Mike Graen:
00:00:13
Greetings. My name is Mike Graen. Welcome to
Mike Graen:
00:00:17
another edition of the podcast focusing on on shelf
Mike Graen:
00:00:20
availability sponsored by the Walton Supply Chain Center at
Mike Graen:
00:00:24
the University of Arkansas. Today, we are excited to have
Mike Graen:
00:00:28
Barbara Chase with us. Barbara is a longtime professional in
Mike Graen:
00:00:32
the on shelf availability area within the industry. She's
Mike Graen:
00:00:37
currently Vice President of Global Sales for ReTech, or
Mike Graen:
00:00:41
Symphony AI. We talked to her about leveraging computer vision
Mike Graen:
00:00:46
in store to understand things like out of stocks, or incorrect
Mike Graen:
00:00:50
products, or pricing discrepancies, etc. Let's join a
Mike Graen:
00:00:54
conversation with Barbara. That, you know, when you start looking
Mike Graen:
00:00:58
at robots running around in stores and fixed cameras dropped
Mike Graen:
00:01:02
from the ceilings or people coming in and taking pictures, I
Mike Graen:
00:01:06
can't get enough people to actually stock the shelves now
Mike Graen:
00:01:08
how am I gonna get people to come and take pictures? And then
Mike Graen:
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I think about this word that just sounds expensive:
Mike Graen:
00:01:13
artificial intelligence. I mean, it just sounds expensive. Right?
Mike Graen:
00:01:17
So how do you justify that? How do you do the business
Mike Graen:
00:01:20
justification to say this is a an investment that you need to
Mike Graen:
00:01:23
move forward?
Barbara Chase:
00:01:25
Well, what I can also say is we have a value
Barbara Chase:
00:01:28
assessment team that consults for free to help with those
Barbara Chase:
00:01:33
business justifications. So we actually have a quite detailed
Barbara Chase:
00:01:39
ROI Return on Investment assessment. So it's based on
Barbara Chase:
00:01:45
based on annual revenues, it's based on the number of SKUs,
Barbara Chase:
00:01:49
categories, frequency of images, and then based on the numbers
Barbara Chase:
00:01:55
that we've proven with our, with our customers. So for, for
Barbara Chase:
00:02:01
instance, hang on, I'm just gonna use my PowerPoint as a
Barbara Chase:
00:02:06
guide here, but I don't need to share this picture is we have,
Barbara Chase:
00:02:12
we have proven up to 5% in increased sales, and we which is
Barbara Chase:
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which is huge. And, and this is how we look at it as well. So
Barbara Chase:
00:02:26
from that it's kind of a domino effect, where it's a, when you
Barbara Chase:
00:02:30
have increased planogram and compliance, and we've got a
Barbara Chase:
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recorded up to 23% increase in that, then that correlates to an
Barbara Chase:
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increased on shelf availability, or OSA and we've proven up to
Barbara Chase:
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11% of that. And then that domino effect is in fact, your
Barbara Chase:
00:02:53
sales. So you can take a percentage and it is it is
Barbara Chase:
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accepted and embraced by retailers and consultants a
Barbara Chase:
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percentage of that. If you take like a 1% OSA that will equate
Barbara Chase:
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to a certain percentage in sales. And so and again, there's
Barbara Chase:
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lots to back that up. That's not just Barbara's idea. And so I
Barbara Chase:
00:03:20
will say that is a key, a key differentiator. And that's why
Barbara Chase:
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too there are so many pilots going on, because people want to
Barbara Chase:
00:03:29
say in my environment, you know, in my categories or entire
Barbara Chase:
00:03:33
store, whatever, you know, we have proven an increased OSA,
Barbara Chase:
00:03:38
you know, worn increased planogram. We also from an
Barbara Chase:
00:03:42
optimized labor, so, so to if we can say, hey, now that we have
Barbara Chase:
00:03:50
these prioritized workless, we don't have to have or, or if
Barbara Chase:
00:03:58
we're using shelf cameras or robots, we don't need the labor
Barbara Chase:
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to be doing that. Regular I'll just say regular whether it's
Barbara Chase:
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daily twice a day weekly, doesn't matter. But that regular
Barbara Chase:
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walk of as I mentioned earlier, shooting holes or gaps scanning
Barbara Chase:
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or whatever that goes away. And then the people that are also
Barbara Chase:
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going through checking prices, that goes away. So those are
Barbara Chase:
00:04:21
hard, hard dollar revenue. Another -
Mike Graen:
00:04:25
Let me interrupt you real quick; because anytime you
Mike Graen:
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say reducing labor people relate that to we're going to automate
Mike Graen:
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people and get rid of people. I've never seen a retailer yet
Mike Graen:
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get rid of people because of this. What they do is they give
Mike Graen:
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them more meaningful tasks than doing doing audits which robots
Mike Graen:
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and things can do. Because there's always more work to be
Mike Graen:
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done in a retail store. You can possibly get that. So whenever
Mike Graen:
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you say reduce labor - just to be clear for anybody listening
Mike Graen:
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to this - that doesn't mean get rid of people. It gives them
Mike Graen:
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more more empowering and hopefully customer-facing jobs.
Mike Graen:
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Or helping more... well, you know, picking orders for
Mike Graen:
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customers and things like that not just scanning a bunch of shelves.
