Automating customer processes is not new.
It is a great benefit for any company, as people want a digital experience.
Last summer, Walmart and Microsoft have established a strategic partnership to
further accelerate digital transformation and innovation in retail. In fact,
this is probably the first worldwide experiment on how a huge company such as
Walmart can exploit an enormous amount of digital data.
This five-year agreement will leverage a
broad base of cloud services, artificial intelligence, and thousands of
internet of things sensors and various solutions for enterprise-wide use. In
this spirit, Walmart wants to make shopping faster and easier for millions of
customers around the world.
As far as data volume is concerned, the
above systems process one billion daily data messages from stores worldwide. In
addition, Walmart has deployed a natural language processing platform capable
of processing 40 terabytes of unstructured text and providing near real-time
insights and actions in support of business operations.
"We're layering AI across every facet of our business. We have lots and lots of data that represents value we can leverage. That's where AI, machine learning and Cognitive Services in Microsoft Azure come in to play", said Clay Johnson, executive vice president and enterprise chief information officer at Walmart.
Innovative solutions from this retail
transformation helps Walmart save energy and prevent product loss. The global
retailer is also deploying Microsoft AI in several use cases, including
internal chatbots that help associates navigate benefits, find mentors and
better manage supplier engagements.
So, Walmart, because of its size, has more
data than most of its competitors, and this is a crucial competitive advantage.
The company has already taken on a pioneering role, even with the use of
blockchain technology to improve its food supply chain.
However, following the implementation of the "Scan & Go" concept to some stores in 2018, allowing customers to make purchases using a smartphone, the company discontinued it, claiming a lack of consumer interest, as many customer errors mean that this technology needs to improve a lot more.
Another way -a traditional one- to improve
the shopping experience, and perhaps the easiest, is to give the consumer the
option of having or not a personal assistance. When you know exactly what you
want to buy, then maybe you do not want any sales assistants to come up to you,
but if you need assistance then you could just get the right basket (see image
below) to have the attention on you. This innovative experience is very popular
nowadays, but very soon automation will generate new ways of retailing. Well,
what if a robot is a store assistant? Would you like its help?
Finally, the expansion of automation to
Walmart's operations has not reduced its workforce, yet. But the company faces
the challenge of getting employees to embrace technology.
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