Rise of the Machines?

 

It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious. – Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)

20180626210156-GettyImages-917581126

 

My doctor told me that I need to reduce the amount of salt, fat and sugar in my diet. So I immediately increased the frequency of oil changes for my car.

Confused?

I don’t blame you. That’s how I felt after I read a recent survey about the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in retail.

Note that I’m not criticizing the survey itself. It’s a summary of collected thoughts and opinions of retail C-level executives (pretty evenly split among hardlines/softlines/grocery on the format dimension and large/medium/small on the size dimension), so by definition it can’t be “wrong”. I just found some of the responses to be revealing – and bewildering.

On the “makes sense” side of the ledger, the retail executives surveyed intend to significantly expand customer delivery options for purchases made online over the next 24 months, specifically:

  • 79% plan to offer ship from store
  • 80% plan to offer pick up in store
  • 75% plan to offer delivery using third party services

This supports my (not particularly original) view that the physical store affords traditional brick and mortar retailers a competitive advantage over online retailers like Amazon, at least in the short to medium term.

However, the next part of the survey is where we start to see trouble (the title of this section is “Retailers Everywhere Aren’t Ready for the Anywhere Shelf”):

  • 55% of retailers surveyed don’t have a single view of inventory across channels
  • 78% of retailers surveyed don’t have a real-time view of inventory across channels

What’s worse is that there is no mention at all about inventory accuracy. I submit that the other 45% and 22% respectively may have inventory visibility capabilities, but are they certain that their store level inventory records are accurate? Do they actually measure store on hand accuracy (by item by location in units, which is what a customer sees) as a KPI?

The title of the next slide is “Customer Experience and Supply Chain Maturity Demands Edge Technologies”. Okay… Sure… I guess.

The slide after that concludes that retail C-suite executives believe that the top technologies “having the broadest business impact on productivity, operational efficiency and customer experience” are as follows:

  • #1 – Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning
  • #2 – Connected Devices
  • #3 – Voice Recognition

Towards the end, it was revealed that “The C-suite is planning a 5X increase in artificial intelligence adoption over the next 2 years”. And that 50% of those executives see AI as an emerging technology that will have a significant impact on “sharpening inventory levels” (whatever that actually means).

So just to recap:

  • Over the next 2 years, retailers will be aggressively pursuing customer delivery options that place ever increasing importance on visibility and accuracy of store inventory.
  • A majority of retailers haven’t even met the visibility criteria and it’s highly unlikely that the ones who have are meeting the accuracy criteria (the second part is my assumption and I welcome being proved wrong on that).
  • Over the next 2 years, retailers intend to increase their investment in artificial intelligence technologies fivefold.

I’m reminded of the scene in Die Hard 2 (careful before you click – the language is not suitable for a work environment or if small children are nearby) where terrorists take over Dulles International Airport during a zero visibility snowstorm and crash a passenger jet simply by transmitting a false altitude reading to the cockpit of the plane.

Even in 1990, passenger aircraft were quite technologically advanced and loaded with systems that could meet the definition of “artificial intelligence“. What happens when one piece of critical data fed into the system is wrong? Catastrophe.

I need some help understanding the thought process here. How exactly will AI solve the inventory visibility/accuracy problem? Are we talking about every retailer having shelf scanning robots running around in every store 2 years from now? What does “sharpen inventory levels” mean and how is AI expected to achieve that (very nebulous sounding) goal?

I’m seriously asking.

Telephone Poles

telephone poles

It’s no secret that the Navy Seals are one of the most elite teams on the planet. Highly skilled, trained and motivated, they operate with exceptional levels of commitment and teamwork, performing missions around the world that demand excellence and pinpoint precision – like the missions to kill Bin Laden, or rescue Captain Phillips.

If you visit their training facilities in either Coronado or Virginia Beach you’re likely to notice one of their secrets to consistently churning out elite teams.

You’ll notice a stack of telephone poles.

They look like remains from a construction project or a stockpile for a utility, but for Seal Commanders they are sacred. They form the basis of a training routine called Log PT – an approach that instills teamwork, discipline, vulnerability and commitment.

Log PT is not complicated. Essentially six trainees perform a collection of maneuvers that look more like a barn raising. They lift them. Roll them. Carry them and move them from shoulder to shoulder. Do sit-ups while cradling them. Stand for long periods holding them above their heads.

There is no defined strategy for a team of trainees to follow. They must learn to work together, to build commitment and teamwork.

When done poorly, the poles buck and roll, and the team fights with each other, boiling emotions. However, when done well, it looks smooth, quiet and efficient. It has nothing to do with strength – rather it’s performed well when teamwork and harmony emerge. When a team member falters, almost invisibly another team member adjusts their efforts to keep the poles level and steady.

Log PT is the brainchild of Draper Kauffman, a WWII Veteran who got the idea for Log PT (and others that help form the core of Seal training) from being stationed with and serving with the Corps Franc, on the front lines in Germany.

Log PT was designed and first implemented in the late 1940s. And still, to this day, is used to train and prepare elite teams.

Think about that for a moment. With all the new and exciting technologies available today, a simple program based on teams working together and in harmony moving telephone poles around is the core technology used to produce elite teams and performance.

Let that sink in and the lesson on offer.

Everyday, if you’re like me, you’re being bombarded with claims of incredible breakthroughs of potential future performance with new and brilliant technologies – like AI, Big Data, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Internet of Things, just to name a few. And to be fair, I believe the potential is and will be enormous.

The lesson here is that the most elite producing teams on the planet has yet to see the need or benefit of changing their approach – an approach that literally hasn’t changed since the 1940s.

Here’s an example from one of our clients that is consistent with the lesson.

When we demonstrate the Flowcasting planning process for one of our retail clients, many people are shocked to understand how the promotional sales forecast is derived.

It’s basically built from a demand planner looking at POS sales history for that item from past promotions and then, if needed, collaborating with the Category Leader – for situations where there is limited or no history and/or the promotional offer is significantly different than past offers.

They agree on what they think they will sell for the event and the system spreads that forecast down to the participating stores based on simple rules about that items contribution to sales, store by store.

That’s it. Pure simplicity.

Yet, like Log PT, it is delivering awesome results – better than any approaches used before. Helping to deliver industry leading in-stock for promotional events – a thorn for most retailers.

Planners and Category Leaders understand they need to work together, and they do, building commitment and accountability for the promotional sales forecast.

Please don’t think that I’m shitting on new technologies like AI, IoT and any others. I’m not. I believe that there is and will be enormous potential for these technologies and that they will also largely deliver on these promises.

But, I also believe in what is simple and works.

So do my client’s customers.