Research and publications

Airport Shopping Takes Off
The non-aviation business at airports—shopping, dining, parking, advertising—is constantly expanding as a vital source of revenues. What business model can bring the most in this growing area?
[Read Article]

India Luxury Review 2011
The luxury market in India is growing every year. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and A.T. Kearney teamed up to track its growth.
[Read Article]

Capitalizing on Commodity Volatility
Unprecedented volatility in agricultural markets has driven prices to historic highs, meaning that the old ways of defending territory no longer work. However, the volatility has created more than a few commercial opportunities.
[Read Article]

The Five Es of Marketing to the Aging Consumer
The aging baby boomer generation is spending, tweeting, and staying active—and in the process obliterating past assumptions about older consumers and how to meet their needs. For marketers, future growth may rely on how well they market to aging consumers.
[Read Article]

More consumer products & retail publications and articles

Winning Advertisers At The Social Super Bowl
7 February 2012 — CMO.com
Of the approximately 75 Super Bowl ads this year, only a few really enriched their Super Bowl campaigns with social media; the rest seemed content spending millions to show a commercial with a URL slapped on the tail end.
By Jim Singer
[Read Article]

Want to Improve Your Social Media Reputation? Better Learn to Understand It First
23 January 2012 — Chain Store Age
In a new study, A. T. Kearney and ListenLogic have looked at the impact of social media on retail customer service. Our results suggest that most businesses have a long way to go before they can even understand their current social media presence — let alone understand how to use that information.
by Jim Singer and Mark Langsfeld
[Read More]

Stop the Roller Coaster
Apparel retailers have been on a sourcing roller coaster for nearly 30 years. Today, as factory capacity declines and raw-material costs and wages rise, retailers are looking for a smarter approach to apparel sourcing.
[Read Article]

Speculate or Integrate: Rethinking Agricultural Commodity Markets
Global consumer packaged goods companies are struggling to meet the challenges of supply security and price volatility in agricultural commodities. The time is right to consider a fresh approach to commodity sourcing that focuses on the underlying causes of volatility.
[Read Article]

Stop the Roller Coaster — A Smarter Approach to Apparel Sourcing
16 November 2011 — ApparelStrategist.com
There is no silver-bullet solution for today’s tough sourcing problems. But there are smart steps retailers can take to prepare for—and respond to—the market’s changing landscape.
By Sanjay Srikanth, Esteban Bowles, Chris Callieri, Deepa Neary
[Read Article]

What Do Mature Consumers Want?
The world's population is growing older, thanks to falling birthrates and longer lifespans. The A.T. Kearney Global Maturing Consumer study interviews 3,000 people 60 and older to show how this demographic "agequake" means far-reaching effects for retailers and manufacturers.
[Read Article]

What Traditional Retailers Can Learn from the Discounters
Discount retailers know how to deliver the goods—literally. Traditional retailers can share in discounters' success by replicating some of the key elements of supply chain efficiency.
[Read Article]

Will India Become Old Before It Becomes Rich?
How does India improve its infrastructure, education and other areas to ensure that the country becomes rich before it becomes old?
[Read Article]

The Case for "Compact Hypermarkets" in India
Urban India remains a coveted market for organized retailers, yet they still struggle to make a dent in dense areas. "Compact hypermarkets” could be the answer by finding the middle ground between hypermarkets and local kiranas.
[Read Article]

Retail Global Expansion: A Portfolio of Opportunities—2011 Global Retail Development Index™
The 2011 Global Retail Development Index reflects dramatic changes in the global economy and the different ways in which developing countries have been affected. As retail giants make big investments to enter new markets, they are learning that retail expansion is a portfolio game.
[Read Article]

GRDI: A 10-Year Retrospective
Since the first Global Retail Development Index was released in 2002, international retailers have increased their presence in developing markets. This GRDI 10th anniversary report looks back at a decade of change for global retail development and reviews the lessons learned from the successes and failures.
[Read Article]

Improving Foodservice Trade Spending
The foodservice industry is emerging from one of the leanest periods in its history. The recession caused people to reduce both their number of visits to restaurants and their spending levels—trends that may outlast the recession. Foodservice manufacturers are tightening their belts and putting trade spending squarely in the crosshairs.
[Read Article]

