Leading the Retail Industry Through a Challenging Time with Tom McGee, President & CEO of ICSC

This episode features an interview with Tom McGee, President & CEO of the International Council of Shopping Centers. Since 2015, Tom has overseen strategic leadership and operations as ICSC, which is the pre-eminent organization for retail and real estate professionals.

On this episode, Tom discusses the impact retail has on our local communities, why physical retail has never been more important, and what to expect at RECon, ICSC’s flagship event, this December in Las Vegas. 

3 Takeaways:

• You need to serve the consumer in whatever way they want, and the experience needs to be consistent and frictionless.
• Physical retail has never been more important. By getting people to the store, you’re not only saving on shipping, you’re engaging with your customer. It simultaneously solves last mile, improves profitability, and fosters connection. 
• How can ICSC help? With nearly 70% of shopping center tenants being small businesses, ICSC just released a small business toolkit (“Setting Up Shop”) and will be launching a new Small Business Center of Excellence soon.

Key Quotes: 

• “70% of the tenants within retail centers are small businesses. And that really motivates me, because I think the success of our industry is tied to the success of small businesses.”
• “If you look at women-owned businesses, minority-owned businesses, first generation Americans and immigrants to this country: if they start a business and are entrepreneurial in nature, oftentimes it happens in a retail center.” 
• “There isn’t an E-commerce channel and there isn’t a physical channel. There’s only one channel: it’s called the consumer channel.”
• “We all think we have a constitutional right to free shipping, but somebody’s actually paying for that free shipping. And that’s typically the retailer, right? So getting you to the store obviously takes an enormous cost out of the distribution chain.”

This podcast is presented by Dell Technologies and Intel. Together they help you realize digital transformation across retail by driving IT innovation to better engage with today’s connected consumer. Learn more at DellTechnologies.com/retail and Intel.com/retail.