How Retail IoT Improves the Store Experience | Qualcomm Technologies, Inc's Art Miller | E168

How Retail IoT Improves the Store Experience | Qualcomm Technologies, Inc's Art Miller | E168

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you are listening to the iot for all media network hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the iot for all podcast i'm your host ryan chacon and on today's episode we have art miller the vp and global head of retail iot at qualcomm technologies for those of you may be unfamiliar with qualcomm they are a leading innovator uh in wireless technologies in the iot space they do a ton of great things for the iot industry um so check them out if you're if you're unfamiliar but i'm sure most of you have heard of them before and have we potentially even work together so on this episode it's a really good one we talk about the retail space as it connects to iot so what does retail landscape look like in iot how's it evolved over the years what technologies are playing a role those kinds of things you also talk about how the pandemic actually impacted the retail space and potentially how iot can help solve some problems that were realized and started to be experienced during the pandemic that have now bubbled to the top as something that companies and these organizations want to focus now on we also dive into the supply chain logistics side of retail and how iot is playing a role in really supporting that area and then also we kind of i guess wind that down with talk about the future talking about the future of what retail and iot look like together the power they can kind of do together and what digital transformation at a high level looks like in the retail space so overall great episode but before we get into that episode if any of you out there are looking to enter the fast growing and profitable iot market but don't know where to start check out our sponsor leverage leverages iot solutions development platform provides everything you need to create turnkey iot products that you can white label and resell under your own brand to learn more go to iot changes everything dot com that's iot changes everything dot com and without further ado please enjoy this episode of the iot for all podcast welcome march the iot for all show thanks for being here this week uh thanks for having me yeah i'm looking forward to the conversation let's go ahead and start off by having you introduce yourself to our audience a little background information anything you think is relevant to get some context as to who to listen to sure all right as art miller i run our retail iot business at qualcomm for those of you who don't know qualcomm we're known more for the mobile side in smartphones and other such devices and we i'm part of our iot business group which takes assets originally developed or intended for mobile usage into adjacent markets and i specifically look after technology that goes into into retail fantastic and for those who may be a little bit unfamiliar with qualcomm at a high level talk about kind of what the focus is of the organization and how you all fit into the iot space sure all right so as i mentioned we do well in the mobile space we have a very broad portfolio primarily focused on cellular connectivity local area or white or personal area networks heavily focused on compute and security so three three pillars that we we build everything on which is the connectivity compute and security all highly integrated power efficient solutions and we've taken some of these mobile assets and start going into iot so if you start if you think of specifically in retail and iot if you look at enterprise access points and retail environments the likes of let's say cisco or meraki or if you look at industrial handhelds being used by a store associate from zebra or honeywell or even if you're scanning to find out what a price is in a particular in a lane in a store um those are typically off or often powered by qualcomm if you start looking at newer newer use cases you might see us in smart cameras or in self checkout or alternative forms of checkout or payment fantastic well that kind of answered my next two questions which we're talking about from the your role in kind of the retail space but is there anything you wanted to kind of elaborate on when it comes to retail specifically or any use cases that you think would kind of be good to highlight um kind of the power and the focus that you all have sure i think you know use cases today because uh if you look at retail it hasn't changed much over time but um the use cases we're looking at are as things become automated the use of robotics whether it's to bring things from the back of the store to the front of the store or to use drones for delivery or autonomous vehicles for delivery those are some of the you know advanced technologies we're using if you look at an associate in store mention the handheld but maybe some augmented reality glasses to interact with the environment around them to make them more efficient while picking or stocking and then when you start looking at the consumer interacting with the consumer at the shelf edge potentially from either advertising or um you know just more information at the shelf edger engaging them creating relevant recommendations so that's uh those are some areas that we're currently in and we continue to evolve fantastic so let's back up for a second and talk about retail iot and kind of the overall landscape from your perspective so what does it kind of look like for those who may be unfamiliar with iot and retail kind of how it works together and how has it kind of evolved over the last number of years to get to a point today sure so iot in retail i guess if done properly none of us will notice it right we'll just have better experiences in store so we believe technology will be deployed to help improve our experiences consumers and associates experience working in the store or improve operational efficiencies so it's about digitizing everything in the store eventually digitizing everything in the store so we have kind of this replica of you know in physical space of what we can do online i think that's the key thing so whether or not that's done with computer vision or with connecting individual devices i think you'll see uh technology in in kind of connecting everything creating this uh what do you call it this connected intelligent edge where we know where everything is we know how people are behaving in an environment and and then being able to dynamically impact their experience in the store so it if done properly it should be seamless but you'll start seeing things like uh maybe smart card implementations or you've seen of unattended