Environmental Factors and the Future Consumer
I’m part way through a small research piece for an FMCG company that is interested in exploring the future consumer and what kind of environmental factors might influence their purchasing decisions. Interestingly enough toward the end of last year I had three FMCG firms approach me about a similar challenge, so ‘Future Consumers’ must be ‘flavour of the month’ (pun intended). When talking consumers, an Environmental Factor refers to the things that influence the consumer, especially at point of sale and delving into some of the emerging developments in this space is delightfully interesting.
Without giving too much away before I hand my report to my client, there’s a very distinct sense of change in the food sector that suggests a myriad of possibilities in the products space. There’s examples of how data is being used to engage with customers; examples of product stewardship; examples of functionality and more. But perhaps the biggest challenge is what appears to be a shift in price sensitivity over which OTHER factors are being layered. I won’t say much specific here but offer an example from a different but aligned sector: petroleum.
It appears that over the past 12 months, Petroleum has crossed the ‘must have threshold’. In otherwords, regardless of current price, people were going to fill their tanks. But recent Environmental Scanning has identified that the threshold has snapped. Simply put, a confluence of factors (cost per litre, down-sizing by companies leading to job losses, increased acceptability of genuine job flexibility location options and new technology among others) now suggests that consumers are actively choosing to reduce their need for fuel. The cost has become overladen with other factors that heighten consumer sensitivity to it. Environmental Factors are shifting consumer behaviour away from the incumbent.
This has a whole array of other impacts connected to it – less consumption increases prices charged increases less consumption. Higher prices lead to fewer car sales = slump in imports and on it goes.
Building the systems map for my FMCG client is showing some glaring change over the next five to ten years that will potentially capture many current brands by surprise. In summary, the Environmental Factors that influence consumer behaviour appear to be evolving. Opportunities and Risk abound!
Potentially the biggest area of untapped competitive advantage (and arguably one of the biggest areas where costs could be reduced) is within supply chains. Most approaches to Supply Chain Management are linear and isolated with one player trying to squeeze the other with no regard to the overall effect of the full supply chain. It’s…
Read More >There’s a shift underway in the mining industry that will likely catch Australian airlines out if they aren’t paying attention – the shift toward ‘remote’ mining. Remote mining is being pushed by the automation ability across all aspects of current mining technology, which at the basic level, means that fewer humans are needed on site…
Read More >Simple question really. Or is it? In this quick article I provide an overview of the difference between strategy that is D.E.A.D and A.L.I.V.E Think of it as a potential ‘do this’ collection for your Organisation You can download the article for free here – ‘Is your Organisational Strategy D.E.A.D or A.L.I.V.E?’
Read More >Lots of thoughts for the year already underway, with some covering a range of ideas from ‘don’t cut corners on relative incidentals when the project is significant for you’ to ‘you can’t change your approach if you keep thinking inside the same box’. But for now a reminder about planning for your future: If you…
Read More >In thinking about the year ahead I’ve decided to call it the International Year of Resilience. With everything that appears to be going on in the world there’s unlikely to be any quick fixes and so I provide for you here below, my Top 10 Tips for building more resilience into your lives. If you…
Read More >The United Kingdom’s Committee on Climate Change has released a report that shows rising household energy costs are not caused by the apparent burden of environmental policies. Instead the core factor is increases in costs increases of Oil and Gas as the Energy resource sector taps into a ‘growth’ market. You can have a…
Read More >After a great although too brief trip to Islamabad in Pakistan, I joined Vicki Kerrigan on ABC Radio Darwin to discuss the idea of official reports for travelers and who you should believe. Sometimes we fear the unknown because we aren’t well enough informed. In the absence of any other information, the Official line is…
Read More >It’s taken me a while to get the Tourism Thinking piece together given the extensive travel this year that has enabled me to assess where Australia’s tourism is not getting things right. This update won’t paint the full picture (a couple of clients have first crack at this research) but it is important enough to…
Read More >I alert you from the outset that I’m about to make a massive leap of potentially an supportable scientific theory in discussing a potential Wildcard event. If you’re only interested in the concrete real stuff, head elsewhere after you get about half way. I’m going to make a massive leap first of all and then…
Read More >n this MP3 with Paul Dale on ABC Darwin radio we chat about the recent fly past of a large chunk of rock called Asteroid YU55, and what we might do as a species in managing a potential Asteroid impact. We also diverge into the concept of mining Asteroids for their mineral content as the…
Read More >