ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | PROPELLANT FOR THE REGENERATION OF ORGANIZATIONAL AND DEVELOPMENT MODELS IN THE RETAIL SECTOR.
The future development of retail will be increasingly characterized by the presence of so-called — “intelligent” products. The ability to interact and dialogue with the consumer, as well as the power to discreetly observe behaviors and sentiment of individuals, will lead to improve the efficiency of the customization of the overall offer in the retail sector and its added value, achievable thanks to the use of new technologies. It is foreseeable that the increase in the use of advanced technological instruments will be recorded, in addition to the health and manufacturing sectors, precisely in the retail sector. The trend is not only accelerating towards the external market but also towards the internal market of human tasks of large retailers where many of them will be automated in the next short period. Observers and players are aware that Artificial Intelligence is at the basis of the future “Business Revolution”, estimated at 15 trillion dollars as the economic contribution to the world economy by 2030 (source: Rao; Panetta), but about 60% of companies have not yet identified precise strategies and implementation methods for these new technologies.
Mostly it is a matter of starting from the acquisition of Big Data that, as a consequence, could favor only the big players at the expense of the others and trigger anti-trust rivalries. This is a very competitive and delicate terrain, even if supervised by the Guarantors, which is tempting for the developments that its implementation could have over time, in the same way as increasingly targeted controls on demand and the formulation of supply, promotion and communication tools that are adaptable to the target in time and space, for example. Today’s early examples of multichannel retail give reason to this phenomenon of change already underway. However, it is not just a question of improving the retail process, but also of improving the entire supply chain of entire product sectors. In other words, we’re talking about products that are increasingly tailored to the real or “constructed” needs of consumers (CB Insights study); the ability to influence and direct them towards offers that are excellent for brands; or to stimulate phases of planning and innovative design on the part of manufacturing companies; or to encourage the payment processes of goods by integrating more payment or credit circuits owned by retail and those of third-party financial circuits (banking and financial circuits). In short, a real devolution in all fields.
The use of artificial intelligence to achieve maximum results must be an integrated system of technology and psycho-graphic analysis of the users of a given commercial sign. The engine responsible for offering Amazon’s shopping recommendations has been described by some as artificial intelligence. But the success of this tool is based not only on its complex algorithm, but also on human psychology. When consumers shop on Amazon, they don’t find a single page with a list of recommended products inside, but they are scattered within multiple pages and at different points on the page. The success of Amazon’s shopping recommendations is therefore not only due to the way artificial intelligence is used, but also to the fact that it bombards consumers with more or less relevant recommendations provided by sophisticated algorithms and that allow them to continue browsing in a natural way (source Tekio).
Artificial intelligence is creating action scenarios that were unthinkable only a few years ago; a new vision that could therefore help devise future product improvements, suggest in which area of the store a particular product should be placed and show information and forecasts on inventory to increase store profit and customer satisfaction. In all of this, it seems that retailers are moving toward making physical stores much like online sites with increasingly advanced equipment, displays, viewers, scanners and whatnot, but with fewer and fewer humans to interact with while shopping. The inevitable convergence of the digital world with the physical world will determine who can survive and who can’t in every market niche, starting with high turnover consumer goods and ending with real estate and automobiles, which are the last bastions of a business model born in the last century. The use of artificial intelligence to analyze and integrate flow, access, behavior and sales data will give such advantages to the operators who are the first to adopt it on a large scale to redefine signage and organizations at every level.
Edited by the
reFRAME editorial staff
