WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

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 article that summarizes many of the important trends of the retail transformation. Important note: this is pre-covid....

WHY IT MATTERS: short white paper on what travel *may* look like in 20 years. I think it is idealistic and far fetched but there are elements in there that feel very probable (ie. renting clothes instead of packing your own, robots that carry your luggage, AR-VR to help with travel planning). Not saying if this future is good or bad, but will certainly be very digital. Thoughts?

WHY IT MATTERS: here we are, technologies that were in labs last year making its way into commercial applications. The robot dog from Boston Dynamics is the 1st viable robot as it can move around in "real world" - climbing stairs, walking on ground and uneven terrain, etc. Here just a prototype it uses AI to recognize people and calculate if they are keeping safe distances. Give it a few years and the tech may be autonomous (now it needs to be human controlled) and represent real solution for guarding... and surveillance. Look at the video in the article.

WHY IT MATTERS: covid crisis may further put pressure on the workforce. If you had a choice between a store with humans or robots that perform most mundaine tasks - cleaning floors & disinfecting area, providing help, checkout & payment, replenishment of shelves, ... - would you prefer the one with fewer possible infection vectors? 

WHY IT MATTERS: this diagram shows well that the next improvements will come from technologies that impact the real world. We thus will move from a digital transformation to a real world transformation. Am I already obsolete with digital transformation? *sad*

WHY IT MATTERS:  robots are leaving the factory floor to enter the workplace. First stop, warehouses. This new generation of autonomous robots can carry orders from one place to another, navigating against the human and robot traffic.

See this video that I shot at NRF2020: youtube.com

See this article I wrote about this (french): e-marketing.fr

See this article on these robots: ailatech.com

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 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: reminds me of the joke: "Only one man and one dog are needed in a warehouse of the future. The dog is there to keep humans away from the place. The human is there to feed the dog." 

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: interesting to see all the data self-driving cars process. More interesting though is that tools and technologies required to make self-driving cars, trucks and other vehicles is becoming more readily available which should spark an even faster adoption cycle.

WHY IT MATTERS: Ii find clothes folding robots to be an interesting benchmark in robots use in commercial environments. Folding clothes is a complex task as clothes come in different shapes and made of flexible materials. I've been tracking them since early 2010 where it took many hours to fold one shirt and cost 50000$ or more. At CES 2018, folding clothes machines were introduced at a cost of 3500$ but are yet to be fully commercialized. And now this 5000$ robot from UCBerkeley is another point in the trend. With labour shortages in countries like Canada, having robots perform those mondaine tasks will become important but as we see there are still a few generations before they are very cheap and widely available.

WHY IT MATTERS: with labour shortage and minimum wage increase you will see experiments like this one flourish in retail stores. Not certain that a robot like this will be helpful nor that it will meet the marketing definition of enhanced customer experience in store... But it sure will address a major pain of mine: finding a sales rep in a RONA store on weekends!

WHY IT MATTERS: factories are being transformed by digital at a rapid pace and this paper provides insights into that transformation, including how technologies are being deployed today.

WHY IT MATTERS: this new solution from takeoff in the US proposes to build a series of automated windowless hyper-local micro-warehouses that automatically prepare grocery orders that you can pick up quickly in your car. Listen to the video for more.

WHY IT MATTERS: warehouse automation is a major component of retail ecommerce digital transformation. As more orders go online, the speed and cost of order preparation must be reduced. Amazon has invested heavily in the field buying KIVA robots in 2014. Now other retailers, especially in the grocery field, are also moving from manual picking to automation because they have the volume. In fact, this may be a sign of the future: grocery retailers may become leaders in the digital transformation, moving away from their current position as dead last.

WHY IT MATTERS: this videos shows the inside of the new Ocado warehouse in UK. This warehouse is making its way top Canada, with Sobeys opening one soon: http://fmcs.digital/blog/u-k-s-ocado-taps-into-canadas-online-grocery-market-with-sobeys-tie-up-is-canada-mature-enough-to-have-automated-grocery-fulfillment-centers-ecommerce-robots/ 

WHY IT MATTERS: being able to control devices without your hand - using eyes or voice - is still being explored. I find this a great example of merging new technologies - drone, eye gazing, AI - to expand digital transformation beyond the current scope envisioned today.

WHY IT MATTERS: use this diagram as a guide to determine where and how to combine humans with AI.

WHY IT MATTERS: we tend to think AI as replacing humans. Studies are starting to show that in the short term, best bet is to combine humans with AI.

WHY IT MATTERS: the list provides a great starting point to get a shot of digital transformation leadership. The focus being mostly on technology, you should look elsewhere for impact on society, work, and life that digital transformation brings.

WHY IT MATTERS: I've been blogging about digital disruption since Jan 2013, and doing it since the early days of Internet in 1995. It is refreshing to see it being picked up by non technology professionals. Maybe a sign of the times that this thing is starting to really impact people, businesses and whole industries...?

WHY IT MATTERS: if you have kids, show them this then encourage them to study!