Winning the Battle for Consumer Healthcare
A new “consumer healthcare” segment is emerging halfway between mass retail-based consumer goods and pharmaceuticals—and giants in these two industries are forming a new battleground. The winners in this new segment will likely use a mixed model that features capabilities from each industry.
[Read Article]

Boosting Fill-Rate Performance Through Collaboration
Today's competitive business environment requires consumer packaged goods (CPG) firms to perform increasingly complex tasks. This has made it challenging to keep fill rates—the percentage of a retailer's orders satisfied by stock at hand—above 90 percent.
[Read Article]

Africa: Consumers, Consumers Everywhere...
Africa's large and growing "consumer class" offers a great opportunity for CPG firms.
[Read Article]

To Boost Sales, Stock a Little of Everything
Q2 2010 — Supply Chain Quarterly
The answer to the problem of low-volume SKUs may seem counterintuitive, but experience shows benefits from stocking small quantities of every product at every store and centralizing replenishment decisions.
By Laurent Chevreux
[Read Article]

India Retailers: Improving Category Management
For Indian retailers, sound category management is the key to improving sales and margins, and making customers happy.
[Read Article]

The Customer Care Revolution
3 August 2009 - destinationCRM.com
A real revolution is taking place in CRM, mainly because customer care is central to creating a revenue moat around customer satisfaction, retention, and loyalty.
By Sid Dayal
[Read Article]

Study on Achieving Excellence in Retail Operations
20 October 1020 — Chain Store Age
A.T. Kearney recently executed the Achieving Excellence in Retail Operations (AERO) study, with 53 leading retailers, to provide insight into how retailers can improve their retail operations.
By Dean Hillier
[Read Article]

Quantifying Creativity
How can firms quantify creative work to determine the best way to compensate advertising agencies? Several models have emerged.
[Read Article]

The Private-Brand Conundrum
As private labels gain market share, CPG firms can stay ahead of the pack by striking a balance between competing and collaborating. [Read Article]

Measure Twice, Cut Once
Planning, attention to detail, and tested programs build excellence in retail operations.
[Read Article]

Sustainability—A Product Life-Cycle Approach
For leading consumer goods companies, sustainability is a cradle-to-grave process, and a pillar of future growth. [Read Article]

The Soap-Holder Effect: Acting on Behalf of Your Customers
It's hard to imagine a product manager proposing a solution that will reduce consumption, revenues, market share and perhaps even negotiating power with retailers. That is, unless you believe we are in a different market where consumers are reevaluating their most basic purchase decisions. [Read Article]

When the Trend Is Not Your Friend
How often are companies overtaken by unforeseen events? Anything from a food scare to a hurricane can cause a profound change in the business environment. Whether such shifts are good or bad, they all offer a lesson. [Read Article]

Make vs. Buy Revisited
To answer this classic manufacturing question best, companies must account for long-term strategy. [Read Article]

Covert Pricing: Expanding Profitable Business Behind Enemy Lines
One way to survive online price wars is to avoid them altogether. Covert pricing skirts the online dust-up by surreptitiously offering short-lived promotional prices to micro-segments of customers. To ensure wins are not one-time events, the promotional prices change constantly—as do the targeted customers. [Read Article]

Eliminating the Print and Digital Divide
Magazine websites are vital for attracting readers, but how can they help strengthen print sales and boost the brand? [Read Article]

"Outside the Box" Distribution
Best-in-class distribution can help companies become more efficient, more effective and more flexible to change. [Read Article]

Long Live the Reader
As magazine readership slips, publishers need to go beyond circulation management to multifaceted revenue and profit management. [Read Article]

Unleashing the Shopper Marketing Engine
Shopper marketing has emerged as a prevalent trend on the agendas of CPG manufacturers. But implementing it successfully means installing the right structure to make it work. [Read Article]

Local Impact Marketing
More companies are using localized, personalized marketing techniques to engage customers in the brand experience. [Read Article]

