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Contextual Commerce Explained: How Retail “Runs on iOS” · The Retail Podcast

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  I think that's so important, showcasing that it can be done,
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  telling them how to do it and and then learn from the pain
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  from others because that's where you don't have to be.
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  Always be a groundbreaker. Hello and welcome back to
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  another fantastic episode of the Retail Podcast.
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  Now my guest that you're going to meet today, I am aware of
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  what they're going to be doing at NRF in just seven days there
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  or thereabouts. If you cast your minds back
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  before Christmas or the New Year, I was talking about the
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  transformation pillars in retail, retail at the speed of
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  community, retail at the speed of intelligence, and retail at
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  the speed of experience. And I haven't seen a technical
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  stack that can actually meaningfully do this in the real
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  world. So, PIM, welcome to the show.
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  Thank you for having me today. Let's just do a quick who you
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  are? What do you do for those who
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  don't know you? I am PIM Fifoscope.
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  I'm the chief commercial partner of South New Black.
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  We tend to do things a little bit differently.
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  So where everyone is talking about unified commerce, we saw
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  actually that there is another wave coming and that's the wave
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  of contextual commerce. And instead of trying to be a
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  Unicorn in in unified commerce, we decided, hey, but that wave
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  of contextual commerce is actually much bigger.
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  And it's actually much cooler to be on that one because that's
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  not only talking about had those unifying those channels where
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  everyone is still talking about, but it's also grabbing the
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  interaction that actually led to the to the transaction itself.
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  And, and if you are able to do that, then we bring retail back
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  where it actually was in the past, where you had when you
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  walk to a store closing close by in your street, probably.
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  And you had that guy working there who know you and who know
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  that this Alex and Alex has his, his left feet is a little bit
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  bigger than his right feet. So when I'm showing something, I
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  need to show the right shoe because then he will do it
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  anyhow. And I know that Alex doesn't
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  like black shirts, so I need to come with the blue one because
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  then he will probably buy it. Oh, and oh, by the way, his, I'm
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  aware that his wife likes this as well.
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  So you, I, I think you were familiar with that.
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  That was how business and retail was run a long time ago.
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  And I think in luxurious retail you still saw that black book.
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  That's where they do that. Yeah, the little black book.
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  And I think in when we started with Omni channel and the rise
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  of social commerce and the rise of, of the other market
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  platforms and, and Amazon and things like that, that got lost
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  a little bit. But you see that people are
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  looking for a sense of belonging and fostering to a communication
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  and things like that. And it's brought back.
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  So last year we said we need to do something around that.
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  So that's a little bit where we are working on and, and we are
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  excited now that we are close to, to doing that.
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  And, and of course, we said that when we we launched New Black,
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  we wanted to help retailers to become adaptive to change.
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  And I think we are in the pivotal moment as we speak
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  because there is a lot of change going on and and we need to
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  prepare them and and that's what we want to do.
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  I've met so many executives in retail that are so nervous about
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  touching their internal store systems that the POS system.
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  How do you get round that people's or exact nervousness to
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  go down this route because they do have this and it's a, it's a
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  term that I know that you are very familiar to and you've
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  coined in terms of the Frankenstein, what's the
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  approach to sort of say it's OK, don't worry.
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  Well, first of all, I think that a retailer need to look at
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  themselves RMMI willing, ready and capable of entering the next
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  level of digital transformation. That's a question that we can't
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  answer. We can only ask questions.
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  But if you are really able to do that, I think that's that's one
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  thing. And I think after that it's 15%
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  technology, 85% is courage, courage of of actually doing it,
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  courage of having the conversation, courage of
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  bringing the right people together.
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  That means breaking down your internal silos, bringing
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  together retail operations, e-commerce, a digital, perhaps
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  it perhaps a finance even and and to have a clear strategy.
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  This is where we're going towards.
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  And then we see two types of of customers.
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  We see a customer that says, OK, I have legacy, I can try to to
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  improve this, but I'm going to build a new stack next to it and
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  then flip over a moment. That's our companies like Kiko
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  Milano, who were so courage, courageous to actually do that.
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  And you have retailers that actually have a long term
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  vision. OK, this is where I'm heading
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  towards. I'm going going towards a more
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  platform approach where I have that integrated order
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  management, integrated POS, integrated task management
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  already. But I do it project by project
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  because my organisation is unable to do with everything at
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  once, which makes sense. I do it step by step.
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  But that means that a retailer that is, is also letting go that
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  best of breach strategy. Then you can't look at it from
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  an, let's say from from an POS perspective only or an task
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  management perspective perspective only.
