WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

WHY IT MATTERS: this list of technology questions for 2022 feels like an answer to the question "what is digital disruption?".

We have reached a moment in time where old technologies - eCommerce or videoconferencing for example - are finally breaking into established industries. And the impact, at scale, cannot be found in technology but rather in every single industry it disrupts.

Very thoughtful piece, very good questions.

WHY IT MATTERS: as marketplaces become popular, finding a specific product in a catalog of millions of products will become harder and harder. The holy grail is visual search: snap a picture of something and get some AI to help you find something similar, or that matches well with that. eBay has made tests, Google lens has returned amazing results in my recent experience. Not sure what Amazon is doing but I assume it is top of their list.

Facebook is a major player in this game as it wants to make marketplace the shopping destination (don't forget it owns instagram as well). So the investment in grokNet is critical and recent results appear promising, though not yet perfect. 

So if you build a marketplace, as we are for panier bleu, then this is an area of innovation we cannot afford to bypass.

WHY IT MATTERS: warning! this article is not about your typical "robots will rule retail" or "everything has to be AI driven unless you die". Well, in some parts it is.

The reality check that retailers - and their technology vendors - must make is: retail is difficult, focused on the bottom line, with no appetite for innovation with short term results. Retail innovators must find a way to experiment while staying focussed on the bottom line.

Best quote: "‘I think the majority of the problems come from the unwillingness, perhaps the fear, of investing in something that
doesn’t automatically bring a load of cash onto your balance sheet."

WHY IT MATTERS: an interesting list of retailTech solutions, with recent updates.

WHY IT MATTERS: an essential part of shopping is product search and discovery. Easy to do in stores: just walk around, look at products on racks. More difficult to do in eCommerce websites. Technology, and especially AI, is being pulled to help identify product characteristics automatically so that searching for a "confortable summer dress with flower patterns" becomes possible.

WHY IT MATTERS: an amazing overview of technologies that are on the horizon. They range from bizarre - empathy design? - to the probable and useful - supply chain tech improvements. Read it.

WHY IT MATTERS: Aura is a SaaS solution that I saw in recent technology shows where they use AI to analyze your camera feeds to report in real-time metrics about your store. Here the article is all about how pop-up stores can use this information to fine-tune their stores. But the use cases are endless.

WHY IT MATTERS: since the launch of amazon GO convenience store in 2016, the concept of walk-in, grab stuff, leave, felt perfect for small orders (sandwich, drinks and cookies for lunch anyone). They just opened a grocery store now, which has the potential to disrupt the retail market more profoundly (Amazon bought WholeFood a while back). This article explains how the store works but also uncovers a flaw in the camera system: if you change your appearance during a visit the system can loose track of you. Interesting use case... 

WHY IT MATTERS: order fulfillment and delivery is the last remaining hurdle to eCommerce. Loblaws in Canada will pilot a micro-fulfillment solution from TakeOff that impressed me last year at Shoptalk. In short, they create an automated back-store where eCommerce orders are prepared with a huge amount of automation. The question remains whether the economics is better for micro-fulfillment or if centralized warehouse fulfillment with hub-and-spoke delivery is better suited for high volume / low margin eCommerce that grocery is about. Thus this "test" by Loblaws. Note that Sobeys has decided in favor of more centralized ocado-driven automated warehouse and Metro remains with the more traditional decentralized (and manual) store-based pick-pack-deliver process. Given the low volume of orders for online grocery in Canada I remain partisan of a store-based manual approach but the economics I got from TakeOff was promising. Below additional links if you want to read more about takeoff and ocado.

