ReThink Productivity Podcast
In this exciting podcast, Simon Hedaux from ReThink Productivity shares his insights and strategies for improving productivity and efficiency in the retail and hospitality industries. With the help of clients, partners, and the ReThink team, Simon covers everything from measuring and tracking productivity to developing and implementing effective strategies.
Whether you're a business owner, manager, or employee, this podcast is a must-listen for anyone who wants to learn how to get more done and improve their bottom line.
Here's what you can expect to learn:
- How to measure and track productivity
- Proven strategies for improving efficiency and reducing waste
- How to create a culture of productivity and innovation
- Tips for motivating and engaging your team
- Real-world examples of how other businesses have used ReThink Productivity to achieve success
Don't miss out on this opportunity to learn from the experts and get ahead of the curve with your own business.
ReThink Productivity Podcast
Alex Rezvan on Retail trends across the world
Ever wonder what it takes to pivot from high-profile corporate roles to launching successful media platforms in the retail industry? Join us as we sit down with Alex Rezvan, the mastermind behind The Retail Podcast and RetailNews.ai. Alex shares his fascinating journey from pivotal careers at Verizon and Microsoft to the global conference circuit, including NRF in New York and the Retail Technology Show in the UK. Get the inside scoop on valuable industry insights
Listen as we discuss the shift from traditional loss prevention methods to enhancing customer experience through AI and machine learning. Alex also provides a comparative analysis of retail innovations between Western and Asian markets, the rising importance of ESG and corporate social responsibility, and the implications of technological advancements amid economic pressures like minimum wage. Tune in to discover what the future holds for the retail industry and how upcoming events could influence these trends
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Welcome to the Productivity Podcast. This one has been a long time in the making, but I'm delighted to be joined by Alex Rezvan, founder host of the Retail Podcast and RetailNewsai. Hi Alex, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:Hey, simon, lovely to speak after all this time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been a while in the making. We're both busy people, but we're here, we're recording and I really appreciate you taking the time out to come on.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you for inviting me and I'm really looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:Good. So we're going to talk kind of emerging trends that you're seeing in all the various shows and conferences that you attend across the world, which I think is going to be really interesting for our listeners. Sure, before then, do you want to give us a bit of career background, alex around who you are, what you do, um, talk a bit about the podcast, um retail newsai as well, okay, yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 2:um, corporate by by nature, in the sense that my first sort of part of my life was an american company called verizon. Uh, I ended up. Last role, I was the president for consultancy for the retail sector and some of the claims to fame was, for example, building Amazon Go for Tesco's in 2013, which Mike Mack at the time, who was the CIO, then moved to Target and took Verizon with him and the team at Verizon. So you know big in-depth view on grocery. Then I was at Microsoft, a little bit in consulting. Then I ended up being the lead for retail in the UK and about, like I'm sure, a lot of your guests during COVID.
Speaker 2:You have that sort of you know, where am I, I going? What is this all about? Um, and I decided to start the podcast while I was at microsoft, uh, and then it just grew and grew and grew and, and now I have the great fortune of traveling the world, literally came back from singapore a couple of weeks back, shang before that and attend the world's largest retail conferences and bring those insights to my listeners, my, you know, the clients that I may be working with. And then the retailnewsai element. Obviously, some stuff goes into the podcast. The retailnewsai is a news platform where I try not to gatekeep everything, so any of the insights intelligence, where I try not to gatekeep everything, so any of the insights intelligence, anything that comes up, I'll pop it on there and that sort of lives and breathes as a news portal for folks that are interested in what's happening in retail.
Speaker 1:Amazing, and we'll put links to both of those in the show notes so people can find them easily. So traveling to the big retail conferences I mean all for those that don't travel, that listen. Traveling always sounds sexy and exciting, you're going to tell me. The reality is you get on a plane, you go to a hotel, you see the show, you go back to the hotel, get on a plane and come home, aren't?
Speaker 2:you. Yeah, my favorite one is whenever there's an event in las vegas. Oh, my god, you're going to las vegas and I actually don't like las vegas. So for anyone who's been, you know the fact that when you go through the airport they've got slot machines. Yep, uh, it tells you the view. But, yeah, I, I land, go to the hotel wherever the event is, live in the my room, uh, for three days and come back. But the things that I do love, I'm a forever learner and I love learning, and it was one thing, actually a quote, that they used to sort of band about at Microsoft, not to be a know-it-all but a learn-it-all, and that really stuck with me in terms of you know, learning and trying to pass on those learning. So, but you're absolutely right, hotel room all the way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it sounds glamorous and sexy. Believe me, it's not. And yeah, having been to Vegas, if you're not particularly a gambling sort which I'm not it's a spectacle, clearly, but you probably miss more than 70% of the attraction if you're not a keen gambler.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I hate losing money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, early on in my life, I realised I am probably a really bad poker player and, uh, an even worse gambler, so I just hate losing money, which keeps me, uh, away from any of the gambling stuff that goes on there join the club.