Barbara Chase:
00:05:05
Exactly. And I'm so glad you pointed that out is,
Barbara Chase:
00:05:08
as I mentioned earlier, they may have 100 employees, but they
Barbara Chase:
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really do need 500. So that's where again, we want them on
Barbara Chase:
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customer-facing or making sure that they're restocking. Because
Barbara Chase:
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we don't, you know, we're, we're, we're, we're the brains,
Barbara Chase:
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but we're not the arms and the hands, you know that that's
Barbara Chase:
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where we need, we need that help. So it's it's definitely a
Barbara Chase:
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collaboration between the two. And that's why there's so much
Barbara Chase:
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excitement. Now, the other thing from a business case perspective
Barbara Chase:
00:05:40
is, what we have that is unique is data monetization. So we have
Barbara Chase:
00:05:48
just stood up a shelf product data monetization service. So
Barbara Chase:
00:05:53
with Symphony AI, and I think the excitement about us being
Barbara Chase:
00:05:57
acquired about a year and a half ago is, is we've just got this
Barbara Chase:
00:06:01
army of people like the value assessment team for free to work
Barbara Chase:
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through those business justifications. But also,
Barbara Chase:
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there's a monetization team already working with and have
Barbara Chase:
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has coaches working with retailers and CPGs for loyalty
Barbara Chase:
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data. So now we are adding the shelf data. So we say store
Barbara Chase:
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intelligence, because we do displays and bunkers and all
Barbara Chase:
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that kind of stuff. But but just to help decipher between what's
Barbara Chase:
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typically known as data monetization, and shelf product,
Barbara Chase:
00:06:38
data monetization, it's worthwhile. So when you've got
Barbara Chase:
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the like, the top 10, or 11, CPGs, that have, you know, 1500
Barbara Chase:
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... 1000 ... 500 sales reps, you know, these DSD's are just gonna
Barbara Chase:
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go do things on their own, you know, blah, blah, blah. But for
Barbara Chase:
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a tier two, and tier three, they don't have those sales forces.
Barbara Chase:
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So they want to, they want to buy that data. And oh, by the
Barbara Chase:
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way, even for the big guys, they still there might be certain
Barbara Chase:
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areas, whether it's a niche from a geography or a demographic,
Barbara Chase:
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that that data is still worthwhile to them. And rather
Barbara Chase:
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than having their own people or an auditor, or broker, well, if
Barbara Chase:
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I can just buy it, like I do from other data providers,
Barbara Chase:
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that's, that's valuable and worthwhile to me. One, because
Barbara Chase:
00:07:31
as I showed that virtual visit, maybe I don't need to visit a
Barbara Chase:
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store quite as often. And I as a CPG, then can cut my travel
Barbara Chase:
00:07:40
expenses, because now I'm getting a regular picture,
Barbara Chase:
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whether that's daily, weekly, bi monthly, monthly, whatever that
Barbara Chase:
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that frequency is. And so that's very exciting. That is new top
Barbara Chase:
00:07:52
line revenue, and in a couple of our pilots, right now, you have
Barbara Chase:
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to do a pilot first to just to get the data to be able to
Barbara Chase:
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socialize it with with the different CPGs. But then having
Barbara Chase:
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that it's it's launching those conversations. So the idea is
Barbara Chase:
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not that that our solution costs anything at all. The the the
Barbara Chase:
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plan, is that it is a revenue generator. For the retailer, for
Barbara Chase:
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the retailer.
Mike Graen:
00:08:27
Okay. Got it. Excellent. Wow. Whew, there's a
Mike Graen:
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lot of stuff you got going on. So your primary customer, I
Mike Graen:
00:08:40
guess there's a couple things, right: number one, it's the
Mike Graen:
00:08:43
retailer that wants this intelligence. But then you have
Mike Graen:
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to obviously, collaborate very closely with the data collection
Mike Graen:
00:08:52
folks, whether it's the fixed camera folks or the robotic
Mike Graen:
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companies, etc. Because I would assume for systemically
Mike Graen:
00:08:59
collecting that data every single day to every single
Mike Graen:
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shelf, etcetera. Capturing with either a camera in the ceiling
Mike Graen:
00:09:06
or fixed camera on the shelf or robotic scan is probably the
Mike Graen:
00:09:11
probably the more preferred method. Would you think so?
Mike Graen:
00:09:13
Who's your customer? Who is your customer I guess the end of
Mike Graen:
00:09:16
this?
Barbara Chase:
00:09:17
Yeah. And I'll tell you the, the, the answer is
Barbara Chase:
00:09:21
all over the place. Because I said, you know, retailers are
Barbara Chase:
00:09:24
unique. And here's what's interesting, too, is: do you get
Barbara Chase:
00:09:29
trucks every day? Because if you don't get trucks every day, and
Barbara Chase:
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there's not to action, it might might not make sense to have a
Barbara Chase:
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daily picture. It might make sense to have a weekly picture.
Barbara Chase:
00:09:40
Or maybe if your trucks come two or three times a week because
Barbara Chase:
00:09:43
when we're talking about supply chain, right, let's you know,
Barbara Chase:
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follow that through. And so, so the, the you don't want data for
Barbara Chase:
00:09:50
data's sake; you really need to understand the entire ecosystem.
Barbara Chase:
00:09:55
And then what's the sensibility in that - you know - the entire
Barbara Chase:
00:09:59
story. Because different categories have at much
Barbara Chase:
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different built in different velocities. And that's what's
Barbara Chase:
00:10:05
kind of fun is you, you can, you know, you can look at your
Barbara Chase:
00:10:10
stores and have that surgical approach in regard to, as we
Barbara Chase:
00:10:14
said earlier, how you image capture then to be able to staff
Barbara Chase:
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to be able to act against that data. So that you are, you know,
Barbara Chase:
00:10:25
always keeping customer satisfaction at the forefront.
Mike Graen:
00:10:29
Yep. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. So I
Mike Graen:
00:10:33
guess one of the questions that I like to ask you is, you know,
Mike Graen:
00:10:36
what, have what question Have I not asked you that I should
Mike Graen:
00:10:39
have? That's one of my favorite questions at the end. We got
Mike Graen:
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about 10 minutes left here, I want to make sure. I've asked
Mike Graen:
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you a lot of questions. It's been a conversation, which is
Mike Graen:
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really the way we want this to be. This is Matt's dream to be
Mike Graen:
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able to have not a bunch of PowerPoints but a conversation
Mike Graen:
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about real retail, on shelf availability challenges. Is
Mike Graen:
00:10:57
there a question that I should have asked that I didn't?
