Monique Legault’s Post

Is Asda’s huge IT overhaul on track? Asda is working on what it terms “Europe’s largest IT transformation project” but it has been far from smooth sailing. Retail Gazette looks at what has caused the issues and whether the short-term pain will lead to long-term gain. #aldi #IT #AI #transformation #issue #changemanagement #investment

Quick Bite (HR- It is different) Quick commerce providers have been surprisingly quick to prove that their business model can serve more than just impulse purchases. As a result, they have the potential to become a serious competitor to supermarkets in the markets they serve #hr #quickbite #quickcomerce

I love to see this innovation in retail and supply chain management. The downsides are the impact on moderate wage workers. How do you prepare a workforce for labor saving efficiency and innovation? Well it is not minting more bachelor level graduates with debt that will be underemployed or unemployed. How about trade workers capable of building and maintaining these high efficient facilities? The demand for skilled trades will be skyrocketing.

Ocado Group PLC (LSE:OCDO) shares fell almsot 8% following reports that partner Marks & Spencer was withholding performance-linked payments from the grocery delivery specialist. M&S is putting a £190.7 million to Ocado "on hold" after the robot-warehouse group missed performance targets last year, with the duo having originally agreed to the payouts through their 2019 tie-up. The two companies each own 50% of Ocado Retail, the UK business that operates Ocado.com and delivers groceries around the UK, which last month reported a record Christmas.  Thursday’s upcoming result, which will focus more on Ocado Technology Solutions its services arm, come with the shares down 45% fall from last summer's spike, which followed July's half-year results that showed a rare underlying profit. More at #Proactive #ProactiveInvestors #LSE #OCDO http://ow.ly/3B7g105jSEI

Today, UK supermarket Asda announced it will be bringing more staff back into its stores. This is a really important decision – I firmly believe that businesses, especially supermarket chains, have an important role to play in facilitating human interaction and social connection. More and more aspects of our daily tasks are becoming automated for the sake of making our lives more streamlined and convenient. This is most clearly seen in the retail sector with self-service tills and online options in abundance. Of course, convenience and speed are important in today’s increasingly fast-paced society, but have retailers over-priced their importance to their customers? With this move, Asda certainly seems to think so, claiming the lack of in-store staff could be behind their recent disappointing financial results. At the Belonging Forum we have observed that people crave more human interaction in their everyday lives, just as ‘convenient’ automated alternatives are proliferating. Our poll of over 10,000 UK citizens found that 43% of people would rather be served by a person in a supermarket, rising to 57% at a hotel and 66% at a restaurant. This move from Asda is a welcome reminder increasing automation in our daily lives and reducing face to face contact can have unintended consequences. We strongly encourage more supermarkets to follow suit and have at least one human-operated checkout across all of their stores. https://lnkd.in/ek9KcFkS

The problem isn’t that Ocado Group doesn’t have great warehouse pick-and-pack technology – it does. And it’s not that Ocado can’t run decent supermarket sales and delivery operations – it can. The problem is, it’s trying to do all three things at the same time. That, and the problem that Ocado is losing money, of course. These problems are, in my opinion, intimately related. There’s an excellent article in the Financial Times today (31/7/24) by Retail Correspondent Laura Onita, which summarises Ocado’s history and the issues and decisions it is now facing. One of the issues Ms Onita highlights is that equities analysts (and, I assume, investors as well) who follow Ocado’s stock seem divided as to whether Ocado should move its listing from London to the US – or indeed whether it should even remain a listed company. I would say these analysts are spending too much time turning the handle on their financial models and not enough time questioning whether Ocado’s trifurcated business model (Technology Solutions; Logistics; Retail) is viable. Because I don’t think it is. Because it’s not just one business model – it’s three. Ocado builds sophisticated mechanical and electronic hardware and software for warehouse operations; Ocado runs logistics for third parties; and Ocado sells and delivers groceries with its JV partner, Marks & Spencer. The latter two operations provide their own built-in conflict of interest – who comes first, your logistics client (archrival Morrisons) or your JV partner? But the warehouse tech business is a whole different story. There is no similarity in business model to the other two operations at all. The financial models are entirely different, the cash requirements are entirely different, the skills are entirely different. Besides making it much more complicated for Ocado management to pull the right levers to run all three businesses optimally – indeed it is probably impossible to do it for all three at the same time – it is also difficult for investors to derive a realistic valuation for the entire company as it has too many moving parts, not necessarily all moving in the same direction at the same time. Shifting shares between stock markets will not address Ocado’s problems. It’s a ‘knitting’ problem, and management must decide which of the three ’patterns’ they are going to stick to!

It's interesting to see how many pubs report highly engaging pieces on last mile. Supply Chain Dive picked this up which was originally written on CFO Dive. Additionally, CX Dive has been writing more on this too. Top of mind for decision-makers/influences across the board.

Let’s be honest – the retail method of inventory accounting made sense 30 plus years ago, before retail software was more sophisticated and before computing power could handle the data volume, especially for large department store retailers with hundreds of thousands of SKU’s. But just because there’s a technology reason to move to a better accounting method doesn’t mean that retailers went that direction quickly, and without challenges and pain. Understanding buying and planning behavioral differences, policy and KPI implications, and underlying change management has been critical as The Parker Avery Group has helped numerous retailers navigate the transition. Amanda Decker -Astrologo Marty Anderson Kathi Toll, MSC Carrie Habel #retail #inventory

The world of retail is vast and ever-changing, a hub of economic activity that shapes our global landscape. But amidst the success stories, there's a common challenge that retailers face – managing operating costs. It's like steering a ship through turbulent waters, and without careful navigation, businesses can find themselves in troubled seas. Remember the Retail giants that either went bankrupt or shut down the shop? What happened to them? #ai #aidoos #retailindustry #ecommerce #amazon #flipkart #development #digitalmarketing #sales #seo https://lnkd.in/gHFSMYwx