ABSTRACT
The turbulent changes following the Industrial Revolution a hundred years earlier inspired Charles Darwin to place developments in a time context. It is, perhaps, not by chance that Adam Smith, a Scot, experienced the Industrial Revolution and all the developments that followed at close hand. It is then also interesting to take the theory of evolution as the basis for the analysis of survival chances for organizations. Just as the plants adapted to the ecological conditions, the animals to the food supply, and they mutated to survive, so organizations will have to focus on the demand from consumers in order to survive. Organizations then have to consider what is really needed to survive. In order to survive the retailer has to decide what is really important: the competitive strategy and the underlying working model. In the coming years, the retail trade will make choices that will determine the future of shopping.
