Retail moves on customer expectations, supply chains, and outdated systems all shifting at once.
We help retailers run enterprise programs and modernize the systems behind them, then turn the
data they already have into decisions that keep pace with customers instead of catching up to them.
Retail
The biggest risk in
Retail is falling behind
the customer.
Where we do our best work
Retail challenges we know from the inside out.
We've worked alongside retailers through a wide range of transformations, and that experience gives us a real understanding of the challenges they face, the what's driving them, and what it takes to move forward.
COMMON CHALLENGES
1.
Program & Portfolio Management
Enterprise retail programs affect nearly every part of the business. The customer experience is often the first place where gaps become visible.
The complexity of enterprise retail programs runs deeper than most organizations plan for. Spanning banners, channels, and a customer base with high expectations means the margin for error is thin and the downstream effects are visible. What separates the programs that deliver from the ones that stall is how seriously the organization treats program leadership, design, and change management alongside the plan itself.
How We Help:
- Assess program structures and identify where ownership and accountability are breaking down
- Build the program management discipline needed to drive complex initiatives across multiple workstreams
- Provide senior program leadership capacity when internal teams are stretched too thin
- Create the visibility leadership needs to make good decisions about priorities and resources
- Lead the planning, training, and adoption work that sits between a successful go-live and a successful outcome.
2.
Consumer Insights and Omnichannel Experiences
Most retailers aren’t short on data. The gap is in the foundation, alignment, and processes needed to make it useful.
The omnichannel retail experience spans web, store, fulfillment, and returns, and it runs on data. Most retailers have the data they need. Success depends on building the foundation, alignment, and cross functional processes that turn it into consistent insights and customer experiences.
How We Help:
- Assess the gap between your current data foundation and what it would take to drive consistent insights and experiences across channels
- Build the data strategy, governance, and process foundations needed to make data-driven decision making a repeatable capability
- Align marketing, merchandising, and technology around a shared data and omnichannel roadmap
- Provide embedded data science support to drive analysis, experimentation, and consumer insights
- Design the cross-functional operating model needed to deliver consistent omnichannel experiences across web, store, and fulfillment
3.
Operations and Supply Chain
Retail leaves little room for operational inefficiency. The friction that’s tolerable today becomes a competitive liability tomorrow.
Margin pressure, shifting consumer demand, and relentless competition leave little room for operational drag. Most retail organizations know where the inefficiencies often live. They live in fulfillment bottlenecks, supplier onboarding gaps, and store processes that have outgrown their original design. Finding the capacity to fix them without slowing the business down is where the real work begins.
How We Help:
- Assess store, fulfillment, and supply chain workflows to identify friction and quantify the cost
- Redesign operational processes that have outgrown the business they were built to support
- Lead process improvement initiatives that deliver results without disrupting day-to-day operations
- Apply data and analytics to identify operational inefficiencies, improve inventory positioning, and sharpen supply chain decision making
4.
Organizational Transformation
Customer expectations in retail don’t stay still. Neither can the organizations trying to meet them.
Retail organizations are constantly being asked to transform. New systems, new operating models, new ways of serving customers across channels. Most underinvest in the program design, governance, and change management that determines whether those transformations deliver. The gap between a successful launch and a successful adoption is almost always a people problem.
How We Help:
- Assess organizational readiness before major transformations and system implementations go live
- Design and lead transformation programs with the governance, structure, and change strategy needed to deliver lasting results
- Support enterprise system implementations with the program leadership and change management needed to drive adoption
- Build change management strategies and training programs tied to how retail teams actually work
- Measure adoption and adjust approaches when rollout isn’t landing the way it was intended
5.
Platform Modernization
Modernizing legacy retail systems requires more than picking the right platform. The work surrounding it is where most efforts succeed or fail.
POS, OMS, and ERP platforms are the backbone of retail operations, and replacing them is never straightforward. The technology decision is just the starting point. Getting it right requires the right sequencing, business process redesign, and organizational change work to make sure the new system delivers what the old one couldn’t.
How We Help:
- Assess your current technology landscape against what the business actually needs
- Lead system selection and build a sequenced modernization roadmap that manages risk and minimizes disruption
- Redesign the business processes that run on top of legacy systems before the new platform goes live
- Manage architecture, integration, and testing to make sure the system performs the way the business requires
- Lead the organizational change work that platform migrations almost always underestimate
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The Gunter Group didn’t come in with a pre-determined answer. They spent the first few weeks asking questions–and that’s exactly what we needed. We had been solving the wrong problem for two years.”– VP of Digital Commerce Specialty Retail Company
Results that reflect the work behind them.
$150M
Enterprise opportunity unlocked through legacy platform migration.
22k
Employees enabled during global ERP deployment.
150 1,500
Retail technology organization scaled.
OUR IMPACT & PERSPECTIVES
Retail insights
Case Study
One dashboard replaced hundreds of disconnected reports.
Read more
Press
Retail’s technology problem is usually a process problem in disguise
Read more
Podcast
Process optimization starts with leadership.
Read more
Our Experts
Meet the people leading this work.
Our retail engagements are led by senior practitioners who have sat on the client side, understand the pressures, and stay invested in the outcome.
Jim Calko
Principal,
Execution Practice Leader
Jim has led some of The Gunter Group’s largest retail and footwear engagements, including multi-year programs for global sportswear brands across digital, ad tech, content planning, and contact center transformation. He understands how fast retail moves and how quickly disciplined execution becomes the difference between a launch that lands and one that doesn’t. Retail clients rely on him when the business pressure won’t wait.
Jenna Train
Principal,
People Practice Leader
Jenna has spent much of her career inside the retail industry, from Nike and Columbia Sportswear to global engagements with Walmart, The Home Depot, and Sobeys.
She knows how retail organizations make decisions and where change typically gets stuck between corporate and the field. Her work helps retail leaders build the structures and capabilities that hold up after the program ends.
Work With Us
Retail moves fast. The conversation doesn’t have to.
Tell us what you're working through. We'll take the time to understand what's driving it before we suggest a path forward.