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"Collaboration is more of a framework for how to go to market. It's less about what to do in all the chaos." — Kenji Gjovig, Managing Director, Bayfield Consulting
Brands and retailers operate nearly every day in a highly pressurized, ever-changing environment. Whether it’s meeting new demands associated with retail media, figuring out how to incorporate TikTok into their ecommerce strategy, or optimizing for growth and efficiency amid economic uncertainty, brands and retailers often have to navigate turbulence.
With all these challenges, retail collaboration has never been more important, says Kenji Gjovig, managing director at Bayfield Consulting, which provides strategic expertise to Rite-Aid and several other leading consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands.
Gjovig joined a recent episode of the "Unpacking the Digital Shelf" podcast, "A Collaborative Mindset in Highly Pressurized Times," to share why retail collaboration is the secret weapon companies can unlock to steady their business and drive transformation in these resource-constrained times.
Gjovig has spent nearly his entire career fostering collaboration in high-stakes environments. He started his career in the U.S. Navy aboard submarines before transitioning into the retail industry. He then worked as a buyer for Sam’s Club before running its supplier collaboration program. Next, he took the program to Walmart.com before joining Albertson’s to lead its ecommerce business.
Gjovig’s years of industry experience have taught him the value of collaboration for driving and navigating change.
"I think of collaboration as a little bit less of what to do, and I think about it more as how to do it," he says. "It's a framework for an operating model. It's really focusing on cross-functional collaboration, optimizing the relationship, building trust, making sure everyone is operating efficiently. It's really about how to approach the work. That's really why I put collaboration to the forefront of everything I do in my career."
Retail collaboration has become critical in today’s commerce environment because of several market shifts, including the rise of retail media, omnichannel fulfillment, and, most recently, generative artificial intelligence (AI). To thrive amid all these disruptions, retailers and brands have no choice but to work together to achieve their respective and mutual goals.
But fostering collaboration between retailers and brands isn’t as simple as just having the right stakeholders in a meeting. It requires intention and a solid framework, Gjovig says.
"I've never felt that people were unwilling to collaborate," Gjovig says. "I felt that it was more about that collaboration wasn't always the focus, and so people just jumped into the details, and there were inefficiencies and silos that just developed."
"Taking a step back to really implement some principles of collaboration, or even a process of collaboration, really helps clarify things." — Kenji Gjovig, Managing Director, Bayfield Consulting
During his podcast appearance, Gjovig shared several steps brands and retailers can take to develop a better framework for collaboration.
"Brands should approach partnership with retailers from a thought-leadership perspective," Gjovig says.
Retailers are what Gjovig calls “the hub of the wheel.” So many brands and suppliers want to talk to them to influence their decision-making or to get information that helps them strengthen their business relationships. Because there’s no clear playbook for navigating these conversations — the result is chaos.
Gjovig says brands can overcome this by being proactive.
"If the retailer doesn't show up with 'here is how to work with us,' then I think it's important for the suppliers to present an option for that, or at least to say, 'Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Retailer, here is how we typically go to market,'" he says.
Brands also need to introduce their team and clearly define who’s accountable for what as it relates to the retailer relationship, which means:
Brands also need to give retailers insight into their approach to budgeting and funding. Brands can provide a custom org chart, one comprehensive email, or a reference guide to set the table for how they’ll collaborate.
"Providing some clarity to the retailer about who's who and providing kind of a go-to-market can be really helpful," Gjovig says.
Retailers can focus on innovation to improve collaboration with brands.
Gjovig says he did this at Walmart through initiatives such as the first-ever Walmart.com supplier summit, where his team shared Walmart’s ecommerce strategy with suppliers.
"I remember a major supplier coming to me after a meeting — not even the summit — and he said, 'Kenji, that was the best Walmart meeting we've ever had,' because they got to learn so much about how to partner with Walmart across different functions and different channels including ecommerce," Gjovig says.
Walmart also custom-built an ecommerce analytics and content management platform to optimize the digital shelf for brands.
"This helped brands really engage with retailers in a different way," Gjovig says. "They improved the customer experience of their digital shelf. It showed the retailers that they were serious about listening to what the retailers wanted in terms of 'here's how best to meet our customers.'"
Gjovig says a holistic approach to joint business planning doesn’t always work. Retailers and brands will need to decide how to structure their business planning based on the needs of their respective organizations and what’s required to achieve their shared goals.
"It depends on the nature and state of the business, but you really have to know exactly what problem you're trying to solve," he says. "If you're trying to solve an enterprise problem, it needs to be omnichannel. If you're trying to solve a single-channel problem because that's where the pain point is, and [there’s a] lack of partnership and collaboration and knowledge, then you really have to deep dive there."
Retailers and brands face multiple headwinds, as everything from retail media to GenAI upends how they engage consumers and stand out on the digital shelf.
In ecommerce, change is the only constant, but retailers and brands can harness the power of retail collaboration to navigate all these headwinds effectively, according to Gjovig.
"It's important for brands and retailers to learn, partner, test, share learnings, collaborate, and iterate," he says. "That's the only way we're going to figure it out is if we figure it out together."
To hear more of Gjovig’s perspective on collaboration, listen to the full episode.