- http://fmcs.digital/blog/a-new-store-experience-windowless-automated-micro-warehouse-with-hyperlocal-presence-may-be-the-future-of-grocery-shopping-takeoff-solution-suggests-this-may-be-the-case-robots-ai/

- http://fmcs.digital/blog/video-of-the-inside-of-ocados-robotic-warehouse-where-thousands-of-robots-pack-groceries-retail-robots/

- https://www.takeoff.com/why-takeoff

WHY IT MATTERS: technology is tackling manpower shortage in retail. Here an example of how cameras, robots and drones are leveraged to perform out-of-stock detection on store shelves. When you realize that certain store may have 25000 or more products, the time required to identify out-of-stocks for replenishment and the lost sales makes those technologies useful and cost effective.

WHY IT MATTERS this report presents and categorizes the retail trends in 2019. Some are technology-based (AR, VR, QR codes, ...) but all are technology-driven, even those that improve product or distribution (small stores, popup stores, store as fulfillment centers, localization, ...)

WHY IT MATTERS: this is a big deal because the Boston Dynamics robots appear to be the advanced and versatile. The fact that they are made commercially available is significant after years of being research project. You have to be in the market for an early device with lots of limitations but, looking down the road a few years, one has to start planning for robots to start making their way into practical use cases in construction, etc. Plus the videos are just fun to watch!

WHY IT MATTERS: this is the obvious killer app for facial recognition - it uses AI technology and similar hardware that iPhone uses to unlock your screen. You can now spend without any friction, not event the need to take your phone out of your pocket. Of course this raises obvious privacy and security concerns - but in China the concept of privacy appears different than in the West. But the most important factor is that Asia is deploying this *at scale* first, waaaaaaayyyy before the USA where you still have to sign paper slips for credit card transactions... Who is leading the techno war these days?

WHY IT MATTERS: the report is not available for free but the 42 slide summary is a great overview of key trends that are presented with observations and outcome.

WHY IT MATTERS: when I ask about what the "store of the future" looks like I often get descriptions of a robot-filled location with huge displays and computer kiosks. In fact the trend is to HIDE the technology to make the store experience more and more about what you had when you visited the general store of the past. Walk in and speak to an employee that is very knowledgeable about you, your needs and the products they have to sell. The only difference is that this knowledge comes from AI, cameras, sensors, and all kind of technologies that support and enhance the retail employee to make you believe they know you and their products. THAT is the magic of the store of the future. Get used to it.

WHY IT MATTERS: AI is making its way to usable applications faster than ever with tools and frameworks in the public domain and very large datasets to train models on. Even university students can deliver value in few weeks of class so why is it not more prevalent in corporations?

WHY IT MATTERS: a recent survey provides numerous insights into email marketing tools and techniques. A great reference with numerous examples, tools and technologies. One highlight of the report is the role that AI plays in the creation and delivery of email campaigns in the coming years.

WHY IT MATTERS: you will see AI enhancing tools in retail to sell better and improve margins. This article presents 4 use case already being deployed.

WHY IT MATTERS: some of the use cases may be far fetched but still give a good idea of what is possible (not necessarily what is useful...). Good to know nevertheless.

WHY IT MATTERS: a technical description of the technology required to make shelf scanning robots of startup Qopius a reality. Fascinating.

WHY IT MATTERS: expect to see more robots in supermarkets in the near future - especially if you are in China 7fresh new high-tech supermarket. See a short description of the store here.

WHY IT MATTERS: advances in computer vision due to deep learning algorithms has opened a world of possibilities for companies. Read this article and accompanying HBR posts. Great series.

WHY IT MATTERS: cameras will become ubiquitous and AI systems will analyze those images to provide business services but also track our every move. This reports presents trends in this area.

WHY IT MATTERS

Grocery shopping is often tedious, as most grocery stores have a slightly different layout. Instacart sends human shoppers to pick orders placed online on their website. Mapping every single one of their thousands of stores is not an option. Instead, they have trained a neural networks on millions of orders to predict the best sort order for their shopping lists. And in the meantime save precious minutes in the order picking process.

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

Based on a detailed report, this article provides a chockful of stats about investments in certain technologies. Although based on a survey, it confirms certain trends that are widely accepted - so there should be no surprises for readers of this blog.