A recent stream of work we've been doing on shopper insight & smarter retail concepts with Reckitt Benckiser has been picked up by Marketing Week.

Read the online copy of the article here and get in touch with Mark Cowan to learn more about how we can help leverage shopper insight. 

Operational Excellence - the mantra that came into fashion in the early nineties of the previous century and one that is still fanatically preached across the globe. It beholds the complete mastery of one's primary business processes. It allows for surgical accuracy in delivering output to spec. It lives in Centers of Excellence clustered on every continent. The business breathes, eats and drinks Lean, Six Sigma, 5s, TQM.

Who would have thought there could ever be a downside to delivering a job to perfection? Well, it turns out there is. Many of the process superstars that grew to dominate their markets through Operational Excellence have fallen prey to its stillborn twin: Systemic Inertia. Think Dell, Circuit City and even the superheroes at Toyota.