Speaker 1:I could tell you some stories about some of the stuff we saw in vegas, in the, in the um, some of the casinos, but that's a probably different podcast, so we'll stay clear of that um, so so retail shows then, for those that maybe aren't familiar with the ones that exist we've got I think they're probably the biggest one in the uk is the retail technology show, which is olympia, going to excel next year, normally in april may. There's nrf, which is the national retail federation, one which is the big one in um, new york, in jan, which lots of people go across for. There's then things like ShopTalk, yourassist. Where else in the world do these events take place and what do they consist of? And then we can talk about kind of what's hot.
Speaker 2:Sure, okay, I think it's important to sort of stress, and this is the sort of last year, this year sorry, this year was actually the first year of going to all of them because I was in a position to be able to do that. So there are conferences and there are expos. Conferences as you would expect, there are more speakers and less expo. I think NRF is unique in the sense because it's been going on for so long. I mean, I've been going for about 13 years, years, 14 years and it's probably about 20 year old uh, conference and um, but that's the biggest one. So, for example, some expos have stages to the left, to the right, and they'll put some sponsored content there, maybe get some customers come along.
Speaker 2:I, I don't like those and um Probably two of the events that I went to this year I won't go back to next year and obviously the one in the UK. So let me you know. The calendar starts with NRF. Then you do have Eurosys or Euroshop. Euroshop is 10 times better than Eurosys. Eurosys is more of a germ, it's an expo for European technology providers.
Speaker 1:Not every year, are they Every two years, three years?
Speaker 2:there's some strange shop, I think is every three years. And then euro sis is the filler in between euro shop in dusseldorf, yep, um, and then we've got, uh, obviously, shop talk in las vegas, which I absolutely love. I think it's a great format. It's owned, it's changed hands, so it's owned by Hive now I don't know how, you know, because they invented. So the food is good, the talks are good, the invite, the. You know, food is a really important thing if you go to all of these things, and so some of the places the food is horrendous, eurosys being one of them, but one of them. But anyway, shop talk in Las Vegas. Then you've got sort of the UK retail week, world retail Congress, which has now had a management buyout, which traditionally happens in March or April, and then you've got the retail week awards as well, and that tries to be a more conference, less expo, and I think, a lot of the time, having been a sponsor and talking to sponsors of the event, they're like oh man, this is, you know, it's a different but good quality crowd. So and then you obviously you've got the retail technology show, but that tends to be in, I think, april, right, april time. So World Retail Congress, and then you end up with the European Shop Talk.
Speaker 2:In June this year, nrf decided to do NRF APAC, which I was at, which I loved in Singapore. I went to Shanghai as well to do a safari. So in these regions, like in London or Shanghai or Singapore or New York, I'll do a retail safari. And the thing to sort of call out there a lot of times you'll see on LinkedIn, say, come with me as I go on a safari, and it's like someone going shopping right with their wife or someone Some anecdotal thing that they've just now said. For me, I'm really specific about safaris. For me, I'm really specific about safaris have to be either new tech, new processes, new ux, ui, something new that is, you know, is not like you can find in any high street around the world, and that really frustrates me because it sort of degradates or devalues, um, the word safari. And so safari is supposed to be these unique experiences, not one that you can just walk to or walk into in any corner of the world. Uh, by going into a flagship nike nike is my, my pet gripe um, because I'm saying come with me to this and it's like, okay, all right, um, sorry.
Speaker 2:And then you've got paris retail Week in September, grocery Shop in October. They've now, because of the success, there is a women's only event for Shop Talk. There's also Shop Talk Fall in October. There are a whole bunch of UK ones, but I'm not predominantly. I think there's enough people covering the UK, so I don't cover the UK. I go everywhere else but the UK the only two I do is the Retail Week and World Retail Congress, which I think is returning back to the UK next year. You've got the Web Summit in November in Portugal, which is a tech summit, but I always used to watch it online. I'll be there in person.
Speaker 2:And then the odd one I don't know if you know. Maybe you know this one, simon. I only learned about this last year. It's called MAPIC. It happens in Cairns and it's basically all of the retailers that have massive estates across the world. You know your McDonald's or these big estates or shopping malls or whatever. This is a conference for those property managers. But now the reason I'm going is they've introduced technology and so I'd be curious to see um, everyone in physical retail or property owners want to know what's working, what's not. Uh, to make the invisible visible, and so that's something that's um be my first time happening in november, um, and then we'll we'll do it all again next year with NRF, as you mentioned in January.
