Take a read of our latest Q&A session with Anders Heikenfeldt former Chief Omnichannel Retail Officer at Pomelo Fashion in Bangkok, Managing Director at H&M and COO at 6IXTY8IGHT in Hong Kong. Anders shares his thoughts on Asian expansion, consumer experience and all things omnichannel. Thank you so much to Anders Heikenfeldt for sharing your insights and Plan A Executive Search’s Natalie Potticary for facilitating our interview.
#leadership #leader #COO #executivesearch #motivation #business #success #COO #omnichannel #strategy #business #sales #innovation #markets
#thoughts
Q&A Session with Anders Heikenfeldt
Tell us a bit about yourself.
I am originally from Sweden but spent most of my adult life overseas. I’ve lived across 5 countries over the past 13 years; from the UK with COS, to Russia with H&M, where I helped to launch the business across the region. I was then fortunate to move to Hong Kong as well as spend some time in China. I’ve been living in Thailand more recently.
What have you learned from Covid 19?
I have learned how to cope with uncertainly. This goes against the usual structure of creating 3-to-5-year plans, which become completely irrelevant. We don’t feel secure anymore because we are unsure how we are performing (or supposed to be performing) because the core KPIs and goals are no longer there to follow. With external factors that could not be changed, we must go back to basics and decide “what can we do today?” This can be difficult and take us a while to adapt. I believe a lot of companies were cautious and decided to cut their spending, hold back on roll out plans etc. However, it was interesting to realise how many opportunities there actually were. It was truly rewarding for my team and I to be contrary to the norm.
Let’s move onto talk about the international retail landscape. What differences do you perceive in Europe versus Asia?
In Europe we are more brand oriented. We have been bought up to recognise them and associate ourselves with our preferred brands as well as show loyalty. Across Asia it is more promotion driven (excluding the luxury industry) which leads to lower levels of loyalty – Asians are oriented more towards deals, price, and value. This has also led to marketplaces becoming ever more popular across the continent.
What challenges do you perceive across Asia for retailers and brands?
Consumers are shopping around and choosing to buy from a wide variety of retailers. Interaction with customers is key, that is what they want both online and offline. This is a core reason as to why “Live Shopping” was launched so early across Asia – it is like a much more advanced version of TV shopping. 7 out of 10 people in Asia liaise with a Customer Service Representatives before making a purchase – they want a sense of belonging or clarification. In Europe we tend to contact customer services post purchase, for example to complain about a product or service. This is a big and clear difference between customer behaviour between the two continents. Almost 90% of the time an Asian customer speaks with a representative, it is pre-purchase. They want assurance as well as to interact with the retailers; the security of someone responding to their emails assures them that they are dealing with a legitimate business.
How do you think brands and retailers will look to elevate their customer experience post pandemic?
We are moving further into a time of social interaction and where customers want to be recognised – this is a core way to build loyalty. Brands therefore really need to personalise communication. With online retail this has been done through machine learning (AI) but now we are adapting this movement into offline as well…so how do we connect the two? Whether a customer has bought online or collected in store, a retailer should know what a customer likes upon them walking into their store or clicking onto their website, and in turn provide recommendations.
Another core area to elevate customer experience is through convenience. Here is an example of this from my time working as part of Pomelo; we partnered with Grab (an equivalent to Uber across southeast Asia). A customer can have their item delivered immediately to their home, try on the product, and decide whether to keep or return. There are plenty of opportunities to capitalise on customer convenience and this could continue to add value to the overall customer experience.
Lastly there is customisation – whether this be a product perfectly tailored to a customer’s size and shape, or their initials embroidered, or the option to choose their colour of preference etc. This will be the next step in fashion and lifestyle. Customers want to be more unique; the only way for brands to succeed in gauging this demand is to move away from mass production and into more customised and local production.
Where do you believe brands should be investing?
Firstly, businesses need to review their organisational chart and identify how these desired changes can be made. The majority of businesses that I’ve seen have (for example) firstly built a retail channel, then wholesale, then online, then a marketplace only to realise that these 4 channels have conflicting KPIs and so are isolated and not aiding to one another’s agenda. This is the biggest challenge for most brands; to review the organisational chart in order to establish a shared commercial goal and responsibility across the channels. Doing this is the only way to advance from multi-channel to omni-channel. It starts with the organisation and incentivising teams to work together.
Secondly, businesses need to invest in a seamless technology platform. For many companies this has been built in layers and today it is almost impossible to know how to hold everything together. This doesn’t work when a business is trying to develop insights from their marketplace channel to aid with their offline strategy, or with their ecommerce business. Having a seamless platform will also aid personalisation and convenience.
With the continual shift into e-commerce and omni-channel, what is the role of bricks and mortar in this new ecosystem?
I think the role of bricks and mortar will always be traditional for most retailers, but it has already started to become more explorative. Stores will need to have an additional set of features for example, Uniqlo offer an alterations service of products in-store, which is a great way to add value as well as drive people into their stores. Equally knowing a customer’s measurements could be saved and used while that same customer shops online. It is an excellent way to gather data and provide an extra service in-store. Having said that, stores may become smaller and more existential for convenience.
Any closing thoughts?
We are in the middle of a very interesting shift which has leap frogged development from bricks and mortar to online. It is important for brands to build a unique experience, but we must deliver a great experience too. A bad customer experience in-store is worse than none at all. We cannot achieve everything at once, it must be calculated and well thought out.