Barbara Chase:
00:10:59
I think it is, in fact around - so yes - and I
Barbara Chase:
00:11:06
think it would be around 'define computer vision.' Because there
Barbara Chase:
00:11:14
are many solutions out there, and they say computer vision and
Barbara Chase:
00:11:19
AI, but they don't have the ability to, in fact, recognize
Barbara Chase:
00:11:25
that product, they do a great job at recognizing, "hey,
Barbara Chase:
00:11:29
there's a hole here" could be because of a misplaced item. But
Barbara Chase:
00:11:32
hey, if there is a hole there, and let's - and and that's good,
Barbara Chase:
00:11:37
that's goodness - but you can do better by understanding what
Barbara Chase:
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that product is, and where you know, better management
Barbara Chase:
00:11:45
organization of the store, by having true - what we call true
Barbara Chase:
00:11:50
computer vision. It just adds to the use cases, because I think
Barbara Chase:
00:11:54
that's also the difference, you know, a lot of time as I say, I
Barbara Chase:
00:11:58
feel like a grandma in this space, because I've been in it
Barbara Chase:
00:12:01
for five plus years, and the speed at which it moves. That is
Barbara Chase:
00:12:06
a super long time. And, and just even you know, from five years
Barbara Chase:
00:12:11
ago, compared to today, the ability of AI, or even just; we
Barbara Chase:
00:12:19
were in a retailer, a couple of weeks ago, and the aisles were
Barbara Chase:
00:12:24
really narrow. Well, you know, in 2020, which is, which is
Barbara Chase:
00:12:29
relatively recently, they introduced negative zoom in
Barbara Chase:
00:12:32
regard to tablets and cameras. So before negative zoom, we
Barbara Chase:
00:12:37
wouldn't have been able to help that retailer. But now it's,
Barbara Chase:
00:12:40
it's no problem. And so so with that, it's that understanding of
Barbara Chase:
00:12:46
how as a as a retailer, or CPG, if I am going to explore and,
Barbara Chase:
00:12:55
and potentially invest in this, I want to maximize the use
Barbara Chase:
00:13:00
cases. And the only way to do that is to have that combination
Barbara Chase:
00:13:05
of AI (that's good, prioritize workloads, volumes of data to
Barbara Chase:
00:13:09
make sense of it), true computer vision (I not only recognize a
Barbara Chase:
00:13:13
whole but I recognize the product Honey Nut Cheerios to
Barbara Chase:
00:13:15
Cheerios and where it goes), and optical character recognition
Barbara Chase:
00:13:20
(pricing promotions, that's big). To your point, as you
Barbara Chase:
00:13:23
mentioned earlier, 'hey, I came in it's Wednesday and you know,
Barbara Chase:
00:13:26
where is it? And then the other question- if I can say two maybe
Barbara Chase:
00:13:30
missed - is how do I get started?
Mike Graen:
00:13:32
Ok. Barbara, how do I get started?
Barbara Chase:
00:13:38
Well ... what myself and my team would
Barbara Chase:
00:13:45
recommend is a pilot and what I what I say is is we recommend a
Barbara Chase:
00:13:53
Crawl-Walk-Run approach. And as fast as AI is happening and with
Barbara Chase:
00:14:00
the kind of chaos that snap or not snap ChatGPT. My... my
Barbara Chase:
00:14:10
daughter showed me that there was a Snapchat and ChatGPT
Barbara Chase:
00:14:13
that's what was on the top of my head just like a week ago and I
Barbara Chase:
00:14:16
was like what? So you know, so now that that's caused like a
Barbara Chase:
00:14:21
flurry of, okay, I understand now what that means to me
Barbara Chase:
00:14:25
personally. So now I want to understand that: pilot. How does
Barbara Chase:
00:14:29
it apply to your specific brand and your specific ... so that
Barbara Chase:
00:14:33
then it's a you know, it's not only a meet-and-greet. It's a -
Barbara Chase:
00:14:38
okay, let's really understand your operations, your staffing,
Barbara Chase:
00:14:41
what systems you have, and how then does that work together in
Barbara Chase:
00:14:46
the entire supply chain? Because now this is the last piece like
Barbara Chase:
00:14:51
I mentioned earlier, it's never previously been available
Barbara Chase:
00:14:54
before. So supply chain has just been blind. They've just been
Barbara Chase:
00:14:57
blind to the most important piece: me as a customer, what do
Barbara Chase:
00:15:02
I see? Right? So now that that's there, then we can understand
Barbara Chase:
00:15:06
and a pilot, which takes about three months, that from start to
Barbara Chase:
00:15:11
finish, how this works, and then two: how to make a defendable
Barbara Chase:
00:15:17
business justification for a rollout.
Mike Graen:
00:15:21
There's a word that you didn't say, and I was really
Mike Graen:
00:15:23
happy about it. You're ready for it? Oh several words: POC -
Mike Graen:
00:15:30
proof of concept. What you didn't say that. And here's why
Mike Graen:
00:15:34
I think he didn't say that. We don't need to prove that this
Mike Graen:
00:15:37
works anymore. Somebody asked me to do a proof of concept with an
Mike Graen:
00:15:41
RFID project. We've been doing this for four years, we know it
Mike Graen:
00:15:44
works. The only question is, can we set up the right parameters
Mike Graen:
00:15:48
in a pilot to figure out, you know, how do we make this work
Mike Graen:
00:15:52
for you as a retailer. So thank you for not saying we'll do a
Mike Graen:
00:15:55
POC, what you said was we'll do a pilot, I think the
Mike Graen:
00:15:59
Crawl-Walk-Run analogy is a really good one in this kind of
Mike Graen:
00:16:02
space.
