Looking to the future of commerce: Retail transformation as connected consumers embrace smart homes and smart stores

Retail has undergone disruption every 10 years on average owing to economics, format innovation, and, most recently, technology transformation. We envision this landscape will go far beyond the shift towards e-commerce. This paper reviews technology of the future that will affect the industry, with predictions of how consumers will be likely to adapt. It is informed by extensive fieldwork throughout the world1, 2 and the authors’ combined experience in retail and technology. Beyond commerce, we see all industries facing a future of transformation. But retailers have historically coped with disruption, and we believe the dramatic pace of changes and opportunity facing them can be a playbook for executives in all businesses. Retailers have to operate 24/7, 365 days a year — at full speed and with narrow margins. An immense challenge is making step changes while not simply discarding existing mission-critical infrastructure. The retail industry will enter this unknown future with existing systems that must become far more effective with incremental technology, digitally enhanced employees and pervasive data management across the whole organisation. In other words, they must operate with the capabilities they have for today while transforming for tomorrow. This becomes more complex as smart homes, smart stores and connected cities advance.