Digital Disruption in Retailing and Beyond

Abstract

The increased disruption of business models through digital technologies creates opportunities and challenges for retail businesses and their network partners. Digital transformation – the process of digitalization of previously analogue operations, procedures, organizational tasks, and managerial processes in order to drive value for customers, employees and other stakeholders – is the order of the day. With that in mind, this article provides a purposeful overview of research in the field of digital transformation with a focus on retailing and customer-facing functions of digital technologies such as managing customer journeys, assessing the impact of sensory marketing and the use of service robots on the one hand, and their strategic implications for business models such as servitization on the other. This article concludes by highlighting immediate as well as long-term challenges in the field, with a focus on disruptive technologies, innovations and trends that retail marketing-management will likely face in the near future.