Barbara Chase:
00:16:03
Yeah. And I think it just makes every we don't,
Barbara Chase:
00:16:05
we're so confident, we don't have any hooks in it. If it
Barbara Chase:
00:16:09
doesn't work out for whatever reason, we just take our toys
Barbara Chase:
00:16:13
and and go home. So there's just really no stress, it's all
Barbara Chase:
00:16:18
excitement, and then just to even be involved, from an
Barbara Chase:
00:16:21
employee perspective, whether it's in the store, or whether
Barbara Chase:
00:16:24
it's up the headquarters chain, oh my gosh, like everybody's
Barbara Chase:
00:16:28
like, do I do I get this on my resume? Do I get this
Barbara Chase:
00:16:31
experience? And it should be that exciting, because there is
Barbara Chase:
00:16:35
so much to glean, and to learn and how cool if your
Barbara Chase:
00:16:39
organization, you know, supports this exploration, to understand
Barbara Chase:
00:16:45
how to continue to be fiscally responsible to make your chain
Barbara Chase:
00:16:51
as profitable as it can be starting with customer
Barbara Chase:
00:16:54
satisfaction. And so yeah, we've had a yeah, it's, I don't sleep
Barbara Chase:
00:17:02
much at night, because I started the day with London, Germany and
Barbara Chase:
00:17:06
France. And I end the day with Beijing and Japan and Australia.
Barbara Chase:
00:17:11
So it's, it's an exciting time to be here. And I just would
Barbara Chase:
00:17:17
love the opportunity to talk to as many as possible. So they can
Barbara Chase:
00:17:21
- I always say seeing is believing - so that we can, we
Barbara Chase:
00:17:26
can create more believers.
Mike Graen:
00:17:29
Yeah, this is awesome. Well, let me summarize
Mike Graen:
00:17:33
this, because I had the good fortune of actually meeting and
Mike Graen:
00:17:35
working with Sam Walton while he was still alive. And one of the
Mike Graen:
00:17:38
things he said - and this quote has been shared a lot of times
Mike Graen:
00:17:42
but - "customer is ultimately the boss. They can choose to
Mike Graen:
00:17:46
hire us or fire us every day, by choosing to spend their money
Mike Graen:
00:17:50
with us or somewhere else." And number one factor I've heard of
Mike Graen:
00:17:53
people walking away from a retailer is front end checkout
Mike Graen:
00:17:57
experience takes too long, etc. And number two one is
Mike Graen:
00:18:01
availability of product.Didn't find the product. I was coming
Mike Graen:
00:18:04
in to look for this and after the third time of it not being
Mike Graen:
00:18:07
there to heck with it, I'm leaving my basket, I'm going to
Mike Graen:
00:18:09
the competitor. So and I do believe it's a two, it's a
Mike Graen:
00:18:13
two-systems solution. For most retailers. It's computer vision
Mike Graen:
00:18:17
that you've been talking about. And I think for things like
Mike Graen:
00:18:19
apparel, and general merchandise and other stuff, you can run a
Mike Graen:
00:18:23
camera, buy up a bunch of clothes, but I can't tell one
Mike Graen:
00:18:26
from another. I think RFID plays a role there as well. So there's
Mike Graen:
00:18:29
a two, there's a two technology race to figure out how to
Mike Graen:
00:18:32
leverage this stuff. And I think you guys are well positioned to
Mike Graen:
00:18:35
do this. Barbara, thank you so much for taking the time out of
Mike Graen:
00:18:38
your busy schedule. We really do appreciate it. We will be
Mike Graen:
00:18:41
podcastinh, we will be broadcasting this on both
Mike Graen:
00:18:44
Conversations on Retail, and the Walton Supply Chain Center in
Mike Graen:
00:18:48
the next couple of days. So thank you very much for your
Mike Graen:
00:18:51
time. Any closing comments that you'd like to make before I
Mike Graen:
00:18:54
before I close off the podcast?
Barbara Chase:
00:18:55
I just wanted to say thank you so much to you,
Barbara Chase:
00:18:58
Mike. I think this is such a an exciting podcast that you have
Barbara Chase:
00:19:02
and it's so relevant and timely with all these technologies that
Barbara Chase:
00:19:08
are available and it's so great that you are taking the lead to
Barbara Chase:
00:19:13
give us another avenue or venue to continue to educate.
Mike Graen:
00:19:18
Yep, absolutely. Barbara, have a great weekend.
Mike Graen:
00:19:20
audience. Thank you very much. We'll check you back with you
Mike Graen:
00:19:24
next time when we're bringing another Conversations on Retail
Mike Graen:
00:19:27
on on self development availability. Thank you very
Mike Graen:
00:19:30
much. Bye bye.
Barbara Chase:
00:19:30
Thank you.
