从技术专家到企业家和女演员德鲁·巴里摩尔（Drew Barrymore），了解如何接触客户仍然是他们的首要任务。
本周在纽约举行的 NRF 2024：零售业大展上，作为响应不断变化的消费者需求的一部分，在行业内对人工智能和其他技术进行了相当多的讨论。虽然会议中有很多名人露面，包括德鲁·巴里摩尔（Drew Barrymore）和玛莎·斯图尔特（Martha Stewart）等人，但关于技术在使数据在跨组织大规模发挥作用方面的作用也有很多值得讨论的地方。 数字化转型网（www.szhzxw.cn）
企业家兼女演员德鲁·巴里摩尔（Drew Barrymore）在与全国零售联合会（NRF）首席营销官Martine Reardon的炉边谈话中谈到了他们的努力，关于产品设计创新和可访问性，讨论了她与Made By Gather首席执行官Shae Hong的合作，以开发Beautiful品牌的炊具和电器。
“我的生活方式是关于可访问性、可负担性和可用性，”巴里摩尔说。虽然她可能生活在名人阶层，并希望提供美观的产品，但她说，她与Hong on Beautiful的合作试图吸引那些必须牢记成本的消费者。“如果你现在找不到那件东西，或者跑进那家商店，或者很容易在互联网上买到它——我非常清楚人们的生活方式，他们的薪水和他们的决策，以及他们对生活在这个世界上需要什么的优先考虑。
一、处理消费者数字
消费者在未来一年可能如何消费是NRF行业和消费者洞察副总裁Katherine Cullen主持的讨论焦点。为记者和分析师举行的关于2024年消费者前景的会议包括Insider Intelligence内容副总裁Suzy Davidkhanian;Jonathan Silver，Affinity Solutions 首席执行官;以及NRF研究执行主任马克·马修斯（Mark Mathews）。
马修斯表示，虽然对11月零售销售的估计是负向正，但“经季节性调整后，我们的数字环比增长超过0.7%。所以，这是一个非常非常强大的数字。他说，他对数据的进一步细分显示，12月的总零售额环比增长了0.44%。“我们最终的差距约为3.3%-3.7%，这取决于如何衡量假日销售。”
2023 年假期 3% 至 4% 的增长可能听起来并不深刻，但马修斯解释说，前一年的季节包括 3% 的通货膨胀，而最近的假期没有通货膨胀。“因此，3%的增长几乎相当于去年7%的增长，”他说，并提供了一种中断结果的方法。“所以，实际上非常强大。”
西尔弗表示，假期期间的在线购物不仅在网络星期一前后有所上升，而且在整个星期内都有传播。“在线销售，互联网销售增长了25%，但实体店与在线店的比例仍然非常压倒性地是实体店，”他说。西尔弗还指出，消费者倾向于进行线上和线下购物的混合。 数字化转型网（www.szhzxw.cn）
Davidkhanian表示，电子零售和实体零售业发生了许多变化，影响了假日季节。“感觉就像很久以前一样，但亚马逊关闭门店是在 2023 年。每个人都知道他们关闭了Style（实体店），这是一件大事，“她说。亚马逊在 2022 年宣布计划关闭其书店;去年，关闭最终蔓延到其他实体店，包括一些Amazon Go便利店。零售业的变革也见证了美国数字领域的新参与者的出现。“TikTok Shop在美国开业，很多CEO易手，一些破产，一些新的品牌出现，”Davidkhanian说。“所有这些都为2023年发生的事情奠定了基础。”
该行业似乎也在酝酿新的技术转折。零售业中的人工智能通常被认为是简化运营和提高效率的一种方式，可能是零售商减少与产品退货相关的某些损失的一种方式。她说：“使用人工智能和一系列其他工具来确保你真正为消费者提供他们需要的东西，并在正确的时间提供正确的尺寸，这在2024年真的很重要。
二、数字孪生和可扩展性
惠普企业美国零售部杰出技术专家 Karen Rhodes 主持了与 Kinetic Vision 首席执行官 Jeremy Jarrett 和 NVIDIA 高级开发者关系经理 Tarik Hammadou 就百事可乐使用数字孪生的单独讨论。
Jarrett说，他的公司与百事可乐等品牌合作，协助他们进行数字孪生 – 一种通过使用虚拟模型测试或预测资源性能的方法。“引入新技术需要大量的变革，而这些变革在物理上和IT基础设施上都难以管理，”他说。Kinetic Vision 帮助百事可乐等品牌通过数字技术优化该流程，或者在不中断工作场所流程的情况下对人工智能等新技术进行虚拟调节。
贾勒特引用了科幻惊悚片《少数派报告》（Minority Report），这是汤姆·克鲁斯（Tom Cruise）的一部专题片，讲述了在充满增强现实和交互式传感器的未来预测犯罪，描绘了零售业可能正在发生的情况。“将会有像《少数派报告》这样的技术，你使用AR、VR来帮助增加人类的工作量。这些会离得更远一些。他说，还有很多数据流和集成发生在幕后，这将证明这些过程。
Jarrett说，通信增强也将被证明对零售和包装商品很重要。“一旦这些数据集成发生，现在我们将为换班提供非常简单的警报。我们将提供很多人都知道的非常简单的信息，“他说，通过将数据放入员工、领导者或轮班经理可以遵循的上下文中。 数字化转型网（www.szhzxw.cn）
哈马杜说，虽然零售和消费品是传统行业的一部分，但它们可以通过新技术进一步转型。“这里的问题是，’我们如何通过整合人工智能或启用人工智能来彻底改变这些行业？’”他问道。
他说，要清除的关键障碍之一是解决可扩展性问题。“可扩展性是通过将三个元素结合在一起并弥合 IT、AI 和运营之间的差距来实现的。”Hammadou说，另一个因素是IT团队和团队、AI团队、深度学习工程师、构建大型语言模型的工程师和运营之间的组织文化。“你如何使你的KPI与技术和先进的人工智能保持一致？”他问道，并强调了有效地将KPI转化为技术指标的重要性。“世界各地的每家零售商，消费品包装商品，他们都需要绘制地图，战略性地设计和构建技术以扩大规模。”
了解技术以及驱动技术的数据，对于整个组织的未来发展可能越来越重要。Hammadou 说，履行中心，尤其是配送中心，不能将技术视为不透明的黑匣子，因为运营履行中心是一个动态的过程，每周、每个月和每个季节都在变化。“这就是为什么人工智能模型的可扩展性非常重要，”他说。“IT 基础架构的设计需要围绕如何实现这种可扩展性而构建。”
翻译：
Outlooks on AI, Scalability at NRF 2024: Retail’s Big Show
Understanding how to reach customers remained top of mind from technologists to entrepreneur and actress Drew Barrymore.
Drew Barrymore discussing product design at the NRF 2024: Retail’s Big Show.PHOTO BY JOAO-PIERRE S. RUTH
This week’s NRF 2024: Retail’s Big Show in New York saw its fair share of chatter about AI and other technology at play within the industry as part of responding to ever-changing consumer needs. While the conference was peppered with celebrity appearances, including the likes of Drew Barrymore and Martha Stewart, there was also plenty to dish about technology’s role in making data more functional at scale across organizations.