Retail After the Crash
In these tough economic times, retailers have no way of knowing where the recession is going or how long it will last. The only certainty is that the landscape is shifting. “Mega forces” are long-term structural changes that will reshape the industry permanently. “Wild cards” are shorter-term trends that will likely only affect the near future. By understanding both types of change, retailers can plan more effectively and gain an edge on the competition. [Read Article]

How to Act Multi-Local
Over the years, many branded consumer goods manufacturers have learned the lesson that marketing organizations that work well in large countries underperform in small to mid-sized markets. [Read Article]

Retail's Recession Survivors: Not Waiting for a Rescue
Survivors do not passively await rescue. They remain focused on the endgame—using the recession as an opportunity to plan, prepare and prime their organization for postrecession prosperity. [Read Article]

Capitalizing on Consumer Agony
Nearly every business sector has experienced depressed sales and fewer orders during the current recession, and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) retailing is no exception. [Read Article]

Putting the Wholesaler in the Driver's Seat
By emulating leading practices from the retail industry, wholesalers can boost profitability and gain competitive advantage. [Read Article]

Talent Triage
Corporate leaders and boards of directors are recognizing that consumer trends and industry dynamics are changing the rules of the game, for sales in particular. And nowhere is this change more evident than in the consumer packaged goods industry, where the quality of salespeople has as much to do with success as the quality of the product. [Read Article]

Windows of Hope for Global Retailers
The larger, more resilient emerging markets sit atop the 2009 GRDI as they are most likely to lead the economic recovery. [Read Article]

Food Safety in China
Although China has made great strides economically, it still needs a reliable food safety and distribution system to serve its growing market. [Read Article]

Cultivating Smart Complexity
Recession-weary and buried under too much of everything, customers are saying no thanks to more products. Companies are happy to oblige, but first have to contend with the complex tangle of products and processes left over from the "more is more" culture. [Read Article]

Harnessing Customer Energy
Armed with the power of technology, customers are influencing, selecting and assembling their own products. [Read Article]

Some Thoughts about how to Survive the Retail Crisis
12 January 2009 — Mass Market Retailers
Retailers who successfully act on basic tenets will improve their survival chances, strengthen their companies, and position them to take full advantage of the cyclical upturn when it returns. By Esteban Bowles, Sanjay Srikanth and Anthony Romano (recent EVP and chief supply chain officer at Ann Taylor Stores Corp.) [Read Article]

Pricing: An Eternity of Frustration?
Success in pricing is not an impossible task. As long as you know the rules. [Read Article]

Cost and Sustainability: The Dual Challenge for Retailers
22 September 2008 — Mass Market Retailers
There is a near perfect storm facing retailers,including those that traditionally thrive in tough economic times: an economy increasingly battered by rising global commodity costs, a severe housing crisis and high gasoline prices.
By Dean Hillier and Raju Karki [Read Article]

Supply Chain Globalization
By implementing supply chain globalization strategies—particularly those designed to meet the unique needs and demands of global consumers—companies are discovering new ways to grow and prosper. [Read Article]

A good merger, like a good marraige, requires clear communications and making good use of your time together. So setting up a "clean room" with a one-way flow of information is no way to manage a merger. An honest forum with both parties will give any merger a much-needed boost. [Read Article]

Get Control of Your Inventory
April 2008 — Supply & Demand Chain Executive
To a chief financial officer, inventory is often a line item on the balance sheet that measures inventory turns against the income statement. This COGS analysis provides an overall view of how much inventory is held across the company's supply chain. What it doesn't provide are the reasons why the inventory is there in the first place.
By Sumit Chandra, Shalin Shah and Kumar Venkataraman [Read Article]

How to achieve maximum value from data synchronization
February 2008 — Canadian Grocer
In an industry such as grocery where net profits are in the low single digits, every small improvement can mean the difference between profit and loss.
By Paul Inglis [Read Article]
Posted with permission from Canadian Grocer.

