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Articles by Darrell Rigby
2026 Holiday Shopping Outlook
Bain forecasts 4.5% growth, slightly above the last few years. We expect in-store sales to grow by 2.5%, in line with the last two years, whereas we expect nonstore sales to grow by 9%, returning to higher growth. Nearly 70% of the holiday season total will come from in-store sales, but e-commerce continues to gain share. Retail sales have climbed across most categories this year. But macroeconomic uncertainty could still tip the holiday season in either direction.
Restrukturierung: Teufelskreis der Transformation vermeiden
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The 2026 Retail Executive Agenda
Successfully leading a retail business is getting harder—you’re not imagining it. The S&P Retail Index grew only 12% over the past three years, while the broader S&P rose 21%. The top 100 retailers had an average CEO turnover rate of 22% during the same period, up from 17% over the previous three years, according to our analysis of BoardEx data. Cycles are compressing, there’s no longer safety in scale alone, and iconic brands are going bankrupt.
Spezzate il circolo vizioso della trasformazione
Un articolo satirico pubblicato sul sito The Onion, dal titolo “CEO Unveils Bold New Plan to Undo Damage From Last Year’s Bold New Plan”(“Ceo svela un nuovo piano audace per riparare il danno del nuovo piano audace dell’anno scorso”), irrideva le trasformazioni seriali che si succedono in tante grandi imprese.
Get Off the Transformation Treadmill
Get Off the Transformation Treadmill Too much change can traumatize your organization. The remedy is to minimize the need. by Darrell Rigby and Zach First A satirical article in the Onion titled “CEO Unveils Bold New Plan To Undo Damage From Last Year’s Bold New Plan” parodied the serial transformations that occur at many corporations.
Doing Agile Right
Agile has the power to transform work—but only if it's implemented the right way. For decades, business leaders have been painfully aware of the huge chasm between their aspiration for a nimble, flexible enterprise and the reality of silos, sluggishness, and frustrated innovation. Today, Agile is being hailed as the essential bridge across that chasm. Agile, say its enthusiasts, can transform your company, catapulting you to the head of the pack. Not so fast.
The Power of Strategic Fit in Retail
Retail is both a mirror and a motor of the global economy. Not only does it rapidly reflect shifts in macroeconomic conditions and shopper priorities, but it also propels economic growth around the world. In markets such as the US, where the industry supports more than one in four jobs and contributes more than $5 trillion to annual GDP, retailers trigger powerful chain reactions. When they grow, they create positive economic momentum for the entire country.
2025 Holiday Shopping Outlook
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Il potere del fit strategico
Verso la fine di una lunga sessione di strategia in un’importante azienda dello S&P500, un alto dirigente pose una domanda semplice, ma dalle profonde implicazioni: «Stiamo vincendo?». Prese il via un’accesa discussione. Da un lato, erano quasi due anni che l’azienda registrava risultati finanziari impressionanti, superiori sia ai piani interni che alle aspettative degli analisti, e quasi tutti i dirigenti, grazie a questi risultati, avevano incassato generose gratifiche.
2024 Holiday Shopping: Inside the Latest Retail Sales
Retail’s biggest season is almost here, but retailers may not be feeling the cheer yet. In September, total nominal US retail sales for Bain-defined categories grew just 2.3% year over year, continuing the downward trend that began in July and falling short of last September’s 2.8% growth. Both in-store and nonstore sales lost momentum. The slowdown supports our forecast of a more sluggish holiday season.
Five Shopper-Led Strategies for the Holiday Season
Monthly active user data provided by Sensor Tower, a market intelligence firm. For the full set of consumer insights, please reach out to us at Retail.HolidayNewsletter@Bain.com. Bain forecasts a subaverage 3% growth in US retail sales this holiday season. By following five tips, retailers can still deliver joy.
2024 Holiday Shopping Outlook
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US Department Stores: It’s Time for a New Day One
Once a hotbed of retail innovation, US department stores recently have focused on mere survival. Now, having defied many predictions of their imminent demise, they may be facing a true moment of reckoning. Sales reported by North American department store retail groups declined at a compound annual rate of 6% from 2018 to 2023, an acceleration of the 5% revenue erosion suffered annually in the preceding five years. The financial pressure remains intense, and more department stores are set to close.
