the future of retail for bolton group
By connecting Bolton Group with comprehensive research and thought-leader insights, Cosaris enhanced their global network and connected them with innovative solutions from key market players via an immersive multimedia boardroom briefing for their C-level stakeholders. Connecting with retailers, FMCG manufacturers and disruptive start-ups, Cosaris consulted on retail forecast and future strategy, delivered actionable industry analysis, forged new partnerships and led Bolton Group to discover their own creative answers to retail roadblocks.
Bolton Group
Milan, Italy
11,000+ employees
High-end consumer produce
Food / Homeware / Cosmetics
Top Challenges
Covid-19, increase in discount shopping, online shopping, international legislation and taxing
Why Cosaris?
- Ability to turnaround brief within urgent timeframe of two weeks
- Enhanced their global network
- Provided detailed analysis of current market state
- Consulted on forecast and future strategy
Key project successes
- Delivering actionable analysis
- Connecting their team with industry thought leaders
- Providing multimedia presentation of insights
- Bolton Group targeted their key challenges based on data and insights providedided
THEIR CHALLENGE
The world of shopping and consumer behaviour has never been more tumultuous. Bolton Group, as a major international player in the retail market, needed to ensure their future focus and corporate strategy was concentrated in the right direction and on the things which will matter most to their consumers and customers. They needed retail insights, professional forecasts, and the next big innovations within commerce, and they needed it fast. Within a two-week timescale their CEO required a solid industry analysis, facts, figures, real-life examples, and creative answers to their problems from across the world.
A BESPOKE SOLUTION
The Bolton Group reached out to us to connect them with unique and innovative ways of addressing the challenges facing their industry. They wanted to engage with our wide, diverse global network and industry expertise to benefit from a ‘wholistic’ view and deep, well-researched data. All of Cosaris’ solutions are bespoke to each client and their specific brief.
“When you do this kind of desk research, it’s fundamental to know where to search. The information flow today is huge – and if you don’t select the right information, you risk not getting the right insight.
“I was asking for very specific information, and Cosaris was very proactive in providing it. The conversation was not one way. It was two-way and constructive.”
A 360º CONNECTION
Learning
The best solution to a problem is to talk about it and learn how to identify and overcome it.
At Cosaris we provided Bolton Group with informative and proactive educational resources, via an immersive, multimedia boardroom meeting, which were tailor-made in plain language to achieve the most beneficial learning across the brand’s board and employees.
Our unique presentation delivered insights into the retail industry and focused on the threats faced by retailers and suppliers, alongside the opportunities. By combining our own retail industry expertise with the knowledge of our extensive network, we covered not only food, retail and health but also supply chains and sustainability, digital transformation, technology, big data and analytics.
By engaging the C-level team with an interactive learning experience we were able to bring them face-to-face with the reality of challenges like Climate Crisis and Covid-19 whilst providing them the tools to identify and engage with opportunities to overcome them.
With tailored insights from thought-leaders, Cosaris’ approach to learning truly allowed Bolton Group to plug their knowledge gaps and forge new paths in European and global retail.
Collaboration
At Cosaris we know cooperation lies at the heart of humanity and society’s greatest innovations.
Considering this, we showcased how a diverse global network of innovative brands and innovative stakeholders could provide Bolton Group with not just the data they thought they needed, but with insights which make all the difference.
Our partnership also addressed the importance of internal communication to the Bolton Group by providing the brand with analysis, multimedia design, photos and videos which brought the research to life, we ensured the insights were shared and used more effectively by all internal departments. To provide the wholistic view our client needed, it was crucial to find the right people, places, and resources from which to gather data and insights and combining our networks delivered more than expected as well as forging new pathways for innovation going forward.
By connecting Bolton Group with our diverse, global network we guaranteed firstly that we could deliver the research within the short timeframe but also that we ensured targeted insights to their challenges as well as unique innovative ideas which created new opportunities for them to explore.
Engagement
With research showing disengaged employees cost $7.8 trillion globally in lost productivity, Cosaris understands the importance of building engagement.
For Bolton Group, we instigated a transformation within the Bolton Group by showcasing what results they can achieve when they engage with connections outside of their normal scope and then use these connections to retrofit their own brand’s approach.
In multi-stakeholder organisations we don’t think of employees simply as paid staff but we engage every single stakeholder who impacts the organisation, which for Bolton Group included its consumers and also customers across the retail industry. To deliver results and connectivity across all these groups we pushed Bolton’s C-Level team to engage with ideas and solutions from outside to create a discussion internally allowing them to build buy-in for the road ahead by showcasing how others achieved it before.
As Bolton Group’s CEO, Attilio Boni, highlighted: “It’s important to communicate with the right target in the right way, and this was one of the positive outcomes of Cosaris’ research.”
Experiences
Cosaris believe experiences can change the way people think about doing business.
In our partnerships we know that sometimes it’s about collaborating with each organisation differently and ensuring we not only deliver to their brief but work with them to deliver even more from an experience than they were expecting. In addition to the bespoke learning experience for Bolton Group, we delivered over 100 pages of free resources providing more in-depth insights and through our additional insights we ensured added value and opportunities for the brand to engage with the topic further.
At Cosaris we ensure all our communications and content are insightful and interactive, for Bolton Group the multimedia nature of the resources we provided resulted in increased shareability and internal connectivity. Even insights can be transformed into an experience which inspires stakeholders, drives cooperation and ensuring more people across your network are invested in your vision.
Bolton Group’s CEO, Attilio Boni, said: “Cosaris are not rigid. They listen and understand the brief in a very flexible way. They are open to adapt and look for answers according to the needs of the company that’s asking.”