Put on Your Glasses: Avoiding Myopia in the Global Glass Industry
The global glass industry is experiencing an intense shift in the balance of power between glass producers and customers. It is time to buy global, manage complexity, and rediscover the power of supplier partnerships. [Read Article]

Tailor-Made for Success: Turning Customization into a competitive advantage
With a widely cited statistic showing 60 to 80 percent of final buying decisions made in stores, the fight for the consumer's eye is shifting from the TV and computer screens to the shelves. [Read Article]

Hitting Back: Strategic Responses to Low-Cost Rivals
January 2008 — Strategy & Leadership
The way to beat low-cost competitors that have the potential to become serious competitors is to identify and deal with them early, before they get a foothold in a market. By Jim Morehouse, Bob O'Meara, Christian Hagen and Todd Huseby
[Read Article]

The End of the Village Store
Throw away those business models that have accumulated since B-school and beyond. It's time to adapt your strategies and supply chains for customers who want everything now. [Read Article]

Serving the Low-Income Consumer: How to Tackle This Mostly Ignored Market
Conventional wisdom says there isn't any money to earn from selling products to low-income consumers. But when 78 percent of the global population fits into this group, it's time to ignore conventional wisdom. [Read Article]

A Call to Action: Ensuring Food Safety in China
While food scares in China garner the headlines, an A.T. Kearney study finds that fixing the problem can be boiled down to four steps: standards, enforcement, supply chains and private-sector investment. The potential of the Chinese market is well worth the effort. [Read Article]

China Product Safety: Whose Battle Is This, Anyway?
Careful where you point the finger of blame in the latest food and product safety scandal. The real culprit in the fight just might be you. [Read Article]

Keep Your Eye on the 'I'
As the cost of marketing goes up, companies are looking for a better way to measure the effectiveness of their marketing and advertising programs. Most companies concentrate on the ambiguous “R” in return on investment—when the “I” offers a much clearer picture. [Read Article]

Delivering the Good(s): Sustainability Takes Center Stage
The three commandments—go green, get sustainable, be ethical—are wooing corporate disciples who understand that embracing these values is an opportunity to cultivate. [Read Article]

CRM Take/Two
The value of CRM isn't determined by what you're deploying so much as why you're deploying it. What competitive advantage are you trying to create? What leadership commitments are you willing to make? [Read Article]

Emerging Opportunities in BRIC: Brazil, Russia, India and China.
The four giant emerging markets — Brazil, Russia, India and China — lead the charge in global retail opportunities. [Read Article]

"No Insult" Pricing and Promotions
Traditional pricing strategies are coming up short against the likes of Wal-Mart and Costco. There must be a better way. [Read Article]

Destination Latin America: A Near-Shore Alternative
Latin America has arrived front and center as a desirable offshore destination. As a “near-shore” destination, Latin America has what many U.S. and some European companies want: low-cost Spanish-language capability and a growing, relatively low-cost, skilled bilingual workforce. [Read Article]

Can Department Stores Stage a Comeback?
Rather than being product emporiums filled with too much merchandise, department stores should be targeting niche markets. [Read Article]

Growing Talent as if Your Business Depended on It
In this Harvard Business Review article, based on our research in 2004-2005 with companies in a range of industries, we explain what makes a successful leadership development program.
[Read Article]

Building a Legacy
Mega-sporting events should extend beyond new jobs and tourism to advance social and economic development, and inspire national pride. [Read Article]

China Cold Chain Is Heating Up
Frozen foods are not yet household staples in China, but it won't be long before they are. How to move them to consumers? [Read Article]

Transforming Trade Spend
Getting less for more is always an unsustainable equation, and trade spend is no exception. [Read Article]

Playing for Profits
Sports success must be balanced with business success. Not every soccer club can be a Manchester United, but every club can be a money maker. [Read Article]

Meet Your Customers All Over Again
To reclaim lost territory against niche players and powerhouses, traditional grocery retailers need to take a fresh look at their customers. [Read Article]

How Low Should You Go?
In a Wal-Mart world, pricing right is trickier than ever. But undercutting your biggest rival may not be the answer. [Read Article]

Finding New Answers to the Pricing Question
Success is more than selling "value," it is determining how to split the value equitably between you and your customers. [Read Article]

The Counterfeiting Paradox
Counterfeiting is a billion-dollar industry. When it comes to prevention, all eyes are on China. [Read Article]

Research & publications archive