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Making space to grow in consumer goods

CPGs that radically rethink their foundations to operate as digital businesses can seize the opportunity to grow digital commerce.

The consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry is experiencing the largest channel proliferation and fundamental shift in the relationship between consumers and manufacturers ever. It’s a significant opportunity for CPGs to reinvent their role in the industry.

Digital commerce is becoming simply commerce

The online-offline paradigm is beyond outdated and the path to consumption is increasingly fluid. Consumers aren’t buying in one way. They move across digital and physical touchpoints all the time in everything from purchasing groceries to getting medical care.

Customers are no different. They want the same seamless experiences in their professional dealings with CPGs that they have as consumers – and most of them (87%) believe that that answer is in B2B commerce solutions that mimic the B2C experience.

Digital engagement is the single biggest driver of commerce online, and in the store. Welcome to the new era of commerce.

Welcome to the new era of commerce

CPGs have a growing opportunity to rethink their digital strategy and become digital inside and out. It’s time to grow digital commerce.

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Ninety-four percent of consumers across 13 countries purchase through digital commerce channels today

The future of digital commerce

Digital commerce channels are proliferating at a staggering rate. More and more channels are being created to meet consumer and customer needs. As new channels emerge, existing channels evolve.

Today, we identify fourteen material channels to engage consumers and customers and this number will continue to grow.

Driving profitable growth in this environment requires CPGs to navigate the complexity of operating in near real-time across numerous channels while effectively managing the growing costs of participation and delivering a consistent, omnichannel experience.

To master the digital commerce landscape, CPGs must build the right capabilities and capacity to seamlessly orchestrate activities within and across channels.

Watch the full conversation or a topic of your choice from the selection below. To learn more about the opportunities ahead, contact the team to take action now.

The future of digital commerce for CPGs

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What does this mean for the C‑Suite?

The shifts in CPG commerce are a departure from how things have always been done. Taking advantage of them demands key decisions from all leaders – and changes across the business.

CEO/COO

  • What capabilities do we need to drive profitable growth?
  • How do we raise our digital commerce IQ and acquire and retain talent?
  • How do we become a more data driven, systematic and agile organization?

CMO/CDO

  • What percentage of our customers’ shopping is online—and in which channels?
  • Are we keeping pace with social commerce trends?
  • Do our operating model and roles support our brands’ online presence?

CSO

  • Which channels/partners should we prioritize by market?
  • How do we digitize the fragmented trade route to market for growth + efficiency?
  • How do we evolve our RGM strategy to support digital commerce?

CIO/CTO

  • How do we design our commerce architecture for growth?
  • What delivery model supports our brands’ B2C, B2B and B2B2C needs?
  • How do we build our talent strategy using both internal and partner resources?

What leaders do differently

Own the brand experience in commerce

With commerce being an increasingly critical consumer engagement channel in CPG, the brand experience should be consistent in every relevant channel. Every time.

Build better for the business of commerce

CPGs can make change happen by building the technology foundation to be more data-driven and integrating processes to be more agile.

Become digital on the outside – and the inside

It is key for CPGs to join up Marketing, Sales and Commerce, and the rest of the organization to operate with true agility.

Control your own commerce future

To be successful in digital commerce, CPGs can continue to follow where the wave of change takes them or they can gain control by developing a strategy that addresses six fundamentals: 

Pinpoint where to play

Avoid the trap of showing up equally in every channel. CPGs should develop their channel strategies to understand the value potential of every channel by category, brand and geography.

Focus end to end

Build engagement and drive conversion by creating commerce capabilities that provide truly seamless omnichannel experiences across channels.

Go with big, bold tech

Develop a unified platform ecosystem that integrates across the value chain to manage the commerce business.

Get rid of guesswork

Build a secure consumer and customer data foundation to access data insights that drive performance and optimize investments.

Unravel complexity

Establish operations that manage the complexity of execution across multiple channels and respond in real-time to changing market dynamics.

Supercharge operations

Redesign the operating model to enable seamless consumer and customer journeys.

Meet the team

Oliver Wright

Senior Managing Director – Consumer Goods & Services, Global Lead
LinkedIn

Nevine El-Warraky

Managing Director – Accenture Song, Products Industry Lead
LinkedIn

Kaus Rajnish

Managing Director – Accenture Strategy, Consumer Goods & Services
LinkedIn

Frequently asked questions

Digital commerce is the buying and selling of products or services through digital channels. This includes selling to either consumers or customers through direct or indirect channels.

Examples include direct-to-consumer channels, such as branded websites that sell directly to consumers and indirect-to-consumer channels, such as retailer, marketplace, and social sites where brands sell through the channels to consumers. Equivalently there are both direct and indirect to business channels, such as brand owned B2B portals and wholesaler portals respectively.

Digital commerce has created more options for consumers and customers to buy what they need on their terms. In addition, it has given brands a more direct relationship with consumers and customers through the digital pages and storefronts they now manage. It has also created an opportunity for material growth for the brands that rethink how they engage consumers and customers and operate as digital businesses.

The scale of digital commerce can be a significant challenge given the growing responsibilities for brands to own their experiences across all retailers, such as the product descriptions, images, retail media, and consumer feedback. In addition, digital commerce doesn’t create more consumers or needs, but it does create more channels which increases costs for the sales of those same products. This means brands must automate and systematize their capabilities to ensure they win market share while protecting margins.