Mike Graen:
00:19:33
Boy, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with
Mike Graen:
00:19:35
Barbara Chase. Join us next time as we have another industry
Mike Graen:
00:19:39
professional talking about the capability, process, people and
Mike Graen:
00:19:43
technology to drive on shelf availability of retail. Have a
00:00:13
Greetings. My name is Mike Graen. Welcome to
Mike Graen:
00:00:17
another edition of the podcast focusing on on shelf
Mike Graen:
00:00:20
availability sponsored by the Walton Supply Chain Center at
Mike Graen:
00:00:24
the University of Arkansas. Today, we are excited to have
Mike Graen:
00:00:28
Barbara Chase with us. Barbara is a longtime professional in
Mike Graen:
00:00:32
the on shelf availability area within the industry. She's
Mike Graen:
00:00:37
currently Vice President of Global Sales for ReTech, or
Mike Graen:
00:00:41
Symphony AI. We talked to her about leveraging computer vision
Mike Graen:
00:00:46
in store to understand things like out of stocks, or incorrect
Mike Graen:
00:00:50
products, or pricing discrepancies, etc. Let's join a
Mike Graen:
00:00:54
conversation with Barbara. That, you know, when you start looking
Mike Graen:
00:00:58
at robots running around in stores and fixed cameras dropped
Mike Graen:
00:01:02
from the ceilings or people coming in and taking pictures, I
Mike Graen:
00:01:06
can't get enough people to actually stock the shelves now
Mike Graen:
00:01:08
how am I gonna get people to come and take pictures? And then
Mike Graen:
00:01:10
I think about this word that just sounds expensive:
Mike Graen:
00:01:13
artificial intelligence. I mean, it just sounds expensive. Right?
Mike Graen:
00:01:17
So how do you justify that? How do you do the business
Mike Graen:
00:01:20
justification to say this is a an investment that you need to
Mike Graen:
00:01:23
move forward?
Barbara Chase:
00:01:25
Well, what I can also say is we have a value
Barbara Chase:
00:01:28
assessment team that consults for free to help with those
Barbara Chase:
00:01:33
business justifications. So we actually have a quite detailed
Barbara Chase:
00:01:39
ROI Return on Investment assessment. So it's based on
Barbara Chase:
00:01:45
based on annual revenues, it's based on the number of SKUs,
Barbara Chase:
00:01:49
categories, frequency of images, and then based on the numbers
Barbara Chase:
00:01:55
that we've proven with our, with our customers. So for, for
Barbara Chase:
00:02:01
instance, hang on, I'm just gonna use my PowerPoint as a
Barbara Chase:
00:02:06
guide here, but I don't need to share this picture is we have,
Barbara Chase:
00:02:12
we have proven up to 5% in increased sales, and we which is
Barbara Chase:
00:02:20
which is huge. And, and this is how we look at it as well. So
Barbara Chase:
00:02:26
from that it's kind of a domino effect, where it's a, when you
Barbara Chase:
00:02:30
have increased planogram and compliance, and we've got a
Barbara Chase:
00:02:35
recorded up to 23% increase in that, then that correlates to an
Barbara Chase:
00:02:42
increased on shelf availability, or OSA and we've proven up to
Barbara Chase:
00:02:47
11% of that. And then that domino effect is in fact, your
Barbara Chase:
00:02:53
sales. So you can take a percentage and it is it is
Barbara Chase:
00:02:58
accepted and embraced by retailers and consultants a
Barbara Chase:
00:03:03
percentage of that. If you take like a 1% OSA that will equate
Barbara Chase:
00:03:11
to a certain percentage in sales. And so and again, there's
Barbara Chase:
00:03:15
lots to back that up. That's not just Barbara's idea. And so I
Barbara Chase:
00:03:20
will say that is a key, a key differentiator. And that's why
Barbara Chase:
00:03:25
too there are so many pilots going on, because people want to
Barbara Chase:
00:03:29
say in my environment, you know, in my categories or entire
Barbara Chase:
00:03:33
store, whatever, you know, we have proven an increased OSA,
Barbara Chase:
00:03:38
you know, worn increased planogram. We also from an
Barbara Chase:
00:03:42
optimized labor, so, so to if we can say, hey, now that we have
Barbara Chase:
00:03:50
these prioritized workless, we don't have to have or, or if
Barbara Chase:
00:03:58
we're using shelf cameras or robots, we don't need the labor
Barbara Chase:
00:04:01
to be doing that. Regular I'll just say regular whether it's
Barbara Chase:
00:04:05
daily twice a day weekly, doesn't matter. But that regular
Barbara Chase:
00:04:08
walk of as I mentioned earlier, shooting holes or gaps scanning
Barbara Chase:
00:04:14
or whatever that goes away. And then the people that are also
Barbara Chase:
00:04:17
going through checking prices, that goes away. So those are
Barbara Chase:
00:04:21
hard, hard dollar revenue. Another -
Mike Graen:
00:04:25
Let me interrupt you real quick; because anytime you
Mike Graen:
00:04:28
say reducing labor people relate that to we're going to automate
Mike Graen:
00:04:32
people and get rid of people. I've never seen a retailer yet
Mike Graen:
00:04:35
get rid of people because of this. What they do is they give
Mike Graen:
00:04:38
them more meaningful tasks than doing doing audits which robots
Mike Graen:
00:04:41
and things can do. Because there's always more work to be
Mike Graen:
00:04:45
done in a retail store. You can possibly get that. So whenever
Mike Graen:
00:04:48
you say reduce labor - just to be clear for anybody listening
Mike Graen:
00:04:51
to this - that doesn't mean get rid of people. It gives them
Mike Graen:
00:04:54
more more empowering and hopefully customer-facing jobs.
Mike Graen:
00:04:58
Or helping more... well, you know, picking orders for
Mike Graen:
00:05:00
customers and things like that not just scanning a bunch of shelves.