retail maybe just workout formats so it'll scale from everything as simple as engaging someone to shelf edge to a full-blown autonomous experience right when you walk in right and from a retailer's perspective what are the biggest priorities that they have and how are the technologies today kind of helping play a role there sure i think some of the priorities today obviously there was you know go back a decade there was this threat of online so there was some attention paid hey we need to do something in retail to change but kind of there's there was never necessarily enough motivation to do anything uh cobit kind of accelerated that um where there was a shortage of labor there were changes in behavior with us as consumers of you know buy online up at curb or maybe pick up in-store or have delivered to your home so a lot of the things we're hearing from retailers today are you know keeping track of inventory keep an inventory on the shelves accurate count of things in the supply chain because of those different modalities if they're sending someone out to pick on our behalf and it's not on the shelf even though it said it was an inventory now it leads to an unhappy customer because i ordered it it said it was there i don't get it poor substitution something else so um and let me ask this and this is kind of unique to the times that we're in now how have you seen things like the pandemic influence the retail industry as a whole and how is technology and iot technology specifically playing a role in kind of as retail comes back or how has it kind of improved the experience throughout the pandemic or i guess you know in a sense connected to that sure sure yeah and so i mentioned a couple headwinds right it's more difficult to find someone to work maybe there's potentially more regulations so simple things of knowing how many people are in the store um technology can do that um you know having let's say automating checkout you know that's that's something you can do where with limited resources maybe they're they're you know assisting customers instead of just sitting at a checkout lane so we've seen a lot of that and then obviously the you know the the picking is a big is a big deal so technology to make picking more efficient either through augmented reality glasses edge shelf displays that blink when an associate's picking something to make sure they're getting the right thing or even just the the full automation of these physical spaces turning into um partially autonomous picking or delivery or pickup and then experience so you know it's we as shoppers now our behaviors change things that we would touch before we don't want to touch you know things that you know so that it's changed it's forced different modalities with checkout or just in-store uh behavior yeah and that kind of ties into what i wanted to kind of spread into next is more about the in-store experience and the effort that retailers are going to to making that more relevant and interesting to drive people in versus potentially purchasing online and kind of battling that how do you all see that kind of evolving or how has it evolved and the role you'll play in that space yeah i think there's going to be many things happening over time i think the simple thing of digitizing the edge you know something as simple as automating pricing so that you know we can see dynamic pricing or pricing online matches that that's in physical space sure digitizing things in physical space understanding how people are moving through the store maybe through loyalty rewards or through applications or scan and go or smart carts we now know someone's physical basket in that space so now you can start retailers can start to create these physical online experiences very when we shop online we don't mind recommendations because typically they're relevant because they're based on our basket our behavior so if we can start translating that into physical space it'll make for a more rewarding uh trip to the store um and and to be honest with you a lot of people want to go back to the store we see we see a lot of demand there at the same time no one wants to give up their delivery or their pickup options either so i guess it'll depend on mood of consumers but the key thing here is to start to align these physical and online experiences so it's what we experience online or in physical space is more similar to what we're used to online in in these in these times do you kind of see a certain um certain kind of retail establishments certain based on what they're selling kind of gravitate more towards these technologies as opposed to other types of stores sure well you know it we've been engaged with some of the bigger retailers uh i know in our investor day we had mentioned we're working with walmart doug mcmillan was kind enough to mention our collaboration with them okay when you look at the essential stores the ones that are most heavily utilized or most depend dependent upon in times like covet you know those those are the ones we see really embracing technology or sure you know wanting to get more technology because they're they're heavily dependent on the labor shortages the increase in wages the increase in product costs it's more heavily burdened for them so fixing supply chain helping the associate be more efficient and at the same time improving experience to encourage people back into the store i think are all major priorities for the for the big retailers the essential retailers so you mentioned supply chain which is a topic i wanted to get into anyways so supply chain logistics kind of that whole area is super popular right now it's a very hot topic to understand talk about and discuss how technology is playing a role now how it has in the past and what we kind of predict it will do in the future how do you see kind of iot technologies and maybe some things that you all have done impact the supply chain improve the supply chain logistics side of things to help businesses on the retail side sure i i think uh it's a good question so i think that the good news about qualcomm we are our hit our roots are kind of uh our foundation was more in supply chain we actually did omni tracks back in the 80s to track trucks across the country you know pre-cell phones and the ability to do that so if you look we've been one of our core businesses at qualcomm has always been this track the tracking goods or services or goods or uh trucks or logistics so we've been engaged for multiple decades what what's surprising at this point is even if we know where a truck is we don't necessarily know what's on it even if we know something's been delivered to a store we don't know if it was the right delivery so as we engage with some retailers it's