Manufacturing

With the advent of personalized digital marketing, social and mobile engagement, and rich consumer insights, brands now have an unprecedented ability to engage directly with consumers, shifting the balance of power between manufacturers and retailers. This month, we asked Cassandra Moren, senior director, CG & Retail Solutions Industry Marketing, Oracle, to weigh in on this unstoppable trend.

Despite the e-commerce boom, brick-and-mortar stores should still account for approximately 85 percent of U.S. retail sales in 2025. But that doesn't mean your company should stand still. Here, McKinsey & Company identifies five trends will most impact on the industry, from demographic changes to emerging retail business models.

McCormick's new digital service, FlavorPrint, is a testament to the role that collaboration (both internal and external) plays when it comes to delivering meaningful consumer experiences both online and off.

In order to grow market share, the company embarked on a mobile solution strategy in March 2007 that would abandon its 100 percent paper-based retail execution system.

As much as reputation leaders (most frequently the senior communicator, chief marketing officer or the head of business strategy) would like to be able to tell CEOs and board members that everything is under control, the fact is when it comes to stakeholder relationship management, everything is not under control. Although most companies agree that reputation management is important, relatively few have figured out what to do about it.

Mobility is still new enough to create a lot of confusion around capabilities, with some claiming it is easy to develop enterprise-level applications that seamlessly run on all platforms and devices while integrating with back-office data. Others will tell you that ROI is difficult to attain. Let our experts help you wade through the hype and understand the true potential of mobile technology.

United and energized by social media sharing, more than 1,200 Newell Rubbermaid employee volunteers participated in its first-ever global philanthropic partnership with Habitat for Humanity International.

Mobile commerce will grow exponentially during the 2013 holiday season with consumers buying at home and in store via their phone. In fact, mobility will drive e-commerce sales gains of between 13 percent and 15 percent. Today's sales and marketing strategies, therefore, need to acknowledge the mobile device not as a "channel" but rather as gateway to multiple channels.