Barbara Chase:
00:05:05
Exactly. And I'm so glad you pointed that out is,
Barbara Chase:
00:05:08
as I mentioned earlier, they may have 100 employees, but they
Barbara Chase:
00:05:12
really do need 500. So that's where again, we want them on
Barbara Chase:
00:05:19
customer-facing or making sure that they're restocking. Because
Barbara Chase:
00:05:22
we don't, you know, we're, we're, we're, we're the brains,
Barbara Chase:
00:05:26
but we're not the arms and the hands, you know that that's
Barbara Chase:
00:05:29
where we need, we need that help. So it's it's definitely a
Barbara Chase:
00:05:32
collaboration between the two. And that's why there's so much
Barbara Chase:
00:05:36
excitement. Now, the other thing from a business case perspective
Barbara Chase:
00:05:40
is, what we have that is unique is data monetization. So we have
Barbara Chase:
00:05:48
just stood up a shelf product data monetization service. So
Barbara Chase:
00:05:53
with Symphony AI, and I think the excitement about us being
Barbara Chase:
00:05:57
acquired about a year and a half ago is, is we've just got this
Barbara Chase:
00:06:01
army of people like the value assessment team for free to work
Barbara Chase:
00:06:05
through those business justifications. But also,
Barbara Chase:
00:06:10
there's a monetization team already working with and have
Barbara Chase:
00:06:14
has coaches working with retailers and CPGs for loyalty
Barbara Chase:
00:06:20
data. So now we are adding the shelf data. So we say store
Barbara Chase:
00:06:26
intelligence, because we do displays and bunkers and all
Barbara Chase:
00:06:29
that kind of stuff. But but just to help decipher between what's
Barbara Chase:
00:06:34
typically known as data monetization, and shelf product,
Barbara Chase:
00:06:38
data monetization, it's worthwhile. So when you've got
Barbara Chase:
00:06:42
the like, the top 10, or 11, CPGs, that have, you know, 1500
Barbara Chase:
00:06:48
... 1000 ... 500 sales reps, you know, these DSD's are just gonna
Barbara Chase:
00:06:53
go do things on their own, you know, blah, blah, blah. But for
Barbara Chase:
00:06:57
a tier two, and tier three, they don't have those sales forces.
Barbara Chase:
00:07:01
So they want to, they want to buy that data. And oh, by the
Barbara Chase:
00:07:04
way, even for the big guys, they still there might be certain
Barbara Chase:
00:07:10
areas, whether it's a niche from a geography or a demographic,
Barbara Chase:
00:07:15
that that data is still worthwhile to them. And rather
Barbara Chase:
00:07:20
than having their own people or an auditor, or broker, well, if
Barbara Chase:
00:07:23
I can just buy it, like I do from other data providers,
Barbara Chase:
00:07:28
that's, that's valuable and worthwhile to me. One, because
Barbara Chase:
00:07:31
as I showed that virtual visit, maybe I don't need to visit a
Barbara Chase:
00:07:37
store quite as often. And I as a CPG, then can cut my travel
Barbara Chase:
00:07:40
expenses, because now I'm getting a regular picture,
Barbara Chase:
00:07:44
whether that's daily, weekly, bi monthly, monthly, whatever that
Barbara Chase:
00:07:48
that frequency is. And so that's very exciting. That is new top
Barbara Chase:
00:07:52
line revenue, and in a couple of our pilots, right now, you have
Barbara Chase:
00:07:57
to do a pilot first to just to get the data to be able to
Barbara Chase:
00:08:00
socialize it with with the different CPGs. But then having
Barbara Chase:
00:08:07
that it's it's launching those conversations. So the idea is
Barbara Chase:
00:08:13
not that that our solution costs anything at all. The the the
Barbara Chase:
00:08:19
plan, is that it is a revenue generator. For the retailer, for
Barbara Chase:
00:08:26
the retailer.
Mike Graen:
00:08:27
Okay. Got it. Excellent. Wow. Whew, there's a
Mike Graen:
00:08:34
lot of stuff you got going on. So your primary customer, I
Mike Graen:
00:08:40
guess there's a couple things, right: number one, it's the
Mike Graen:
00:08:43
retailer that wants this intelligence. But then you have
Mike Graen:
00:08:47
to obviously, collaborate very closely with the data collection
Mike Graen:
00:08:52
folks, whether it's the fixed camera folks or the robotic
Mike Graen:
00:08:54
companies, etc. Because I would assume for systemically
Mike Graen:
00:08:59
collecting that data every single day to every single
Mike Graen:
00:09:02
shelf, etcetera. Capturing with either a camera in the ceiling
Mike Graen:
00:09:06
or fixed camera on the shelf or robotic scan is probably the
Mike Graen:
00:09:11
probably the more preferred method. Would you think so?
Mike Graen:
00:09:13
Who's your customer? Who is your customer I guess the end of
Mike Graen:
00:09:16
this?
Barbara Chase:
00:09:17
Yeah. And I'll tell you the, the, the answer is
Barbara Chase:
00:09:21
all over the place. Because I said, you know, retailers are
Barbara Chase:
00:09:24
unique. And here's what's interesting, too, is: do you get
Barbara Chase:
00:09:29
trucks every day? Because if you don't get trucks every day, and
Barbara Chase:
00:09:33
there's not to action, it might might not make sense to have a
Barbara Chase:
00:09:37
daily picture. It might make sense to have a weekly picture.
Barbara Chase:
00:09:40
Or maybe if your trucks come two or three times a week because
Barbara Chase:
00:09:43
when we're talking about supply chain, right, let's you know,
Barbara Chase:
00:09:46
follow that through. And so, so the, the you don't want data for
Barbara Chase:
00:09:50
data's sake; you really need to understand the entire ecosystem.
Barbara Chase:
00:09:55
And then what's the sensibility in that - you know - the entire
Barbara Chase:
00:09:59
story. Because different categories have at much
Barbara Chase:
00:10:02
different built in different velocities. And that's what's
Barbara Chase:
00:10:05
kind of fun is you, you can, you know, you can look at your
Barbara Chase:
00:10:10
stores and have that surgical approach in regard to, as we
Barbara Chase:
00:10:14
said earlier, how you image capture then to be able to staff
Barbara Chase:
00:10:19
to be able to act against that data. So that you are, you know,
Barbara Chase:
00:10:25
always keeping customer satisfaction at the forefront.