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  And I think that's a little bit what we, what we call I had the
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  best of breed RFP approach where you need to look a little bit
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  more. We believe you need to look a
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  little bit more realistically. And then that taps in into one
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  other thing is that that you typically don't see in an RFP is
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  that's about the road map. How how often do you change the
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  road map? How often there are questions
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  asked about the road map better never If you do an added best of
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  breach approach, there was never asked can I have influence on
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  that? You need to do an update because
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  my auto assistant need to do an update.
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  I have never seen the question. Perhaps it was there, but I have
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  never seen it, so I'm biassed perhaps dear.
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  So for month from sort of replaying back what you're
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  saying, you're modular by nature and so therefore there isn't a
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  Big Bang where you have to RIP out everything.
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  It's no come on the journey. Start with it may just be POS
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  and then build from there, right.
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  That's it's a modular approach to to building.
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  That, yeah, it's a modular approach.
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  It's it's a modular project approach.
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  Basically, if you're moving to a contextual commerce or unified
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  commerce, you're running a programme and you're running an
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  implementation and after that you're doing a roll out and then
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  you're adding more and more and more that's more, let's say a
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  programme approach. I truly believe that
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  implementing unified commerce is not a project, It's a programme
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  that needs continuously updates, continuously changes, continues
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  because first tech is changing, secondly, customers are
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  changing. And then if you're on enterprise
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  retail also legislation is changing.
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  So you need to keep those three in track, in in in track and the
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  those 3. NRF, you've got so many things
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  going on. You're at NRF, you're doing
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  offside events, you're doing partner events.
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  But tell me what you've got, because there's I've heard about
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  the iOS Valley. Street iOS Ave Ave.
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  I America iOS Ave. Yeah, What's that?
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  Tell me about the iOS Ave. So first of all we are doing
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  what we try to do needs to be remarkable.
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  So basically we do two things. We do iOS Ave.
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  Yeah. And iOS Ave is basically the
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  first stop of our world tour. We have an built in ecosystem
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  over the last years with our core partners.
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  I port GEMF zip line scanned it Microsoft JP Morgan Chase, I Gen
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  and streamline and meet up, of course, meet up of course and
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  that is everything to do. That's what we call reader runs
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  on iOS. These are the companies that are
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  able to run enterprise retail on iOS.
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  And if you are a retailer, then you come into play with your
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  touch deployment from Jen, you come into play with RFID and
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  then you would like to have a company that's integrated into
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  that one which also has the ability to do to have an RFID
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  reader that fits on an iPhone. Then you come to play with a,
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  the bridge between the iPads and your, your furniture in store.
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  And then of course a platform like ours, but also things like
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  to get the telemetrics out of the devices and to have the best
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  store experience, things like that.
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  So that's where all the different partners come in and
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  where we actually support each other on that one.
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  And what we do with iOS Avenues, we, we run a store there.
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  Yeah, where we can experience from front house that works.
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  We're building a store. Yeah.
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  And the store means that you can actually buy products.
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  So that means that we need to have a store and the assortment
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  that we have is what we call our nerd collection, right?
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  So we have launched a fashion brand.
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  We do that. I love nerds.
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  Every year we launched a drop and the drop of last year was
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  the firsty jacket. This year it's a workman's
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  jacket and it's a sweater around the world tour and it's an an
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  Oxford shirt, which is combined with with some cool things
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  around it, which you need to experience yourself and that
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  nerd community. What we have added that nerd
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  drop, people would like to have that.
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  And then we said, OK, but let's eat our own dog food.
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  We are telling everyone that you need to build a community and
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  then how to do it. So one of the things that we do
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  with NRF, we have built our own community to showcase how it
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  works in real life with our products, with what an
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  ambassador could do, how you encourage that, how you could
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  create distance to tear, how you could create more loyal
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  customers. That's what we actually do.
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  That's what we do at at there as well.
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  And then I think what's important around, I think I've
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  named the world tour 2 * 3 times.
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  What we do with the world tour is that for a lot of retailers,
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  it's, there's a lot going on at NRF.
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  And then you, you come back into home or into your country and
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  then, OK, but now what? I have seen something really
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  cool. Yeah.
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  But we haven't seen. So what do we do?
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  So we have decided to go with this ecosystem on a world tour,
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  see it like a band that's going around the world.
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  And then we visit the different countries where if I am a French
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  retailer, I saw something really cool at NRF.
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  We come to Paris. You can bring in your own folks,
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  you can bring in your teams and to showcase, this is actually
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  what I have seen. This is I think this is a route
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  that we could proceed. And then we we do a one day
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  event where they can experience themselves how you could run
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  your retail on iOS and that we're going to do in 17
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  different cities next year. Wow.