What Successful Purpose Statements Do Differently
Sadly, purpose statements at all too many organizations are just empty words. The companies that issue them don’t live up to their lofty promises. But research by Bain & Company identified some companies that are the exceptions. They employ four methods to turn their statements into reality. Most large companies like to have purpose statements. They put those statements on websites, in ads, and maybe on the walls of plants and offices.
How to Build Enduring Value in Retail
It’s time to tie a bow around the 2023 holiday season: US sales in Bain-defined retail categories grew 3.8% year over year, closely aligned with our forecast of 3.0% growth. Read more 2023 Holiday Shopping: Inside the Latest Retail Sales Year-over-year US sales grew roughly in line with our expectations this holiday season. The holiday season provides valuable insight into the health of retailers.
Unwrap Value for the Holidays and Beyond: A Retailer’s Pricing Guide
How We Can Help: Pricing Promotions Flywheel Digital helps consumer brands to grow faster, smarter, and more efficiently with a suite of digital commerce solutions, purpose-built to accelerate growth. For more information about Flywheel Digital, visit flywheeldigital.com. NIQ is a global information services company that delivers a connected, complete, and actionable understanding of the evolving global, omnichannel consumer.
Building a Data-Based Stakeholder Strategy
This article is part of Bain’s 2023 CEO Sustainability Guide Most people will readily agree that the first responsibility of business leaders is to grow the long-term value of their companies. Then debate begins: What is value, and how should it be measured and managed? Is a company’s value maximized by being shareholder-centric, customer-centric, employee-centric, or some-other-stakeholder-centric?
How Corporate Purpose Leads to Innovation
Executives consistently name innovation among their highest priorities … and greatest frustrations. Researchers estimate that 70% to 90% of innovations fail. And despite new organization structures, internal incubators, big data, and even artificial intelligence, there is no evidence those numbers are improving. We have studied hundreds of innovation successes and failures.
How Corporate Purpose Leads to Innovation
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3 étapes pour élaborer une stratégie de parties prenantes
Maximise-t-on la valeur d’une entreprise en la centrant sur les actionnaires, les clients, les salariés ou toute autre partie prenante ? Dans un système complexe où les parties prenantes ont une influence mutuelle sur leurs résultats (des collaborateurs hyper impliqués améliorent la satisfaction des clients, ce qui dope la croissance des profits, etc.), peut-on se permettre de négliger l’une d’entre elles ?
How Do Consumers Feel Heading into the Holidays?
Related 2023 Holiday Shopping: Inside the Latest Retail Sales US retail sales growth was sluggish in August and September, affirming our forecast of muted holiday growth. Data powered by Dynata, a leading global first-party data and insights platform.
2023 Holiday Shopping: Inside the Latest Retail Sales
The highly anticipated holiday season is almost here, but retailers may not feel as much cheer as last year. After a slight acceleration in July and August, total nominal US retail sales for Bain-defined categories grew 2.3% year over year in September, well below last September’s nearly 9% growth. Both in-store and nonstore sales decelerated, contributing to the slowdown. Cooling inflation is one factor bringing the chill, leading to lower nominal sales growth.
2023 Holiday Shopping Outlook
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Creare e implementare una strategia per gli stakeholder
Nel 2019, la Business Roundtable ha sostanzialmente dichiarato la fine dell’era in cui il fine ultimo delle grandi aziende era la massimizzazione del valore per gli azionisti. Al contrario, ha dichiarato che le aziende dovrebbero servire tutti gli stakeholder su cui hanno un impatto materiale e che sono influenzati dalle loro attività di business: clienti, dipendenti, fornitori, comunità e investitori.
Come creare una strategia per gli stakeholder
La maggior parte dei lettori sarà d’accordo nel riconoscere che la prima responsabilità dei leader aziendali è far crescere il valore di lungo termine delle loro imprese. Ma è qui che finisce l’accordo e inizia il dibattito: cos’è il valore, e come si dovrebbe misurare e gestire? Il valore di un’azienda si massimizza mettendo al centro gli azionisti, i clienti, i dipendenti o qualche altro stakeholder?
