Consumer facing businesses remain under pressure and it will be those who adapt to change and innovation that prosper

Consumer facing businesses remain under pressure and it will be those who adapt to change and innovation that prosper. Chris Prunty, Investment Analyst at Ausbil says; In the past 6 weeks we've got pretty consistent feedback that consumer facing businesses are under pressure. After a reasonable March quarter April and May has seen a marked deterioration in trading conditions. Caution is warranted in the consumer discretionary space. A more qualitative observation is that the higher quality management teams we meet are faster to embrace technology and are looking beyond the day to day of their businesses (often to the US) to understand best practice in their industries.