The Retail Week Power List is being assembled and it is a matter of record that I disagreed with the choice last year, arguing that Philip Clarke should have been number one.

The Retail Week Power List is being assembled and it is a matter of record that I disagreed with the choice last year, arguing that Philip Clarke should have been number one.

He has definitely gone on to prove that he is the most powerful person in Tesco, although if he does not land the turnaround this year Sir Richard Broadbent could yet upstage him in that position.

This year, via social media, Retail Week has been soliciting nominations and to help I will share my thoughts. To my mind in joint first place are the two most powerful factors influencing retail today, namely, the customer and technology.

Through technology never has the customer been better informed, had clearer price transparency and ease of buying. As a result, never in the history of retail has the customer been so fickle, promiscuous, mercurial and as easily influenced to change loyalties.

They vote with their wallets (ask Tesco). They now want to shop in an omni-channel way and they want it now. They are deal hunting (I have always maintained the EDLP does not work in the UK) and you only have to look at the prevalence of sites such as Martin Lewis’s Moneysavingexpert.com - which adopts a self-styled customer revenge approach and boasts 23 million visitors a month, of which 13 million are unique - to see that.

This has only been made possible through the advent of technology. However, the customer is mercurial and now, as evidenced by the grocers over Christmas, wants coupons and money-off vouchers (what next, the return of Green Shield stamps?). Where is it all going to end? Let’s hope we do not see a UK version of the Stateside show Extreme Couponing.

So who should be in third place? In my mind there is only one clear choice - the individual investing in both the customer and technology in equal measure. Take a bow Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who is perfectly in tune with the customer zeitgeist. He has already decimated traditional book selling in the UK now he has his sights set on the rest of the retail sector.

  • Jamie Zuppinger, Co-founder and joint managing director, Barracuda Search.

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