Speaker 1:So a full calendar, nicely spread out. Hopefully you can tag a bit of holiday on some of those as well, to make sure it's not all work-related.
Speaker 2:I've got young kids. That's the argument I have my wife because I'm like let's go, and she's like you do, remember, there is a fine if you take the kids out of school. And I was like, oh yeah, well, okay.
Speaker 1:A chance to have some time away and reflect.
Speaker 2:Don't tell her that, but yes, no, no, exactly.
Speaker 1:So I suppose, reflecting on what you've seen this year, clearly, from a retailer's point of view, shrink tends to be, and loss tends to be, the number one topic of discussion at the moment, closely followed by cost outside of shrink. So, whether that be labour rate, rent property, transport costs, what things have you seen that are kind of starting to emerge, that are, are you classed as hot from those events or or consistent themes across the ones you've been to?
Speaker 2:I think if I start the year, uh, nrf 2024, um in New York, uh, the explosion of AI. Anything AI, right, ai optimization in your supply chain, AI optimization in personalization, AI was the thing that sort of was the explosive headline to try and, you know, almost click baity in the sense of getting people to come along, and then people would go along, and especially people like myself who come from a tech background. I'm like this is just like machine learning hashed underneath the umbrella of AI or it's. It's people were really grasping at straws of trying to create AI use cases that were genuinely um, and my layman's definition of AI is, like you know, multiple data sets being able to come together to create unique outcomes. That then can create unique outcomes or intelligence for you. I'm pretty sure someone's probably screaming at their microphone or headset going no, that's not AI, that's AI for me, right, having worked in the data field and the other thing that you know they kept taking for granted at all these events retailers have different levels of maturity when it comes to their approach with data within their infrastructure. So, if they're lucky, some of the big grocers, they have crm systems, they have erp systems, they have, um, a plethora of product, homegrown uh systems, each with its own little data set right. Each that then can if it's been cleans, then it's sitting in some sort of cloud server with someone can be put into some sort of AI or machine learning process to get outcomes. Most people don't have that, most retailers are not. They don't have 2000 developers working for them to be able to drive those outcomes, so they're really heavily reliant on the software providers to create outcomes for them. So anyway, beginning of the year 100, attached to what you were saying about loss, shrink um, theft, uh and and all of the solutions to try and tackle that.
Speaker 2:And then, as the year sort of progressed, people realized that the use cases for ai how we're doing for time didn't exist, and so, therefore, they sort of shifted the dial in the event space and went back to, you know, getting the, for example, the chairman of IKEA to talk about what IKEA is doing and a lot of the use cases, that sort of the big chief execs, the chairmen, the chairman, for example, or the ceo of cara 4. They started then to talk about accessibility, about inclusion, not not the dni um bracket, but more of the um, esg, corporate social responsibility, and trying to look at how, what technology, what role technology plays in that. And then what became apparent is, through all of this and again people will be shouting at this microphone or thing, whether you call it omni-channel, multi-channel, whatever, all of the channels that exist in retail Again, let's not worry about what you call it. The one thing that social commerce is driving, or digital is driving, is the fact that retailers now are going from in the past, where there were six digital touch points before someone converted on your website or in your store, it's now 12 or 16. Cost of living crisis sort of push that forward. And so then conversion becomes how do I get my customers to convert? How do I get to know my customers? And then what are the experiences? And so in the middle of the year there was that sort of focus on how ai is helping by gathering intelligence as cookies sort of float away, how they do that.
Speaker 2:Again, technologies, uh, that you mentioned from an operational perspective, I think they were more of the trusted, for example, you know process flow through your environment, gate management, all of the you know getting decent. I think the pendulum has swung the other way for some retailers, where now everything is behind the shelf, everything is tagged and some of these tags are really horrendous in terms of the way that the process of getting the tag on and off. But again to, for example, in shop talk. When I counted the number of sustainability and shrink talks there were, I think there were like one or two or three. So it's really interesting because people sort of don't understand that that world in itself there's a load of innovation that's happening there, there's a load of process change that's happening there and that you can improve and mitigate risk. But I I think you know the conferences haven't got to that.
Speaker 2:And then, as I sort of went to Asia and I saw what was happening in Shanghai, it really hit me that the way that we think about the whole path to purchase and shopping missions and even customers has to change and mature. I'm not going to talk about it here because that's another like I don't know, 15, 20-minute conversation, but it's just something that we are. I genuinely felt like, oh my God, I'm going back to the dark ages when I go back to to the western. And I wasn't expecting that because I I take pride in what we've done in the uk, in europe, in the us. I, you know, I think we've led.
