WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

The Forbes.com retail contributor team shares predictions for the greatest challenges and opportunities in the retail space next year. "Retail success in 2018 will be about how well retailers adapt to the changing market around them. Evolving well will be the key to success," says Rupa Ganatra.

Here’s a look at how the forces of IoT tech and data collection are already shaking the retail world, even as consumer activity becomes folded into the overall smart city experience.

In our 27-criteria evaluation of product information management (PIM) providers, we identified the 10 most significant ones — Agility Multichannel, Contentserv, EnterWorks, IBM, Informatica, inRiver, Riversand, Salsify, SAP, and Stibo Systems — and researched, analyzed, and scored them. This report shows how each provider measures up and helps digital business professionals make the right choice.

The Salsify product experience management (PXM) platform combines the power of product content management, which includes product information management and digital asset management capabilities, alongside a broad commerce ecosystem, and actionable insights — empowering brands to deliver compelling shopping experiences for consumers across every digital touchpoint.

Retailers at the Future Stores event in Seattle had a lot to say about where they thought the future of the store is headed. Here are some of the top takeaways.

In this article, we cover a variety of examples in which AI is being integrated in the retail industry, broken down into the following sub-categories: Sales and CRM Applications, Customer Recommendations, Manufacturing, Logistics and Delivery, Payments and Payment Services

IoT has paved the way for brands to use connected devices in their physical spaces too. Learn how location-based brands can invest in technology-rich locations that raise the bar for customer experience.

The Qube, our all-in-one artificial intelligence consists of many different engines working in harmony with each other to analyse shelf images instantaneously and extract information on product, brand, price and placement.

The future of food retail is to be found in China. Following Alibaba, major competitor JD.com has also opened its technologically advanced supermarket: 7Fresh uses eCommerce technology and aims to open 1,000 stores.

• Of participating members, an average of one-quarter of total revenue comes through digital commerce channels.
• Note: Most participants work in organizations that sell to both B2B and B2C audiences.
• Improving customer satisfaction, innovation/transformation of the business, and reducing costs via automation of sales processes and customer self-service buying were cited as key reasons for embracing digital commerce.
• Delivering the desired customer experience was cited as the most critical challenge for digital commerce. Consistency in serving customers across all sales channels and justifying IT spending based on current ROI were also highlighted as key barriers.
• A majority (63%) considered digital commerce as a critical and natural progression to a digital business strategy.

As digital technology erodes profit and revenue growth, why aren’t companies responding with bold strategies?

Some IT leaders are growing weary of the phrase “digital transformation.” Find here 10 articles on the subject to help grasp some wisdom:

1. How Landauer CIO built a revenue-generating mindset in IT

2. SunTrust CIO's formula for speed relies on cloud, DevOps

3. Increasing IT’s speed: 3 levers CIOs can use

4. Teaching IT to embrace change: 9 execs share advice

5. Matson CIO: The most painful, gut-wrenching part of leading transformation

6. How hybrid cloud aids digital transformation

7. Budgeting smarts for digital transformation: 4 tips

8. Digital transformation: 3 strategies to manage change

9. Digital transformation: 5 principles for the retail industry

10. What absolutely won’t work when it comes to digital transformation

Will it have robots? No checkout counters? Virtual fitting rooms? Almost anything seems possible.

The Warehouse est le premier entrepôt destiné aux startups pour créer la supply chain du futur. Créé par Cdiscount, ce lieu d’innovation propose un programme d’accompagnement de 6 mois, alliant à la fois du mentoring pour challenger la stratégie des startups, mais également des ateliers de codesign avec les utilisateurs experts de leur métier, afin de contextualiser les solutions logistiques des startups sélectionnées.

Amazon is getting into more brick-and-mortar stores. While the retail giant purchased Whole Foods last year, Amazon had previously opened up a convenience store for employees under its own brand in Seattle in 2016.

Under the Sobeys deal, the two companies will develop a customer fulfilment centre (CFC) in Toronto using Ocado's grid and robots network and will also consider developing more centers in dense urban areas.

Taiwanese e-commerce platform OwlTing wants to change the way consumers think about their food. This year, it launched the world’s first blockchain-based app for tracing food products — including pork. And the process is pretty simple: by scanning a sticker on a slab of pork, OwlTing customers can quickly access information about everything from a piglet’s date of birth, to the vaccines it received before its slaughter. There’s a lot more to blockchain technology than learning obscure facts about a pork chop, however. For producers, using blockchain-based technologies to trace food through processing and shipping means that they might be able to avoid widespread food waste should a contamination arise — and even save lives. And it is not just small companies that are interested in this technology. The largest retailer in the world, Walmart recently partnered with IBM to develop their own pilot blockchain system. VICE News Tonight visited Taiwan to see how blockchain is affecting pork production, and then to Walmart to find out why the company thinks consumers are going to benefit from this technology.

Why are companies so intent on using technology to track our behavior? Our actions reveal what we desire, how we shop, and why we buy. Retailers can now learn so much more about shopper behavior than ever before, and while these “big data” applications create concerns about privacy, the detailed data can be used to design stores, product offerings and promotions that connect with our interests, speed up the shopping process, and help us find items we will buy. 

What AI can — and cannot — do for your organization.

Exclusive research by us at LDV Capital is the first publicly shared, in-depth analysis which estimates how many cameras will be in the world in 2022. Key Findings include:

• Most of the pictures captured will never be seen by a human eye.
• A paradigm shift will take place in the meaning and use of a camera.
• Over the next five years there will be a proliferation of cameras integrated into products across industries and markets.
• Where there is growth in cameras there will be tremendous business opportunities in the capture, analysis and interpretation of visual data.
• Depth capture will double the number of cameras in handheld cameras.
• By 2022, the number of cameras will be nearly 12X the 2012 figures.
• Your smartphone will have between 4 and 10 cameras by 2022.
• The Internet of Eyes will be larger than the Internet of Things.
• In the next five years, robotics will have 20X more integrated cameras.
• By 2022, all new vehicles will be equipped with more than 25 cameras and this does not include Lidar or Radar.

The robots themselves are produced by California-based Bossa Nova Robotics, and are about two-feet tall with an extendable tower containing lights and sensors for scanning shelves. They sit in recharging stations in the store until a human employee gives them a “mission” — e.g. checking a particular aisle to see what needs re-stocking. The robots are supposed to save workers’ time, but Walmart says it will also use the data they collect to improve efficiency nationwide.

The demo uses photorealistic augmented reality, enabling the shopper to look at clothing on the racks and view digital details, such as the price. While looking at a physical item, you can view digital details on the display of your glasses. Developed the prototype as a proof of concept to help retailers find new ways of enhancing the in-store shopping experience and generating incremental sales by sharing relevant content and information to the shopper while they are shopping. With this system, shoppers can visualize a full outfit, access additional clothing in the online inventory, and pay for the items.

Amazon has plans to drop off packages directly into shoppers' homes. Delivery associates are told to ring a doorbell or knock when they arrive at someone’s house. If no one greets them, they press ‘unlock’ in a mobile app, and Amazon checks its systems in an instant to make sure the right associate and package are present. The camera then streams video to the customer who remotely can watch the in-home delivery take place. The associate cannot proceed with other trips until the home is again locked.

Instacart is saving minutes per delivery by sorting shopping lists using deep learning. Emojis help to define the problem and outline both a simple and a more complex deep learning architecture.