Latest / The Retail Podcast / NRF 2023 Senior Vice President at Avery Dennison Smartrac, Francisco Melo

Transcript

NRF 2023 Senior Vice President at Avery Dennison Smartrac, Francisco Melo · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to another episode of the retail podcast
• 0:03
  this time from the Avery Dennison booth.
• 0:05
  And let me tell you something, it's a very impressive poof
• 0:08
  quite big. So we'll find out what's on the
• 0:10
  booth in a minute. I'm joined by Francisco General
• 0:13
  Manager at Avery Dennison. So tell me Francisco what does
• 0:17
  every dentist in for people who don't know and I'm sure.
• 0:20
  Everyone does know. But what do you guys do?
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  And what do you, where do you focus?
• 0:24
  Well, every Denson is a material science company that has evolved
• 0:27
  into the digital technology real and so So we attribute digital
• 0:32
  identities to items. We believe in the future icons
• 0:35
  will be able to communicate and to have their own identity and
• 0:38
  as such what we're showcasing here and we can go into more
• 0:41
  detail is really our ability to enable Supply chains to become
• 0:45
  more digital more accurate and improve the visibility from an
• 0:49
  end-to-end perspective. So much to go.
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  And it's an area that I absolutely love AI.
• 0:55
  So you make you simplify lives for retailers.
• 0:58
  In the first instance, from You're saying, tell me a little
• 1:01
  bit more about your identity, is it a platform in terms of Reza
• 1:06
  RFID? What's the breadth?
• 1:08
  And scope of where you go? It's a great question and and
• 1:12
  the team actually were showcasing here.
• 1:14
  Is we call it CBR? Because we believe we're trying
• 1:18
  to support retailers to see beyond the physical and the
• 1:20
  digit, right? So, we typically tend to
• 1:23
  separate things and we believe the strength lies in the ability
• 1:26
  to connect those two things. So, we both, we Develop design,
• 1:31
  and also manufacture that what we call the digital triggers
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  typically by means of radio frequency, identification tags
• 1:37
  that you are able to attach to every single item.
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  At the same time, we have a cloud platform that we call a
• 1:43
  demaio that it's able to track the end to end of what's
• 1:48
  Happening along the supply chain for every single item.
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  Whether that's the moment that was born where you sort of a to
• 1:54
  B that identity all the way through to potentially, its end
• 1:57
  of life and its ability to be Old and or reused.
• 2:01
  So today's the Tuesday, the final day you must have met.
• 2:05
  I can't imagine how many Executives and retailers, you've
• 2:08
  met? Tell me what was the top thing.
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  You know. The number one question that
• 2:13
  there are thinking about when they were speaking to what's,
• 2:15
  what's top of mind right now? For them?
• 2:17
  It's a great, it's a great question and it's interesting.
• 2:19
  I've been coming to this show for many years now.
• 2:22
  And the question is actually very similar, although it comes
• 2:25
  through a very different sort of background if you'd like.
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  And the question is, Do I know what I have?
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  And what I have it. So in other words, do I have
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  full visibility of my supply chain and back in the day, this
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  was a concern for retailers from an in-store perspective, right?
• 2:41
  So, you know, I'm a consumer, he or she walks into the store and
• 2:45
  he or she finds what he's looking for and then today as
• 2:48
  you evolve into the sort of the omni-channel reality and how
• 2:51
  things are fully connected, that one visibility of truth, if
• 2:55
  you'd like the ability to truly maximize that particularly in
• 2:58
  the world where, you know, No, we've seen some slow down.
• 3:01
  Overall, in terms of retail, as you know, that becomes even more
• 3:04
  important that the ability to have accuracy and visibility is
• 3:08
  able to support retailers to optimize their inventory.
• 3:11
  And as such obviously improve their bottom line and do another
• 3:14
  thing which is very important that we can touch on, which is
• 3:16
  the right thing for the planet minimize losses reduce waste and
• 3:20
  make sure that they doing the right thing and not over buying
• 3:23
  the or overproducing if you'd like from a, from a supply
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  demand perspective. Yeah.
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  I mean, Imagine in terms of optimization, 100% retailers
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  will focus. Let's get up to 90 something
• 3:35
  percent accuracy in the stock room and then move out.
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  So from from from your platform and solution perspective, you,
• 3:43
  you it's across the, the piece and that in a sense that where
• 3:47
  it's all warehouse management system as well.
• 3:49
  Well, it's really end-to-end visibility, right?
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  So we don't Focus only on the retailer on the warehouse or the
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  whole point of the solution that we that we Put forward is we we
• 4:02
  create a digital identity in every single item at source and
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  then we allow retailers to track it all the way over here.
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  You know, whether that's through their distribution centers, you
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  know, inbound outbound obviously into their store when it goes
• 4:15
  into store and, or into the retail, you know, into the serve
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  omni-channel, the option, as well, from an online
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  perspective, and also being able to truly cross-functional
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  things, you know, this buy online pick up in store as an
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  example. It's something that a lot of Do
• 4:30
  but not, a lot of people are able to truly optimize the way
• 4:34
  they Supply from Seoul, right? So Supply some stories that it's
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  an interesting thing as long as you're not having too much labor
• 4:41
  going to it which then means you have it's an erosion on your
• 4:44
  bottom line so good. It's all about providing
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  visibility on all those elements that optimize the M2M
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  perspective you briefly mentioned innovation in terms of
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  some of the new ways that you doing, think.
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  And I know you on the stand itself, you're demonstrating
• 4:58
  some of the Ins. Can you just take me through?
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  Maybe your, your top sort of the innovation ideas, all your top
• 5:04
  demos that you've seen sure happy to.