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  So it's a big tour. Yeah.
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  What surprises you from talking to your customers?
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  I think I there are a lot of things every single time.
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  Is that the control that they have over integrating into their
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  own IT landscape? It's every single time.
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  I think that's one thing. I think the other thing is that
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  translating the vision into business technology.
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  Yeah, I think that's another one which is surprised me sometimes.
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  And I think there is a lot of push on AI, there is a lot of
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  push on tools like that and a lot of promises made on that.
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  But it's hard to get there if you're still guessing what's the
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  inventory that you have in your store.
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  Yeah, yeah. So I think that there is
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  sometimes, not always the real insight actually is going on in
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  the retail operation. And I, I like the retailers that
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  go to their own stores, visit their own stores and see you
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  there and and be there a day. I sometimes think that there's
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  too much deployed towards the stores.
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  Yeah, without thinking what's the impact on the stores?
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  I think to be fair, you're probably one of the unique
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  companies that I've come across with where we always say the
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  business has to move together. So the CMO needs to be there,
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  the COO needs to be the CDO. But sometimes they turn up and
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  they're like, well, and you know, like building community or
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  having your client telling element, talking to your OPS per
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  people, talking to your merchandising people.
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  It's one of the few stacks that I see.
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  I can imagine when you're doing the world tour, it's like the
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  the group of execs all come together because traditionally
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  they all fall into their silos and that's.
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  You need to encourage that. You need to encourage that.
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  Yeah, I know. But it's the folks and
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  technology always struggle to tell the business, and that's
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  why sometimes that's the. You know, I agree, but you need
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  to help them. So you need to help the CIO
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  with, hey, this is how, this is what your CMO needs and and CMO,
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  this is what your head of retail needs and.
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  I think it'll be the other way around with you guys.
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  I think it'll be the CMO telling the CIO, hey guys, I've come
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  across this. We absolutely need it because
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  this is how we engage with our customers or our clients of the
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  future. But Alex, I agree.
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  But what we see is that I think the change is not about IT.
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  The change in what we have mentioned before is about
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  cultural differences in an organisation.
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  And that's where you almost need a cultural sharpa actually to to
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  guide them. Because hey, we are all aware of
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  Frank of Accounting that is going to retire in the next
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  three years. That if you're going to tell
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  them that we're going to do a really big POS project, we're
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  going to change everything that Frank of Accounting is not on
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  the Frank of Accounting is probably not on the same page
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  with you because Frank of Accounting did 25 years
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  everything in Excel and now he needs to learn in the last three
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  years before he's going to retire in your system.
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  Yeah, I'm not sure Frank likes that, but but that's that's what
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  you need to overcome and that's what we need to do.
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  And I think and if we then look at technology, then of course
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  technology is there and we have cool things.
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  And I think one of the things that I not even tell you yet,
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  but which we definitely should talk about is what we're going
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  to do around brand communities. We have launched last year
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  vision, it's now live and to say it is really bold.
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  Clienteling was one St communication, Community is 2 St
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  communication and creating a sense of belonging which is
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  going to change the narrative completely.
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  Absolutely. What's the one question I should
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  have asked you that I didn't or people normally ask you and I
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  haven't asked you that's. A really good one actually.
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  So the other questions were awful, but the good.
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  One, no, no, no, no, no, not at all No, not at all No, I think I
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  think what you what what I'm what's the question that people
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  should have asked us or actually, I think and I think
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  that's the why should I do everything with one customer?
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  Why should I do this creating this?
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  Well, they call it the vendor login, right OK.
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  And I believe that if you and this is a strong belief and I've
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  built a on this one a long time already is that you need to
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  build strategic partnerships also as an as a as a customer.
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  And I think that's the question if you do this and you go to a
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  platform like this, why do I have a vendor lock in and and I
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  have a vendor lock in how to avoid that?
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  And I think the simple question is don't you have a vendor lock
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  in with Microsoft? Don't you have a vendor lock in
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  with Salesforce? Don't you have a vendor lock in
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  with all the other. So the question is where do you
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  feel comfortable with and and what do you have you found a
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  company that can build together with you that's growth that you
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  have and I think that's something that we don't talk
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  about too much. I love it.
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  Well, and the fact that the cultural Sherpas don't exist and
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  so companies need organisations like you that understand that
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  that can help corral or be that beacon or shining light so
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  people can be Sherpa to cultural transformation because that is
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  just one element of it. Film.
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  Thank you so much for giving up your time.
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  I look forward to seeing you in seven days.
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  See you soon. Bye bye.