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Always One Step Ahead: How Retail Leaders Move Faster, Scale Smarter, and Deliver Better Experiences

Contentful Insight Report

Introduction

In today’s rapidly evolving retail landscape, speed and agility have become the ultimate competitive differentiators. While consumers continue to demand increasingly personalised experiences, many retailers have found themselves grappling with outdated content management systems that simply cannot keep up with the pace of change. Legacy platforms that once served businesses well have now only hindered operational efficiency and scalability of their brand in market. 

This was the strategic context that drove discussions during the recent executive roundtable hosted by Contentful, supported by Connect Media. Following the theme of Always One Step Ahead: Moving Faster, Scaling Smarter and Delivering Better Customer Experiences, the roundtable convened retail leaders to explore how Contentful has become a strategic partner for businesses when it comes to optimising efficiency, driving growth at speed, and delivering best in class consumer experiences. 

Conversations were led by Arjun Ganesh, Director, ANZ Customer Experience & Global Product Adoption and Growth, Contentful with exclusive insights from Glen Harry, Head of Digital Products, Bapcor Morgan and Plumley, Senior Product Manager and Platform Lead, MYOB. 

Accelerating Efficiency: Breaking Free From Legacy Systems

Outdated content management systems significantly hinder operational agility when it comes to managing retail brands. They can slow down campaign execution, frustrate marketing teams, and severely limit organisational responsiveness to market disruptions. Outdated systems require hours of time to publish simple content updates, only creating further hurdles when businesses manage multiple CMS platforms. The result? Fragmented workflows, operational inefficiencies and inconsistencies across content channels. 

As Morgan Plumley, Senior Product Manager and Platform Lead at MYOB expressed during the roundtable, “Content spread across four different systems needs to be updated in four different places, and that’s a real killer to productivity and engagement for a team.” 

Forward-thinking retailers are addressing these challenges by adopting modern CMS solutions like Contentful’s composable content platform – and they are radically transforming how brands engage with their customers. These innovative platforms create unified content hubs where all digital assets – across websites, mobile apps, and third-party channels – can be managed from a single interface. Providing seamless scalability, system solutions like Contentful now allow new brands, market expansions, or campaign launches to be executed with speed, ease and hyper-personalisation.  

Scaling Smarter: Multi-Brand Consistency Without the Overhead

Retailers managing multiple brands or expanding through acquisitions face the complex challenge of balancing content consistency with operational flexibility. Traditional approaches often result in redundant workloads across channels, creating inconsistencies in customer experience and inefficient workflows that strain resources. To remain on the front foot, businesses are solving this hurdle through innovative content models that integrate AI-powered automation, unlocking both brand cohesion and agility at scale. 

MYOB has seen seamless brand growth by embracing this strategic approach. “Our unified content models and front-end components make spinning up new brand experiences remarkably simple – what used to take months now takes just weeks” Morgan noted during the roundtable. This acceleration in content delivery is amplified by tools like Contentful’s AI Actions, which allows teams to automatically adapt master content for sub-brands like adjusting tone, style, and compliance without the manual rework. 

Bapcor has also seen similar success when it replatformed their secondary brand, AutoPro. Instead of taking months of preparation, Bapcor managed to deliver this product launch in a matter of weeks by replicating shared components from their flagship brand AutoBarn. “We took all the wins from AutoBarn and essentially carbon-copied the content model over to AutoPro. We just restyled and rejigged the content – it was scary how easy it was!” Glen Harry, Lead eCommerce Developer (Head of Digital Product) at Bapcor highlighted. By aligning modern content architectures with AI-driven automation, retailers are truly able to scale smarter – saving time, reducing overhead, all while maintaining a seamless customer experience across every brand. 

The Creative Advantage: Personlisation Like Never Before

Creating tailored content for multiple audience segments remains notoriously resource intensive. Traditional engagement strategies often lack scalability, requiring excessive developer support just for basic A/B testing. The solution to personlised content lies in combining AI automation with strategic content generation. MYOB demonstrated this transformation during a recent campaign targeting the construction industry. By leveraging Contentful’s AI personlisation features, MYOB was able to create variations of their master campaign templates – curated specifically for their target audiences. This approach ultimately drove higher engagement without increasing workloads – all while balancing brand continuity and the authentic human touch.  

While tech solutions will play a pivotal role in the future of retail – they are not the only key component for remaining competitive. Success will ultimately be defined by businesses that can align their digital capabilities with cultivating an organisational mindset of adaptation, experimentation and continued innovation. As Morgan noted during the round table, “The biggest challenge isn’t emerging technologies – it’s a team’s willingness to use it” Morgan noted.

