Guest Column

Rachel needs new shoes to match a dress for her date. She opens her "my wardrobe" app and selects the blue dress she bought last week.

Consumer goods companies in the U.S. and Europe are finding post-recession growth difficult. Many consumer markets are mature and saturated.

The American family has been perhaps the single most important institution in our society.

For retailers, couponing presents a familiar conundrum. While coupons are a proven driver of store traffic and top-line sales, they focus customers' attention on price and create an environment where it's difficult to provide differentiated offers or service levels based on customer value.

Adapted from "Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business" (Harvard Business Review Press) The purpose of every business ultimately revolves around creating value for customers.

While retail sales figures are looking grim, mobile shopping just keeps gaining. During the past holiday season, mobile commerce was up 63 percent in the US, according to Business Insider. That's hardly a silver lining for today's retailers.

Each day our world becomes more complex. We're being bombarded with information and choice while leading busier lives. A typical supermarket in the U.K.

Do your employees trust you? The brutal truth is probably not. It may not be fair, and you may not want to hear it, but chances are that previous leaders have poisoned the ground on which you're trying to grow a successful business.

Being a retailer isn't easy.

Adapted from "Leading the Starbucks Way: 5 Principles for Connecting with Your Customers, Your Products and Your People" (McGraw-Hill) Before we examine the adaptive and progressive strategies Starbucks designed to ensure that the brand stays relevant, let's take a moment to look at one o

Adapted from "Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business" (Harvard Business Review Press) The purpose of every business ultimately revolves around creating value for customers.

By now, retailers have heard about the importance of building relationships with shoppers, improving loyalty to stores and brands, and doing it all by customizing offerings and services for shoppers. To accomplish this, many already are customizing their offerings based on past experience, but they