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  So one, let's let me call it more on the physical side of the
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  digital trigger side. So what you actually, attach two
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  items to allow them to have a digital identity and as such
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  potentially, these are the life which is the way of
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  incorporating the technology into the product.
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  So, traditionally the way the technology is attached to
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  products is by means of say price ticket, maybe a care
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  label, maybe a The label on a packaging and we'll be seeing is
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  a migration of retailers wanting to have that, that identity
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  permanently sort of attached to the product.
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  So that you're able then to do everything else, you know, the
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  post purchase potentially, the interruption with the consumer
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  all the way through to the end of life recycling you know,
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  supporting sorting and so on. So that technology we launched a
• 5:50
  product portfolio that's called evidence and text race which has
• 5:53
  the outcome of an acquisition with made this past year.
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  Okay, with basically is a way of seeing Leslie integrating the
• 6:01
  identity into either the brand label and or be no into specific
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  elements. In the case, of the retail
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  apparel into the Garment that allows it to stay permanently
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  affixed to it all the way through its end of life.
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  So, that's a very, very interesting perspective, coupled
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  with, that is the platform that allows that digital identity to
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  come to light. So, Atma IO, we've launched the
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  through sort of end-to-end ability to track and Trace every
• 6:27
  item through the supply chain, and adding elements of
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  Inability, you know, from a carbon perspective, carbon
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  footprint and so on. So sort of trying to truly
• 6:35
  enlarge that capability. So being able to answer both the
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  digital side if you'd like, as well as the physical side, then
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  zero out all those as to being two of the main main Innovations
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  were showcasing this year. So in summary it's good for the
• 6:49
  planet, what you're doing? Minimizes waste and looks
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  everything else. It helps with accuracy which
• 6:55
  helps on all the other aspects of it in terms of data.
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  Data. A lot of retailers don't have
• 7:01
  the level of data scientists. How easy is it?
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  Is it quite do? I need to now go and recruit at
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  a data science team? What does that look like?
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  Okay, it's a great question. The reason why we created a
• 7:13
  platform is exactly to support that.
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  In other words, you know, while you have some very large
• 7:18
  retailers that they might have you know, all sorts of
• 7:21
  capabilities and solutions. There's others that do not.
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  So we believe that the creation of the platform is a means of
• 7:27
  facilitating that. Can be on a Level Playing Field
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  and have access to the right tools.
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  The right visibility that allows them to compete on a like to
• 7:36
  like bases. You from a servant wonders, will
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  it? So it the question it we're
• 7:41
  trying to make it as easy as possible and we believe the
• 7:44
  launch of the Atma. I your platform is a very
• 7:47
  important step in that direction.
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  And then so final question in terms of types of retailers, the
• 7:52
  you find naturally drift to a solution, like yourselves, are
• 7:56
  we talking in terms of level of stores?
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  Them reversed? They use or what what's over
• 8:01
  some of the details there. Great question it cuts across.
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  So we work, probably with some of the world's largest, as well
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  as we do with, you know, smaller sort of specialized or Boutique
• 8:11
  like a players as well. So, it's more about what's the
• 8:16
  use case and how do we support them?
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  Achieve that as opposed to, we only work with a large ones.
• 8:21
  Are the small ones if you do if you'd like.
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  So as a bit of up, there's a bit of a mix there.
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  The key thing to me is what is it that we're trying to solve
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  the other thing we're doing here, just Way species,
• 8:31
  historically, this technology as had a lot of sort of adoption
• 8:34
  and penetration in apparel. We're now seeing movement coming
• 8:37
  more into the fresh food and the whole sort of, as you can see in
• 8:41
  some places here in our booth where we believe there, it's not
• 8:45
  just about over production, but it's also a sort of an element
• 8:48
  of perishability you that brings the whole layer of waste into a
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  whole different ball game. We've recently launched a study
• 8:55
  that showcase that you know is about roughly 10% of the food.
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  It gets wasted just why either overproduction of perishability,
• 9:03
  it inability to manage to manage the shelf life if you'd like.
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  So we believe the the contribution we can make to the
• 9:10
  planet jointly with retailers, of course, to optimize both
• 9:13
  their bottom line, but do the right thing for the planet.
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  It's quite significant. I could carry on asking you a
• 9:18
  ton more questions because I'm genuinely quite curious in this
• 9:21
  area. Where is it?
• 9:22
  Where where is Avery Dennison base?
• 9:24
  How do people find out more about you?
• 9:26
  Where it? Yeah, tell me a little bit more
• 9:27
  if I'm interested in. I want to find some more.
• 9:29
  Formation. May you work?
• 9:30
  Where do I go? Sure.
• 9:31
  So every Danson is is a multinational company.
• 9:34
  We're actually have ported in California who could in Glendale
• 9:39
  and we we are I would say we are everywhere from a, you know, the
• 9:45
  perspective of location-wise. You know, I myself I'm in
• 9:49
  Europe. A lot of my team is in the US
• 9:51
  with demon Asia. So we're all over the world
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  about 35,000 people across the world in, you know, tens of
• 9:57
  countries. So I think it's ready.
• 9:59
  The easiest way it's just to, you know, obviously drop us a
• 10:02
  line, check our website evidence in.com, I'm sure you can.
• 10:06
  If you search RFID Avery Dennison, you're going to find
• 10:09
  us in multiple places and obviously, we'll be glad to
• 10:12
  connect with the with everyone. Yeah, final know.
• 10:15
  I have notice how RFID for as long as it's been around.
• 10:19
  Has now really come into its own people, truly understand.
• 10:22
  It's a technology that yes in the past was quite cumbersome,
• 10:27
  but now I think that's been taken away.
• 10:29
  Yeah, but so it's been wonderful me Francisco.
• 10:32
  Thank you so much.