interesting to hear that they may not know where things are and which may not have been a problem in the past because we would walk in and we'd see something on the shelf and take it or not but now we expect to see inventory in real time uh on our phone on online so i think the visibility into supply chain is gonna be more important than ever and it's gonna be a combination of technologies it could be cellular wi-fi bluetooth it could be you know rfid computer vision it's a combination of all of these technologies working together um to to so the retailer simply has to ask where is my how much do i have and where is it today that question is is nearly impossible and if to get that that level of insight they spend a lot of money uh manually figuring that out or or after the fact figuring out they didn't have something so i think just that pure visibility the very simple question how much do i have where is it is it in the proper condition is it in the right place are going to be key and i think we're in a unique position with our portfolio our connectivity portfolio our computer vision portfolio to kind of help enable that and we are engaged with a few folks right now yeah it's been interesting to kind of monitor the evolution of technology over the last number of years especially as you're thinking about different connectivity options that are out there prices find the cost for those going down making solutions more affordable for companies to adopt and seeing what it's enabling in tons of different industries but in supply chain logistics and as we've also mentioned in the retail space it's quite fascinating to see what's been able to be enabled with the combination of these technologies and working with organizations who really understand it and end and allow the companies that are working or the companies that are shipping the products the companies that are ordering the products not have to worry as much as they did before and there's a huge value for that for them absolutely yeah we believe so too and that's one of the reasons we're looking at that space very closely and investing heavily there um so let me ask you forward thinking kind of through the rest of this year into the next couple years what does the future of retail look like through your eyes and kind of how does iot and digital transformation as a whole really play a role in getting there yeah i think that the key thing and we mentioned it a couple times you hit on it it's going to be more about experience you know it's it's it's going to be walking into a store and experiencing things maybe even not even walking out with having it delivered home but it's having a relevant experience it can't be just technology bombarding us with things we're not interested in it's going to be about the technology monitoring us in the store looking at the store and making real-time relevant recommendations so that it's a meaningful experience to us in the store at the same time we do believe there's going to be uh things where there's going to be multiple modes of checkout right there's going to be the ability to walk in and walk out there's going to be unattended lanes there's going to be smart carts or scan and go but we you know we believe retailers are going to have to embrace what consumers want at this point and um and i think that we're looking for different experiences based on different people and different modes to engage so you know that that's one thing the other thing is we're looking over the horizon on you know uh payment paradigms right it's uh not a lot has changed with with cards over time uh nfc has become much more popular payment method um through covid no one wants to touch anything again but you know there's there's is there really a reason for us ever to pull out a card is there ever a reason for us not to just be able to pay any device anywhere in the store that's trusted so we're looking over the horizon with different payment technologies or you know i mentioned earlier robotics we're heavily messing around our sixth generation robotics platform uh we we actually have we're in the we're in the mars uh drone with the qualcomm chip so nice pretty sure if we can handle that environment we can certainly help deliver packages either with autonomous vehicles or with drones so i think a lot of things are going to change what actually sticks is uh to be determined but the good news is we're in a unique position to to kind of step back and look at how these things will interact and how do you think this influences the job market in the retail space they're influencing like the likes of cashiers and and and people who stock the shelves people who go around and work with customers help them find what they're looking for how does these technologies kind of you know whether it's complementing replacing you know what do you kind of see that kind of evolving into i see it as complementary to be honest and hopefully making a much better work environment let's say you're you're the person responsible for putting toothbrushes on a shelf on peg hooks and you walk over and there's soft medium and hard bristles and multi-pack and different it all looks the same right so now in its if you walk if you were to walk up and look down with your augmented reality glasses or your industrial handheld and scan something and you look up something's flashing exactly where it should go or you see in your eyes exactly where it should be placed that's a much more enjoyable experience than this nightmare figuring out where something belongs so i think there's things we can do to make the employees or the associates journey or daily activities much more efficient and then enable them to you know free them up to actually sell maybe become an expert in a particular area where they can advise people who are trying to shop instead of just struggling and picking or stocking something and then at the front uh you know from a cashier perspective it's it's more about choices again it's there will likely be attended lanes still because my parents if they if they walk into a store without at the register they're gonna walk out so i think there's gonna be a need for that but in a very high turnover environment um you know it i think it's going to allow people who want to stay there and want to be there to do jobs that are meaningful to them i i don't see it you know replacing i see it putting people in a position to be either experts or do something that they feel is meaningful in that in that environment yeah i kind of always viewed it as like for me when i go into a store let's say going to costco and i actually prefer the self checkout because it's faster and get more people through um and it makes going to costco on the weekends