working with your winning customers. You both have strenghts and you both have resources. Now, can you combine them to produce greater value, rationalize your asset, optimize costs ad time to market ? the answer is a triple yes. How often will you find a retailer struggling with your product catalog and product info, which should be an easy one for you to deliver. How often to you struggle with setting up the right promotion plan or positioning your portfolio ? How often do your retailer fail to execute or delay the execution ?  Start the discussion by mapping out what are the critical capabilities and identify the gaps, strengths on both sides. Before to make that choice on product page, merchandising or pricing make sure you have the over arching view of what it takes to deliver the best brand and shopping experience. Agree on what's achievable vs what needs structural changes and is not likely to happen in the next 6 months. Include that in your business plan, right next to the sales targets. Start small and expand into a full partnership than spans across multiple areas. Another  domain where Kantar in China has a built a strong momentum, with their Digital Power Study, a powerful framework to bench eTailers across strategic dimensions. Read more on this on Kantar China Insights
Finally, the SHIFT in the VALUE  CHAIN is highly predictable : You'll have to bring the whole picture and  transform the  last century concept of the linear value  chain people have in mind  into a dynamic one, where the cadence, workflows & processes are different. Putting the right product on the digital shelf is not enough, to really win you'll have to rethink what needs to be optimised, adapted ot completely tailored to fit your customer and consumer needs : from pack through marketing & shipment. The agility you'll bring on your value chain will be an asset to be distinctive, innovate and become highly efficient.