Mike Graen:
00:10:29
Yep. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. So I
Mike Graen:
00:10:33
guess one of the questions that I like to ask you is, you know,
Mike Graen:
00:10:36
what, have what question Have I not asked you that I should
Mike Graen:
00:10:39
have? That's one of my favorite questions at the end. We got
Mike Graen:
00:10:42
about 10 minutes left here, I want to make sure. I've asked
Mike Graen:
00:10:45
you a lot of questions. It's been a conversation, which is
Mike Graen:
00:10:48
really the way we want this to be. This is Matt's dream to be
Mike Graen:
00:10:51
able to have not a bunch of PowerPoints but a conversation
Mike Graen:
00:10:54
about real retail, on shelf availability challenges. Is
Mike Graen:
00:10:57
there a question that I should have asked that I didn't?
Barbara Chase:
00:10:59
I think it is, in fact around - so yes - and I
Barbara Chase:
00:11:06
think it would be around 'define computer vision.' Because there
Barbara Chase:
00:11:14
are many solutions out there, and they say computer vision and
Barbara Chase:
00:11:19
AI, but they don't have the ability to, in fact, recognize
Barbara Chase:
00:11:25
that product, they do a great job at recognizing, "hey,
Barbara Chase:
00:11:29
there's a hole here" could be because of a misplaced item. But
Barbara Chase:
00:11:32
hey, if there is a hole there, and let's - and and that's good,
Barbara Chase:
00:11:37
that's goodness - but you can do better by understanding what
Barbara Chase:
00:11:42
that product is, and where you know, better management
Barbara Chase:
00:11:45
organization of the store, by having true - what we call true
Barbara Chase:
00:11:50
computer vision. It just adds to the use cases, because I think
Barbara Chase:
00:11:54
that's also the difference, you know, a lot of time as I say, I
Barbara Chase:
00:11:58
feel like a grandma in this space, because I've been in it
Barbara Chase:
00:12:01
for five plus years, and the speed at which it moves. That is
Barbara Chase:
00:12:06
a super long time. And, and just even you know, from five years
Barbara Chase:
00:12:11
ago, compared to today, the ability of AI, or even just; we
Barbara Chase:
00:12:19
were in a retailer, a couple of weeks ago, and the aisles were
Barbara Chase:
00:12:24
really narrow. Well, you know, in 2020, which is, which is
Barbara Chase:
00:12:29
relatively recently, they introduced negative zoom in
Barbara Chase:
00:12:32
regard to tablets and cameras. So before negative zoom, we
Barbara Chase:
00:12:37
wouldn't have been able to help that retailer. But now it's,
Barbara Chase:
00:12:40
it's no problem. And so so with that, it's that understanding of
Barbara Chase:
00:12:46
how as a as a retailer, or CPG, if I am going to explore and,
Barbara Chase:
00:12:55
and potentially invest in this, I want to maximize the use
Barbara Chase:
00:13:00
cases. And the only way to do that is to have that combination
Barbara Chase:
00:13:05
of AI (that's good, prioritize workloads, volumes of data to
Barbara Chase:
00:13:09
make sense of it), true computer vision (I not only recognize a
Barbara Chase:
00:13:13
whole but I recognize the product Honey Nut Cheerios to
Barbara Chase:
00:13:15
Cheerios and where it goes), and optical character recognition
Barbara Chase:
00:13:20
(pricing promotions, that's big). To your point, as you
Barbara Chase:
00:13:23
mentioned earlier, 'hey, I came in it's Wednesday and you know,
Barbara Chase:
00:13:26
where is it? And then the other question- if I can say two maybe
Barbara Chase:
00:13:30
missed - is how do I get started?
Mike Graen:
00:13:32
Ok. Barbara, how do I get started?
Barbara Chase:
00:13:38
Well ... what myself and my team would
Barbara Chase:
00:13:45
recommend is a pilot and what I what I say is is we recommend a
Barbara Chase:
00:13:53
Crawl-Walk-Run approach. And as fast as AI is happening and with
Barbara Chase:
00:14:00
the kind of chaos that snap or not snap ChatGPT. My... my
Barbara Chase:
00:14:10
daughter showed me that there was a Snapchat and ChatGPT
Barbara Chase:
00:14:13
that's what was on the top of my head just like a week ago and I
Barbara Chase:
00:14:16
was like what? So you know, so now that that's caused like a
Barbara Chase:
00:14:21
flurry of, okay, I understand now what that means to me
Barbara Chase:
00:14:25
personally. So now I want to understand that: pilot. How does
Barbara Chase:
00:14:29
it apply to your specific brand and your specific ... so that
Barbara Chase:
00:14:33
then it's a you know, it's not only a meet-and-greet. It's a -
Barbara Chase:
00:14:38
okay, let's really understand your operations, your staffing,
Barbara Chase:
00:14:41
what systems you have, and how then does that work together in
Barbara Chase:
00:14:46
the entire supply chain? Because now this is the last piece like
Barbara Chase:
00:14:51
I mentioned earlier, it's never previously been available
Barbara Chase:
00:14:54
before. So supply chain has just been blind. They've just been
Barbara Chase:
00:14:57
blind to the most important piece: me as a customer, what do
Barbara Chase:
00:15:02
I see? Right? So now that that's there, then we can understand
Barbara Chase:
00:15:06
and a pilot, which takes about three months, that from start to
Barbara Chase:
00:15:11
finish, how this works, and then two: how to make a defendable
Barbara Chase:
00:15:17
business justification for a rollout.