Speaker 2:But now, having been there, experience what that is been to over like 30 stores, spoken to x amount of store managers I'm like, okay, I get it, we are a little bit behind the curve and that's probably the next sort of set of trends that will come down the line and I'm excited. We've got the summer break now. Um, I'm excited to see where you know grocery shop will go in october. We've got paris retail week in september, so I'm curious to see how we will finish the year. Um, but that's the year so far.
Speaker 1:Excellent no brilliant summary. And it's interesting that, yeah, I saw we didn't do NRF this year. We did it last year. Maybe we do it next January, but I think that was, for me, the start of that trend, of the whole AI. I'd call it a rebadging of technology that was already there, if it was an algorithm.
Speaker 1:And it felt and I'll do it again a disservice probably to some people listening. It still feels like more of a marketing spin than a reality. We've got AI generated schedules and all those kinds of things in the productivity world, but that was there before the word ai existed. It was absolutely. It was um algorithm generated or sequenced. So I'm I'm hopeful and I think it's some solutions that are searching for problems at the moment rather than starting with.
Speaker 1:What's the problem? How do we solve it? It's almost. We've done some neat stuff. How does it? Where can we retrofit the problem to which is always tricking selling tech? If you're trying to retrofit the problem because you've developed a nice idea that people maybe don't see the value in, yeah, but I think that'll speed up in the next couple of years, as, as again, just from a purely selfish point of view in the uk, we you know the government will take us to a £15 minimum wage. That will force people to think differently. That will involve tech doing some stuff. We're already seeing some great stuff with things like date checking, electronic shelf edge labels, age verification via headsets and cameras. So we're on the cusp how quickly that speeds up and maybe you know the East have got it nailed or almost bypassed. That step will probably yet to be seen well, the cost of labor.
Speaker 2:I mean, look, as I said, there's I'm, there's these themes, I'm, you know, I understand the cost of labor there's we can talk about, or there's these elements that has, um a different impact over there.
Speaker 2:And you know the manufacturers of the world, uh, but they do approach the customer in a different way and, as you were talking, there were two things that I didn't mention, um, which was robotics, yeah, and augmentation of robotics in in store, reducing labor hours by by having, you know, um out of stock and all the other, you know, shelf edge type uh activities being outsourced to robots. The other thing that sort of really made sense to me when I heard this that will continue is that AI is a feature, not a product. So we will go faster with features in all of our workloads during the day thanks to AI, but they're not necessarily going to be AI products. They're just features that help us as you know, workers within the retail environment be able to do more faster, um, and hence why, yeah, there will be an impact somewhere and you're absolutely right to call out the increase in minimum wage. I think you know it'll have multiple impact, but, yeah, I think we all kind of know where it's going.
Speaker 1:We're not quite sure, I think, how we get there and what it looks like when we're there, but I think we can all see the direction, can't we? Which makes it interesting and I'd be interested, you know, if we had this conversation in 12, 18 months, 24 months' time how some of the things you're seeing have changed, how some have remained the same, or actually how we may end up even in another marketing world of rebadging it to AI 2.0 or whatever the next iteration is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the one thing I say to a lot of retailers, especially in Europe, the customers that I work with is the fact that there's this sort of I don't know they this disruption. They don't believe it's not what. They don't believe it maybe they just are. You know it's a, it's a tanker, and turning that tank around or the plane changing, you know, building the plane while you are flying it is incredibly difficult, but what AI will do for everyone or automation will do for everyone outside of your market, they'll be able to come into your market, beat you at your own game far cheaper than you're able to do it with pretty much the same product.
Speaker 2:It then comes down to marketing, and that's what luxury has been fantastic at over the years and managed to sort of keep reinventing themselves to stay relevant, to keep those prices up, and so therefore, it's very hard for a luxury um um retailer to be displaced, not that it can't happen, but it's just a little bit tougher. But for everyone else, I think they're going to get caught short and I and it's not, I'm not, this isn't empty Like oh, my God, the sky is falling down, it's just basic economics, operational economics. If I can do and get the same outcomes at 20 to 30 to 40% cheaper than you. Thanks to the use of technology, I can then disrupt you in your own market, which is what Aldi and Lidl did right in grocery, and everyone was like oh no, that's never going to happen.
Speaker 1:Interesting times We'll pause on that note. If people want to reach out to you or find the podcast or retailnewsair, which we'll help them with by, as I say, putting it in the show notes, where's the best place for them to get in touch?
Speaker 2:So really simple. Retailnewsai is the platform where all the content lives. Theretailpodcastcom. I'm not as hot on the retail because just from a timing perspective, but that's where that lives. And then I live on LinkedIn so you can always catch me. Uh, alex resvan on linkedin and I should sort of pop up brilliant.
Speaker 1:Well, I say it's been a while in the making, we got there. Thank you very much for your time. Really appreciate it and we'll catch up soon perfect.
Speaker 2:Thank you, simon, for having a real great pleasure.
