The retail environment is changing rapidly, and that is reflective of more aware customers who are looking for higher convenience, specific products, faster access, and in the current context, a safer environment as well. Thus retailers need to continue to evolve, keeping Customer Centricity as the core of the transformation to develop unique and innovative solutions, creating seamless and frictionless experiences for the customers across varied channels.

I believe that the infusion of innovative technology is no longer a thing of the future but instead an essential tool in retail to power their strategy towards creating the best experience for customers, associates (team members), and other stakeholders with clear financial impact. Today, technologies are being applied across the value chain of retail in varying proportions. However, only when it is used holistically across the value chain like sourcing, supply chain and distribution, in stores, digital, omnichannel, last-mile deliveries, among others, will the solutions become faster, better and scalable, thereby providing personalized solutions to customers and driving more substantial business impact across the phygital (physical and digital) world.

The technologies and their applications are continuously evolving. AI and ML, which I believe are no longer futuristic technologies, are, in fact, gradually becoming an integral part of processing data, assessing needs, and deploying the right measures through both predictive and prescriptive models, again across the value chain of the organization. If you look at the whole value chain in Supply Chain and logistics, AI and ML can be applied across right from developing efficient sourcing strategies, effective planning strategies, warehouse management better demand forecasting, inventory holding, packaging & route optimization, geo-localizing the storage, faster and cost-effective transportation, and so on and so forth. Similarly, these AI models could help in predicting demands of unseen products to artificially synthesizing winning product designs, personalize interactions with customers and associates to optimizing route and packaging for faster fulfillment to assessing planograms, inventory replenishment, shelf purity and other consumer experiences in stores to even building a smarter functional and hyper-real applications and providing a stronger tactile experience to customers across the digital channels.

Today we are a convergence of various technologies to build solutions that will shape the future.

Data Analytics, along with technologies such as AI/ ML, allow us to assimilate a lot of data, apply intelligence, generate insights that allow our internal associates to create more value for our consumers.

Technologies such as Blockchain, IoT (Internet of Things), along with AI (Artificial Intelligence) can help us bring more transparency to our customers, increase sustainability, reduce carbon footprint, and create a more robust circular economy.

Technologies such as Robotics, Haptics, AR/ VR along with AI can create a stronger visualization environment for the consumers and build an immersive sensory enabled e-commerce environment, consumer adaptable stores, faster fulfilments, among others blurring the lines between stores and digital.

As technology is evolving rapidly, we are at the junction of collaboration over competition. Various stakeholders need to collaborate to create a sustainable future of an integral part of our lives our home! And thus, Home Improvement retail is a significant category of retail and, in fact, one of the fastest-growing categories as well.

Multiple reasons are leading to the fast growth of the Home Improvement category. Apart from the psychological confidence of owning a home, the remodeling of homes, basis change in the fashion aesthetics across demographics is an important factor. It is also the infusion of millennials who are highly keen on buying and remodeling homes, and that too is acting as an additional factor. Another reason that I feel is important is the way technology is being used to create unique and innovative solutions that are driving the growth of the sector, thereby meeting the demand through solutions that are more personalized and frictionless.

Over the last few years, I have been privileged to work on a multitude of AI projects with both large internal teams as well with startups and academic institutions who are working to redefine processes and, in some cases, their overall industries as well. At this point as well I am working with seven exceptional startups from across India, representing a diverse range of interests including merchandising, AI-driven trend forecasting, automated content generation, talent acquisition, hyper-real AI and sustainable, next-gen home construction technology, among others, which have deep learning AI models built to reimagine how we look at retail today and in the future.

On that note, I am incredibly excited to see the way Artificial Narrow Intelligence, which we generally refer to as AI, is transforming the world of retail and how thats shaping our lives better!

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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How AI will revolutionize the retail industry and how technology will address the needs of future shoppers - The Times of India Blog