3 Steps for Creating and Implementing a Stakeholder Strategy
In 2019, the Business Roundtable essentially declared the end of the era when the end all and be all of major corporations was maximizing shareholder value. Instead, it stated that companies should serve all stakeholders that materially impact and are impacted by its business activities: customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and investors. But this notion continues to present challenges that make many business leaders reluctant to embrace stakeholder capitalism.
Three Steps for Creating and Implementing a Stakeholder Strategy
In 2019, the Business Roundtable essentially declared the end of the era when the end all and be all of major corporations was maximizing shareholder value. Instead, it stated that companies should serve all stakeholders that materially impact and are impacted by its business activities: customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and investors. Read the full article on HBR.org (subscription may be required).
A practical guide to designing a stakeholder strategy
15 minute Read By Darrell Rigby, Zach First and Dunigan O’Keeffe Most people will readily agree that the first responsibility of business leaders is to grow the long-term value of their companies. But that’s where the agreement ends and the debate begins: What is value, and how should it be measured and managed? Is a company’s value maximised by being shareholder-centric, customer-centric, employee-centric, or some other-stakeholder-centric?
How to Create a Stakeholder Strategy
This article originally appeared in Harvard Business Review. Most people will readily agree that the first responsibility of business leaders is to grow the long-term value of their companies. But that’s where the agreement ends and the debate begins: What is value, and how should it be measured and managed? Is a company’s value maximized by being shareholder-centric, customer-centric, employee-centric, or some-other-stakeholder-centric?
Management Tools & Trends 2023
Judging from the news, executives would have had every reason to feel uneasy heading into 2023. A global economic downturn, the Great Resignation, soaring inflation, military conflicts, trade wars, crippled supply chains, slumping housing markets, new strains of Covid-19—the doom and gloom seems to be everywhere. So, it was a surprise to find optimism among the more than 1,000 executives and managers who responded to our December survey on management tools and trends.
Holiday Recap: Why Retailers Need an Ecosystem Strategy in an Amazon World
Despite the considerable challenges US retailers faced this holiday season—including overstocked inventory, persistently high inflation, rising input costs, and concerns of an impending recession—Bain-defined nominal holiday sales grew 4.9% year over year on a seasonally unadjusted basis. While these results are lower than most forecasts, including ours, growth stayed in line with the 10-year historical average of 5%.
5 Lessons from Automakers on Navigating Supply Chain Disruptions
As the frequency and magnitude of supply chain disruptions continue to grow, it would be understandable if business leaders’ first instinct is to respond by trying to correct every single flaw or mistake, no matter what it takes, so each disruption never happens again. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that a 100% resilient supply chain is unattainable. Rather, pragmatism and adaptability are proving far more effective. This is the approach that a number of automakers are embracing.
How Retailers and Shoppers Are Weathering Holiday Inflation
US retailers are navigating a holiday season rife with uncertainty. Headlines are full of mixed macroeconomic indicators, from waning consumer confidence and rising interest rates to low unemployment and increasing wages. GDP growth was surprisingly robust in the third quarter, despite continued fears of a recession. And though the Consumer Price Index (CPI) cooled slightly from 8.2% to 7.7% in October, high inflation persists.
Purposeful Business the Agile Way
Humans are built for purposefulness. Ancient philosophers postulated, and modern scientists have proved, that people striving for meaningful lives are mentally healthier, more resilient, and more motivated. They are also physically stronger and live longer. They contribute more to their families, friends, and society at large. Businesses can make purposeful living easier or harder.
Infographic: Three Steps to Stopping Work that Isn’t Working
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2021 Retail Holiday Shopping Outlook
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3 Questions to Help Your Team Solve Problems
When people working with me face a perplexing problem, they often ask for guidance. I can’t help but feel a little flattered. They are obviously stumped, and they expect I will have the answer. My first instinct is to sit back, stroke my chin, recount an impressive story or two, and then tell them what to do. Though incredibly satisfying, this approach rarely works. First, I might not even be solving the right problem.
Three Steps to a Better Budget and Annual Plan
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A Day in the Life of an Agile CEO
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Three Quick Tips on Leading with Agility
While writing our book, Doing Agile Right, we interviewed dozens of Agile executives to learn about their ways of leading. We found that, because people who work on Agile teams are likely to respond to orders with comments like “That might be the right answer, but we’d like to test it first,” Agile requires humility from leaders. It’s a brand of humility that accelerates learning and bolsters the confidence of every team member.
