While the world’s top consumer-goods companies and retailers say they want to serve the needs of their consumers, it turns out most are still struggling to get an accurate understanding of them. Only one in five executives in the consumer-goods and retail industry said they have “strong confidence” in their knowledge of consumers’ behavior and another 20% say they couldn’t “definitely claim” that they have an accurate picture of what items their own customers are buying from their competitors versus from them, according to a survey of more than 500 executives from major retailers conducted by KPMG International and the Consumer Goods Forum. The survey, released ahead of the Consumer Goods Forum’s three-day global summit in New York, which ended Friday, asked executives about the issue of consumer trust for the first time. More than three-fifths said building consumer trust is a core company value and one-third said it was one of the biggest challenges for the next year or two, second only to expansion and sales growth. Underlining the importance of that pursuit, the survey pointed to research showing two-thirds of consumers refusing to buy from companies they don’t trust. The survey showed about one-third of the executives reporting that they’d recently increased their spending to gain consumer trust and two-thirds calling investment in the areas of sustainability and social responsibility a key to winning consumer trust. The topics of product sourcing and transparency as well as sustainability were common themes at the forum. This is “a profound consumer-empowered era,” said Coca-Cola KO, -0.05% CEO Muhtar Kent. “Consumers ... have visibility in every aspect of what we do. They have the power to share their feelings and amplify them. People want to live more sustainably. They are more focused on the planet.” Kent, echoing other executives, pointed to the issues of how businesses need to collaborate with suppliers and even competitors and other parties to share ideas so that he world’s resources can meet the needs of an estimated 8.2 billion in global population by 2025. “Consumers have said to big food companies, ‘If you don’t follow the trends I want you to follow, then you become less relevant to me,’ ” said Nestlé USA CEO Paul Grimwood, in an interview. Nestlé, the maker of Lean Cuisine frozen food and Butterfinger candy bars, has said more than 250 of its products sold in the U.S. will be free of artificial ingredients by the end of this year. Other notable forum attendees also included the CEOs of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.WMT, +0.36% , Macy’s Inc. M, +0.98% , PepsiCo Inc. PEP, +0.08% and Johnso & Johnson JNJ, +0.52% . The technology sector, which increasingly plays a role in how traditional categories such as retail execute business operations and how consumers function, also was represented, with Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer joined by Facebook’s marketing chief. “The [consumer’s] trust expectation is much higher,” said Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky. “That’s what we consider every step of the way.” Failure to recognize this fact, Gorsky added, “could put your entire reputation at risk.” Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/