Articles, essays, and talks of Rey Lugtu

(Published in Business Mirror under the Mirror Image column, Aug 18, 2009) NOTHING, you’d think, would be more dynamic or up-to-the-minute than how we buy and sell. From the early Greek agoras to the modern superstore, markets have always been the most sensitive barometers of economic and societal change. However, today’s retail model is struggling. It’s still largely a system built for the realities of an earlier era—a linear, push-based process where products are manufactured in isolation and put into market en masse from factory to truck to store, for customers who do the majority of their shopping in suburban malls. This served very well the needs of manufacturers, retailers and consumers half a century ago. But today, this system is straining to adapt to global supply chains, new ways and venues for selling—both physical and virtual—and a very different kind of consumer. Global retail today sees lead times as long as six to 10 months, forcing vendors to make significant bets on in