Keynote: Brick is the New Black
Here are some key takeaways and highlights from Sunday’s keynote:
Thoughts from James Curleigh, EVP and President of Levi’s Brand
Why is the music business challenged today? Consider what used to happen… Music was about the most memorable moments… a concert… a moment that mattered in your life. The challenge is to recreate those moments more often authentically. This has to do with addressing your fans. Our consumers are fans at Levi’s. We have three kinds:
Be Simple and Sophisticated
The brands that do it best are simple in front… but behind the scenes are extremely complex. Levis’ simplicity is necessity. Picking out jeans should be easy. When you order it should be there and available. Data and visibility into data and inventory have to be aligned on the back end to have simplicity on the front end.
Be Accessible and Aspirational
Brands and retailers need to be both. Levis has 2800 stores worldwide. 4800 other points of distribution and wholesale partners. And a web site. It’s up to us to leverage access and provide aspiration. We’re doing this through customized products that include but go beyond denim.
Internet of Everything: New Horizons in Retail
Cisco presented a compelling case for the Internet of Everything (their name for the Internet of Things + Big Data) in retail. From tracking shopping cart paths to using video to generate “heat maps” of the most frequented store shelves, new technology is bringing unparalleled insight to retail.
The IoT enables “Smart Factories” that will optimize operations dynamically, making sudden order changes manageable.
But the real story here was the idea that to solve problems in retail, you need to move will from static processes to dynamic ones. Dynamic processes are alive, generating information, automating and digitizing ways of working with real-time feedback and visibility. While Cisco focused mostly on the consumer side, all these principles hold true, in sometimes more important ways, for the supply chain.
A few highlights from the talk:
More Takeaways from Leveraging Big Data for Deeper Customer Insights and Smarter Retailing
Big data can deliver real time insights and functionality for retailers. The key is making it actionable. If someone is in the “moment of choice” you can influence it. Retailers and consumer goods companies are also using big data deeper into operations and supply chain. Consider buying behavior across retailers – how can you use those insights in the supply chain? With big data insights I can get better at in-stocks and service. I can better fulfill orders and meet demand.
Notable Quotes:
Satish Mehta, VP Enterprise Solutions at Staples
It’s mandatory that all retailers know customers, and many do, but – they don’t do good just understanding them. There’s a big difference. A unified customer view requires:
Dr. Phil Shelley, President of Newton Part Partners
IT organizations that don’t embrace a new way of thinking (about big data and analytics) run the risk of becoming a dinosaur. Many business leads are going around IT now. Some IT organizations are embracing change and partnering but others are focused on what they already have. As a business leader you sometimes have to carry the flag… sadly a lot of IT people are not embracing change at the speed they should.
Breakout Session: Leveraging Big Data for Deeper Customer Insights
How is business evolving? A panel discussion on the digital foundation and transformation of business spoke to the role of big data in changing retail. The panel discussed the current state of big data adoption. Ten years ago, retailers were struggling to get point of sale data. Now, with big data, retailers can see purchase history with each of their customers. Yet this data still exists in silos. The biggest challenge in breaking down silos is that data needs to be integrated, in order to piece together larger trends.
The panel cited that we are entering the “era of engagement,” where it’s the interactions at the edge of an organization that are critical to success. That means engagement with customers, with suppliers, and with distributors become key areas where big data can improve decision-making. The building block to implementing big data, according to panelist Dr. Phil Shelley of Newton Park Partners LLC, is to create enterprise data hubs that can bring data together. Then, businesses can deploy systems that can leverage rapid big data analytics.
Rapid analytics, and real-time information were cited as a centerpiece of the discussion. Real-time insights require knowing what’s going on where, with whom. With that kind of visibility, analytics can drive processes. The panel also described the use cases of big data on the operational side of retail. How do you think about stratifying assortment by velocity and process in addition to by customer? Big data can be used to improve retail supply chain operations, while making use of the real-time analytics occurring from customer-end to supplier-end across the network.
Stay tuned, and follow us on Twitter (@GTNexus) for more NRF 2015 coverage!
The BIG Show: NRF 2015 Blog, Day1 | Day 2 | Day 3