Conclusion

The retail landscape’s transformation demands a new operational paradigm – one where speed, intelligent scaling, and hyper-personlisation of content become table stakes for driving memorable consumer experiences. As MYOB and Bapcor have demonstrated, next-generation platforms like Contentful’s composable content system are enabling this shift: powering everything from AI-generated audience variants to supporting multi-brand growth with efficiency and continuity. 

For those looking to pull ahead in the crowded retail market for the future – businesses must seamlessly align their tech capabilities with a cultural mindset of continued innovation. This is the secret to delivering memorable consumer experiences at scale. 

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Arti Oza

As Connect Media’s sole Designer, Arti is responsible for the creative visual direction and design of our entire suite of multimedia commercial and promotional material. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree of Design in Animation from the University of Technology Sydney. Arti’s artistic skill extends beyond her diverse corporate portfolio, and she has been known to draw incredibly realistic and stylised portraits of people.

Rachel Dreyfus

As Production and Operations Coordinator, Rachel has direct oversight over our event production portfolio and is responsible for securing our executive keynote speakers and panellists for our major events. She has a diverse administrative background in hospitality and database management, holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Ceramics) from the National Art School, as well as a Masters of Management from ICMS.

Outside of the office, you will find Rachel teaching ceramics to kids and strategically surf-lifesaving outside of the water.

Mitch Cohen

As Content Manager, Mitch is responsible for setting the strategic-agenda for our entire suite of industry and bespoke events, as well as the design, execution and editorial oversight of B2B content marketing services for our clients.

LACHLAN WATTS

Lachlan is a Partnerships Executive at Connect Media, where he manages strategic partnerships for our range of industry-leading business events. With a background in association membership, marketing, and communications, he has a keen ability to connect organisations with the right audiences to drive engagement and commercial success.
His experience spans sponsorship sales, account management, and marketing strategy, with a strong focus on interpreting data and insights to enhance visibility. Beyond his professional work, Lachlan is passionate about volunteering and in his free time tutors young students in rudimental drumming, a field in which he holds several Australian titles. 

Lisa Eam

As Client Event Manager, Lisa is responsible for the seamless, back-end management of our event operations. She also charges the management of client, speaker and sponsor needs across both our event and bespoke roundtable offerings. Lisa holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Management in Events and Leisure from the University of Technology Sydney and has an extensive background in venue management and hospitality.

She currently holds the office title of ‘In-House Expert’ when it comes to the Sydney culinary scene, and is often the envy of all our office lunches.

Jessica Ewing-Flynn

As Commercial Director, Jessica is responsible for developing commercial partnerships across our entire suite of industry-leading events. Her extensive experience in the events sector spans both operational and client-facing roles, covering large-scale events through to bespoke engagements. She holds a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of South Australia, and a Bachelor in Event Management from the International College of Management Sydney.

Jessica hails from the Northern Beaches, where she is renowned as an extremely average runner, and a slightly better swimmer.

Malin Haug

As Event Manager, Malin is responsible for the seamless back-end management of our event operations. She also leads the management of client, speaker, and sponsor needs across our events and bespoke roundtable offerings. Malin holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Event Management from the University of Technology Sydney and brings extensive experience from the event space and customer service to her role.

Malin is an eager hobby sewist and creates her own clothes. Whether it’s a carefully crafted blouse or a tailored vest, chances are she’s sporting one of her designs whilst on-site

Jane Forbes

As Marketing Director, Jane plays a pivotal role in realising our long-term marketing agenda. Before assuming her current role, Jane served as Connect Media’s Data Manager for over two years. Jane holds an Advanced Diploma in Hospitality Management, and has over a decade’s dedicated senior experience in the events space. Jane enjoys escaping the hustle and bustle of the city to spend quality time at the beach with her young family.

Bridee Arrighi

As Operations Director, Bridee has operational oversight of our entire event portfolio, including stakeholder relations and end-to-end event management. Bridee graduated from Macleay College with a Bachelor of Business specialising in Event Management, and has over five years’ dedicated experience in the events space.

Bridee has a passion for the outdoors, and was quick to commandeer the best window seat in our office.

Dominic Patterson

Since founding the company in 2009, Dominic has fostered a culture of innovation and creativity, producing world-class conferences and pioneering advancements within the industry.

A media entrepreneur with over 20 years’ experience in B2B communications and events, Dominic has led Connect Media to be twice recognised as a BRW Fast Starter, a BRW Fast 100 Company, and a SmartCompanySmart50.

A keen sportsman and a supporter of the performing arts, Dominic maintains an active interest in public policy and has hosted a radio show with several listeners.

He has a Bachelor of Arts in Management (Economics) from the University of Westminster in London, certificates from AFTRS, NIDA and is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.