Notes - Webinar - The Role of Digital Product Identity in Fashion Digital Transformation

Key Notes

• Customers make well-informed decisions
• Customer use digital platforms to validate their thoughts
• Website, Social media content helps to connect during a crisis situation
• Digital lies on top of the supply chain of the product
• Customers get access to both digital/physical product
• Advertisement, Social media images are digital assets
• All information related to products categorized as Assets, Information, and Projects
• Platform for management of products, catalog, prices
• As the product evolves the digital assets also evolve with time
• AI is accelerating with COVID situation
• Speaker from Company - Link

Keep Thinking!!!

Learning Notes - Coresight Classroom: Retail Business Models Evolution in China Under COVID-19

This was a useful webinar. It showed examples in China in new forms of business, innovation, going digital, patterns of shopping.

Trend #1 - Livestreaming for consumer experience

Most of the businesses have moved online integrating a live stream shopping experience. This is more of connected / virtual and contactless shopping

• Starbucks - Contactless delivery in China
• Most innovation during crisis - Restaurants
• Whatsapp for buying/selling
• Whatsapp groups 

Retailers

                                                                       Shopping Malls

Luxury brands going digital

•  Luxury brands opened flagship stores online

Restaurants going live for ordering/enhance customer confidence

• Restaurant to see online and buy through platform

Trend #2 - Older users going Digital

Trend #3 - Local brands emerged as preferred suppliers / Conservative / Sentiment to support local industries

Trend #4 - Offerings for stay-home situations

Trend #5 - Consolidate CRM instead of fancy marketing / New Post COVID World

Keep Thinking!!!

Invisible Risk

A quick read of two articles provides good insights on mediums of contracting risk and areas applicable in different domains.

Article1 - Link
Contracting coronavirus

• High touch surfaces like door handles, elevator buttons 
• Cough - 3,000 droplets and droplets travels at 50 miles per hour, Washroom, Foodcourt
• Sneeze - 30,000 droplets, up to 200 miles per hour
• Breath - releases 50 - 5000 droplets

Successful Infection = Exposure to Virus x Time

Article2 - Link
Mitigate / Safety Precautions
Retail

• High touch surfaces - doors, shopping carts, self-checkout counters, billing machine
• Conversations - Customer to Customer, Customer to Cashier, Customer to Shopper associates

Manufacturing

• High touch surfaces - CNC machines, parts, assembly, inspection
• Conversations - Coordination between workers, Inspection, Assembly

Warehouses

• High touch surfaces - RFID readers, cartons, products, packaged items
• Conversations - Coordination between workers, shipment, returns

Reality is harder than this. Hope this learning creates more awareness on health and safety.

Reality Check - Link

Keep Thinking!!!

Predicting the Future: Retail's New World - The Parker Avery Group

• Historical models will be compromised. Allocation, Replenishment and Demand Forecasting
• Learn - Recover - Evolve
• Preparing ourself for next time, learn to recover from the current situation

Learning

• Store closures 
• A significant difference in sales patterns
• 2018 vs 2019 vs 2020
• Execution systems, Replenishment, Forecasting, Automated purchase orders, time-series approaches 
• Forecasts systems need intervention 
• Analytical systems haven't seen such situations

Recover

• Reassess the demand
• Validate Forecasting Numbers / Adjust according to the market situation
• Sales mix will look very different at category/class/subclass level
• Trust your gut feeling
• Having a cross-functional team that understands the demand/operations/foot traffic. All functions planning, fulfillment, store managers work together. Retail community learn from each other
• Test and Learn for short term
• Forecast for shorter timelines and estimate the accuracy of models 
• How long reduced sales will continue depends on several factors / economic conditions
• Ensure data is in the best shape to capture the trends
• Identify signals in short / medium / long term
• Understand sales mix identified online and bring it back to offline stores
• Do not open all stores at once

Evolve

• Go beyond time series, Decision Trees / Deep Learning to include hierarchy/location attributes / COVID parameters/impact - Look at short term / long term forecasts. Supplement with newer features
• Supply Chain - Ensure inventory is in place during the crisis situations. 

Time

• How long mitigation process will take?
• Shorter the better
• Start with easy mitigation strategies
• Video - Faster responses / Right time to invest
• Make existing systems smarter (Intuitive)
• Sales are going to be down, the sales mix will be different. Have a rolling sales mix

Learn from current disruption to prepare for the next disruption

Keep Thinking!!!

IHL Retail Webinar

Speaker - Greg Buzek (Greg Buzek is the Founder and President of IHL Group)

Data Perspectives

• Don't sensationalize data
• Look data in the context of region / local culture

Recovery Path 

• Horrible Q1 / Q2 until 2021
• Recovery for each region has several dependent factors like 
• Recovery Models / Stimulus packages / Gas prices
• Stores may reopen in Chunks 10%, 20% in incremental levels

Post-Covid

• Increased Mobile Payments / DBT
• Digital Transactions Adoption
• New store formats 
• Rise of frictionless stores
• Autonomous Retail Environment

I disagree a bit here, RFID is an expensive investment compared to AI / ML solutions. In this current situation, RFID requires high initial investment costs. This makes it the right spot for AI / ML-based solutions

Keep Thinking!!!