“What Good Is Spaghetti Carbonara Without Pancetta?.”
Our subject isn’t Italian cooking. Rather, it is the critical moves that retailers must make if they are to compete in a 21st century environment being reshaped by technology, pandemic, and shifting customer needs. Spaghetti carbonara without pancetta, you see, is just the metaphor.
The beginning premise is this: The importance for retailers to eliminate redundant supply chain and logistics issues. That’s easier said than done – it isn’t all that different from what the industry started doing two decades ago with its Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) initiative. But it didn’t go far enough for fast enough (or else there would be no need for this conversation. Tom Furphy and Kevin Coupe are both provocative and prescriptive as they approach the subject, seeing it through the eyes of retailers, solutions providers, and, especially, customers as they offer a recipe for competitive strategies.