Change - surviving it and even thriving on it - was the overarching theme of Food & Drink Business LIVE: Industry of the Future Forum 2014 held on Monday morning at Royal Randwick Racecourse in Sydney.
Presenters and panellists at the Forum addressed the issue of Australia's changing retail landscape and provided high level guidance on how food and beverage companies can win in this challenging business climate.
The Brand Guy, aka Richard Sauerman, a branding expert and motivational speaker, said we are all having to accommodate change very quickly. Technology is accelerating the rate of change in the world and business is changing at an extraordinary pace.
He says business will navigate change successfully if it thinks and acts like person who's a peak performer. A peak performing brand aims to be the best.
His secret for business success in a world that keeps changing? A secret that has not changed and never will. It's this: “Do epic shit.” Don't be mediocre. Be a person that stands for something. Make your brand stand for something epic.
We also heard what juice brand Nudie did wrong in the face of change, which later became the secret of its success. Richard Glenn, the company's general manager, sales and brand, told the story at Food & Drink Business LIVE.
Nudie burst into a hole in the market in 2002. Nudie stood for juice as close to the best as bottled juice can be (freshly squeezed, with nothing added). It stood for irreverence with an engaging manner of talking. And it stood for having a bit of fun.
Success changes everything, however, and Nudie lost its way. Nudie was failing, not because what it stood for had lost its relevance to retailers and consumers, but because it had lost sight of what it stood for and wasn't delivering on that.
Nudie stands for quality, innovation and fun. And now Nudie leads with a set of guidelines to make sure it stays that way.
Beak & Johnston's founder and MD, David Beak also had a message about how to navigate rapid change - mimic it. He shared the story behind that message at Food & Drink Business LIVE.
It's a message for every business that wants to successfully navigate the rapid changes that are occurring in today's world. It is simple to do, yet few businesses do it. It's act fast.
One of the first changes to which Beak & Johnston adapted was globalisation. The new retail paradigm includes the tearing down of borders. Most retail changes, he stated, impact a global market. And if they don’t impact us [Australians] now, they will in the near future.
The company uses the whole world as a pool for idea and innovations, and it sends “the best teams” to visit suppliers and retailers throughout the world, with one primary purpose: to identify and grab change wherever, and as often as, it can.
Jean-Yves Heude, the former head of Kellogg ANZ, who now heads up ChessMate Consulting, urged attendees to accept the changes taking place in the Australian retail landscape as a new commercial reality. He outlined a five-step methodology he has developed to help companies make this transition.
Also at the event, Stuart Harman, a partner at consulting firm Oliver Wight Asia Pacific, addressed companies transitioning their business to take advantage of the rise of private label manufacturing. He described his own private label learning curve at Bush's Pet Foods (now Australian Pet Brands) and outlined the five key pitfalls to avoid.
Wiley's process engineering director, Steve Christie, meanwhile, described four emerging technologies that would make a big change to the food factory of the future: human centred design, collaborative robots, big data on the factory floor, and a new open innovation model for facility design and construction projects.
For our full coverage of the LIVE event, read the September print issue of Food & Drink Business.