much more enjoyable than it was before but what what i think that allows companies to do is like you kind of already talked about is train their employees up to be product experts and help increase the likelihood of sell sales by being able to pay more attention to the actual customer now of course some people just like to be left alone and do their own thing but there are uh i guess there are stores that really could benefit from being more of a hands-on experience and providing different kinds of opportunity for people to learn about stuff like if you go to target the good chances you'll probably know what you're looking for and you know there's there's definitely technology technology-based applications that would help them but it's it's there are unique i think opportunities for technology to even go further with that experience and i think building that skill set within individuals is is how this technology expands the potential for these jobs as opposed to feeling like it's just going to replace them and it's just going to be run by robots or you know or some other kind of way being done absolutely um well this has been been a great conversation i actually haven't had a chance to talk to anybody about retail iot for a while so so i really appreciate it um i wanted to ask you before we wrap up here where when you all talk to companies in the retail space where is the biggest area that you get pushback as far as is it is it a cost thing is it a implementation integration type thing is it a just lack of knowledge and understanding how the technology would work and benefit them is it roi like where do you kind of get the most pushback and where do you see the biggest challenges of this these technologies being adopted more widespread in the retail space sure i think i think all of the above you know you can a lot of the the points but it depends on the retailer some retailers are very tech savvy and have embraced technology and they have i.t departments and engineers to support deployment they're a little more you know forward-looking or not so daunted by the bringing technology in there's also the small regional let's say grocers or smaller format stores that they're they're overwhelmed when they see the picture of what can happen so there's been some things we believe um we're big proponents of standardization we think uh standardizing you know air interfaces or standardizing technologies that read things or digitize things will not just be beneficial to qualcomm but beneficial to the entire ecosystem so i know there has in the past some of the reluctance was simply you know roi and then others were concerned about am i going to make the wrong decision by picking a proprietary implementation from a particular vendor sure so some of the the ways we're looking at is how do we reduce the cost of technology and then have that technology address multiple rois so if you look at i'll use shelf labels i like that one because it's very easy to understand there's there's a return on investment for just digitizing the paper label you don't have to send someone out to replace paper labels then if you look at that i talked about picking efficiency now your picking efficiency potentially goes up your interaction with the customer so now you're talking there's maybe two or three or four rois for particular technology that go so technology pricing has come down labor pricing has gone up and at the same time now there's potent there's other use cases being applied to what used to be seen as a single mode and i think that's happening everywhere so now there's now there's the over there's the overwhelming task of what do i choose and we've worked ourselves qualcomm we've worked ourselves into a unique position because we don't sell anything to retailers but we talk to retailers about what's possible with technology so we'll you know we sit back and look at everything talk about use cases more than we talk about technology and then we bring in one of our 13 000 iot customers to deploy technology in those retail spaces right right yeah so that i think that's we're in a unique position to calm people down uh tell them what's possible and how things will interact and uh and you know just what we we start at the top what use case is most important to you and then talk through how they could potentially enable that with uh technology that we that we're behind fantastic um so as we kind of finish up to tell our audience what um they should be on the lookout for coming out of qualcomm in the next number of months and at the same time where they can stay in touch how they can learn more and all that kind of good stuff sure okay um so what's upcoming oh man so we're taking some of our premium phones uh smartphone chips things that you'll see in you know the premium smartphone space and driving it into applications such as self checkout or smart carts or unattended retail um so it's actually fun to go in with something that wasn't intended to be held in your hand and then do a use case that used to be a pc or server in the back room it's fun to go through that so you'll you'll see some of that i'm very excited about the changes in uh checkout um you know whether it's self-checkout or smart card i mentioned or unattended you know we're investing a lot there and then over the horizon it's you know uh just you we we're trying to rethink how payment happens um so we're investing heavily there in computer vision but it's all everything we're doing is all about experience for the customer the associate or improving operational efficiency so i think you're going to see some pretty cool applications with mobile devices that weren't intended to be there originally and then if you want to find out more about what we're doing or keep track if you just go to qualcomm.com retail okay you can you can do that or look me up on linkedin and drop me a note it's fantastic well this has been a great conversation thanks so much for taking the time um i'd love to kind of keep us eye on the space and see how things are going and have you back to kind of talk further about the evolution of the technology how it's being applied where we're seeing kind of the biggest opportunities and things like that later this year so thanks again for for uh being here all right perfect thanks for having me thank you all right everyone thanks again for watching that episode of the iot fall podcast if you enjoyed the episode please click the thumbs up button subscribe to our channel and be sure to hit the bell notifications so you get the latest episodes as soon as they become available other than that thanks again for watching and we'll see you next time

2022-03-20 02:29

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