The Path to Retail 4.0
As the DNA of traditional retail becomes digitized and mixed with accelerating and converging technologies, the massive FMCG industry is undergoing profound change. Retail 4.0: The Age of Metamorphosis promises to be a near-total transformation in how people shop, how retailers operate, how products are distributed, and how brands manufacture and market. The development of Retail 4.0 will not be evolutionary; instead, the digital transformation of retail will be breathtaking in its scale, scope, and speed. But to realize the opportunity companies need to prepare their organizations for convulsive change, embracing new practices, processes, and business models.
The Path to Retail 4.0 is a series of papers intended to help industry participants understand and prepare for this new world. Sign up and stay up to date for new releases.
Customer Intelligence
A Customer Intelligence Platform (CIP) provides one source of truth for customer analytics and insight across the entire retail organization
True customer intelligence platforms support a comprehensive customer-first approach by coordinating operations, activities, and initiatives across the enterprise.
AI expert systems effectively magnify the power of our human brains so that appropriate strategies are developed automatically for each individual customer at scale, systems able to process millions of shoppers and react to minute changes in behavior in realtime.
The Battle for the Future Customer
The COVID-19 pandemic not only accelerated the growth of online shopping, it is also accelerating the broader digitalization of the grocery industry, bringing with it new business models and new ways to create value.
Online grocery shopping should no longer be thought of as an activity separate and distinct from shopping in the physical store - the digital and physical worlds of shopping are crashing together, fueled by new capabilities to engage the shopper.
Just as the utilitarian stores of decades ago have given way to experiential stores, so too are utilitarian, first-generation, online shopping solutions giving way to a true customer driven digital experience.
Seeing the Future of Retail: Computer Vision Platforms
Just walk out is Just the Beginning.
Computer vision is a classic example of exponential growth technology. Retailers that wait will be left behind.
As the physical store becomes digitized it promises a near quantum leap in store performance.
Understand human-supplemented systems vs fully autonomous machine-learning systems.