Mike Graen:
00:15:21
There's a word that you didn't say, and I was really
Mike Graen:
00:15:23
happy about it. You're ready for it? Oh several words: POC -
Mike Graen:
00:15:30
proof of concept. What you didn't say that. And here's why
Mike Graen:
00:15:34
I think he didn't say that. We don't need to prove that this
Mike Graen:
00:15:37
works anymore. Somebody asked me to do a proof of concept with an
Mike Graen:
00:15:41
RFID project. We've been doing this for four years, we know it
Mike Graen:
00:15:44
works. The only question is, can we set up the right parameters
Mike Graen:
00:15:48
in a pilot to figure out, you know, how do we make this work
Mike Graen:
00:15:52
for you as a retailer. So thank you for not saying we'll do a
Mike Graen:
00:15:55
POC, what you said was we'll do a pilot, I think the
Mike Graen:
00:15:59
Crawl-Walk-Run analogy is a really good one in this kind of
Mike Graen:
00:16:02
space.
Barbara Chase:
00:16:03
Yeah. And I think it just makes every we don't,
Barbara Chase:
00:16:05
we're so confident, we don't have any hooks in it. If it
Barbara Chase:
00:16:09
doesn't work out for whatever reason, we just take our toys
Barbara Chase:
00:16:13
and and go home. So there's just really no stress, it's all
Barbara Chase:
00:16:18
excitement, and then just to even be involved, from an
Barbara Chase:
00:16:21
employee perspective, whether it's in the store, or whether
Barbara Chase:
00:16:24
it's up the headquarters chain, oh my gosh, like everybody's
Barbara Chase:
00:16:28
like, do I do I get this on my resume? Do I get this
Barbara Chase:
00:16:31
experience? And it should be that exciting, because there is
Barbara Chase:
00:16:35
so much to glean, and to learn and how cool if your
Barbara Chase:
00:16:39
organization, you know, supports this exploration, to understand
Barbara Chase:
00:16:45
how to continue to be fiscally responsible to make your chain
Barbara Chase:
00:16:51
as profitable as it can be starting with customer
Barbara Chase:
00:16:54
satisfaction. And so yeah, we've had a yeah, it's, I don't sleep
Barbara Chase:
00:17:02
much at night, because I started the day with London, Germany and
Barbara Chase:
00:17:06
France. And I end the day with Beijing and Japan and Australia.
Barbara Chase:
00:17:11
So it's, it's an exciting time to be here. And I just would
Barbara Chase:
00:17:17
love the opportunity to talk to as many as possible. So they can
Barbara Chase:
00:17:21
- I always say seeing is believing - so that we can, we
Barbara Chase:
00:17:26
can create more believers.
Mike Graen:
00:17:29
Yeah, this is awesome. Well, let me summarize
Mike Graen:
00:17:33
this, because I had the good fortune of actually meeting and
Mike Graen:
00:17:35
working with Sam Walton while he was still alive. And one of the
Mike Graen:
00:17:38
things he said - and this quote has been shared a lot of times
Mike Graen:
00:17:42
but - "customer is ultimately the boss. They can choose to
Mike Graen:
00:17:46
hire us or fire us every day, by choosing to spend their money
Mike Graen:
00:17:50
with us or somewhere else." And number one factor I've heard of
Mike Graen:
00:17:53
people walking away from a retailer is front end checkout
Mike Graen:
00:17:57
experience takes too long, etc. And number two one is
Mike Graen:
00:18:01
availability of product.Didn't find the product. I was coming
Mike Graen:
00:18:04
in to look for this and after the third time of it not being
Mike Graen:
00:18:07
there to heck with it, I'm leaving my basket, I'm going to
Mike Graen:
00:18:09
the competitor. So and I do believe it's a two, it's a
Mike Graen:
00:18:13
two-systems solution. For most retailers. It's computer vision
Mike Graen:
00:18:17
that you've been talking about. And I think for things like
Mike Graen:
00:18:19
apparel, and general merchandise and other stuff, you can run a
Mike Graen:
00:18:23
camera, buy up a bunch of clothes, but I can't tell one
Mike Graen:
00:18:26
from another. I think RFID plays a role there as well. So there's
Mike Graen:
00:18:29
a two, there's a two technology race to figure out how to
Mike Graen:
00:18:32
leverage this stuff. And I think you guys are well positioned to
Mike Graen:
00:18:35
do this. Barbara, thank you so much for taking the time out of
Mike Graen:
00:18:38
your busy schedule. We really do appreciate it. We will be
Mike Graen:
00:18:41
podcastinh, we will be broadcasting this on both
Mike Graen:
00:18:44
Conversations on Retail, and the Walton Supply Chain Center in
Mike Graen:
00:18:48
the next couple of days. So thank you very much for your
Mike Graen:
00:18:51
time. Any closing comments that you'd like to make before I
Mike Graen:
00:18:54
before I close off the podcast?
Barbara Chase:
00:18:55
I just wanted to say thank you so much to you,
Barbara Chase:
00:18:58
Mike. I think this is such a an exciting podcast that you have
Barbara Chase:
00:19:02
and it's so relevant and timely with all these technologies that
Barbara Chase:
00:19:08
are available and it's so great that you are taking the lead to
Barbara Chase:
00:19:13
give us another avenue or venue to continue to educate.
Mike Graen:
00:19:18
Yep, absolutely. Barbara, have a great weekend.
Mike Graen:
00:19:20
audience. Thank you very much. We'll check you back with you
Mike Graen:
00:19:24
next time when we're bringing another Conversations on Retail
Mike Graen:
00:19:27
on on self development availability. Thank you very
Mike Graen:
00:19:30
much. Bye bye.
Barbara Chase:
00:19:30
Thank you.
Mike Graen:
00:19:33
Boy, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with
Mike Graen:
00:19:35
Barbara Chase. Join us next time as we have another industry
Mike Graen:
00:19:39
professional talking about the capability, process, people and
Mike Graen:
00:19:43
technology to drive on shelf availability of retail. Have a