Why Agile Teams Need Their Own Goals
Back to Ask the Authors Q: How can multiple Agile teams work together effectively? Should we establish common goals for them? Author Darrell Rigby responds: In my experience, Agile teams actually do better when they have separate rather than shared goals. The goals should be aligned so that teams are not wasting resources or working at cross-purposes, but aligned goals are different from shared goals.
Doing Agile Right | Darrell Rigby
Doing Agile Right | Darrell Rigby Episode Summary In this episode, I meet the veteran retail consultant and business system guru Darrell Rigby, Partner and Director at Bain & Company and talk about his new book "Doing Agile Right." We explore decades of experience advising C-level executives on making their organizations nimble and responsive, getting his take on retail in the COVID era, and the lessons retailers can and should take away from their experiences.
Ten Resolutions to Ring in the Future of Retail
At a Glance Holiday retail sales far surpassed expectations, growing 8.4% year-over-year, as consumers shifted their spending from travel, entertainment, and dining out to groceries, at-home recreation, and home improvements amid the pandemic. Despite Covid-19, in-store sales were up 3.6% in November and December over the previous year. E-commerce set an all-time record, growing 26%. As retailers face a future defined by uncertainty, 10 resolutions can help transform their business models.
Sunday Book Review: December 6, 2020, the Mind Opening Business Books edition - Compliance Report
What are some of the books which caught my eye over the past week? Find out on the Sunday Book Review for December 6, 2020 in the Mind Opening Business Books edition.
Thriving through change: The National Retail Federation’s CEO discusses agile approaches to a holiday season like no other
We are heading into this holiday season in the midst of a global pandemic and economic downturn. Innovation and agility are vital to just survive. To thrive requires doing agile right. Join Harvard Business Review Senior Editor, Steve Prokesch, in discussion with Matthew Shay, President and CEO of the National Retail Federation, and Darrell Rigby, Bain partner and co-author of Doing Agile Right, as they explore the way businesses are managing unpredictable, accelerating change this holiday season.
Agile Planning and Budgeting
Back to Ask the Authors Q: How do you plan and budget using Agile in a world of unpredictable and accelerating change? Authors Darrell Rigby and Steve Berez respond: Typical planning and budgeting processes require an extraordinary commitment of time and resources. But the bigger problem is that they lock companies into fixed plans in a world of constant change where long-term predictions will be increasingly unreliable.
Start Stopping Faster
Matthias Clamer/Getty Images Business executives could learn a lot from cheetahs, Earth’s most agile land animals. Though their ancestors ran only about 20 miles per hour, today’s cats can accelerate from zero to 60 within three seconds — faster than a Corvette Twin Turbo or a Ferrari Enzo. But speed alone is not what makes cheetahs such awesome hunters. Computer models show that the best predictor of a successful hunt is not a cheetah’s top speed; rather, it’s how fast it stops and turns.
Start Stopping Faster
This article originally appeared on HBR.org (subscription may be required). Business executives could learn a lot from cheetahs, Earth’s most agile land animals. Though their ancestors ran only about 20 miles per hour, today’s cats can accelerate from zero to 60 within three seconds—faster than a Corvette Twin Turbo or a Ferrari Enzo. But speed alone is not what makes cheetahs such awesome hunters.
Doing Agile Wrong
Back to Ask the Authors Q: Why Did You Call Your Book Doing Agile Right? How Are Companies Doing Agile Wrong? Author Darrell Rigby responds: This is a great question. We have a top 10 list of abuses and misuses that threaten Agile’s success. A euphemism for layoffs Large, abrupt, chaotic layoffs are not Agile transformations. Agile does increase productivity—but through systematic process innovations, not blunt-force firings.
Agilität: Wie Topmanager Unternehmen erfolgreicher machen
Foto: Melissa Schriek Darrell K. Rigby ist Partner des Beratungsunternehmens Bain & Company in Boston. Er verantwortet den weltweiten Bereich für Innovation und agile Methoden. Sarah Elk ist Partnerin bei Bain in Chicago. Sie ist Leiterin des globalen Bereichs Betriebsmodelle. Steve Berrez ist Partner bei Bain in Boston und Mitgründer der Beratungseinheit für Enterprise Technology.
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