Talking up their efforts in a fireside chat with Martine Reardon, CMO for the National Retail Federation (NRF), on product design innovation and accessibility, entrepreneur and actress Drew Barrymore discussed her collaboration with Shae Hong, CEO of Made By Gather, to develop the Beautiful brand of cookware and appliances. 数字化转型网（www.szhzxw.cn）
“The way I live is about accessibility, affordability, and availability,” Barrymore said. Though she may live in the celebrity strata and wants to deliver aesthetically pleasing products, she said her work with Hong on Beautiful tries to appeal to consumers who must keep costs in mind. “If you can’t find that thing or run into that store now or easily get it on dot com — I’m so cognizant of the way that people live with their paychecks and their decision-making and their prioritization of what it takes to live in this world.”
1. Crunching Consumer Numbers
How consumers might spend in the coming year was the focus of a discussion moderated by Katherine Cullen, vice president of industry and consumer insights with the NRF. The session, held for reporters and analysts, on the consumer outlook for 2024 included Suzy Davidkhanian, vice president of content with Insider Intelligence; Jonathan Silver, CEO, Affinity Solutions; and Mark Mathews, executive director of research with the NRF.
Mathews said while the estimates for November retail sales were negative to just positive, “Our numbers came in at over 0.7% growth, month-over-month on a seasonally adjusted basis. So, a really, really robust number.” His further breakdown of the data showed December’s total retail sales grew 0.44%, month-over-month, he said. “Where we ended up was about 3.3% – 3.7% depending on how measure it for holiday sales.”
Growth between 3% and 4% for holiday 2023 might not sound profound, but Matthews explained that the prior year’s season included 3% inflation while this most recent holiday season saw no inflation. “So, 3% growth is almost equivalent to 7% growth last year,” he said, offering one way to interrupt results. “So, actually pretty robust.” 数字化转型网（www.szhzxw.cn）
Silver said online shopping during the holidays was not only elevated around Cyber Monday but spread throughout the week. “Online sales, internet sales were up 25%, but the ratio of brick-and-mortar to online is still very much overwhelmingly brick-and-mortar,” he said. Silver also noted consumers tend to engage in a blend of online and offline shopping.
Davidkhanian said there were a number of changes in e-tailing and physical retail that influenced the holiday season. “It feels like a long time ago, but it was 2023 when Amazon closed their stores down. Everybody knows they closed the Style [physical] store, which was a big deal,” she said. Amazon announced plans in 2022 to shutter its bookstores; closures eventually spread last year to other brick-and-mortar shops including some Amazon Go convenience stores. Shakeups in retailing also saw new players emerge in US digital space. “TikTok Shop in the US opened and a lot of CEOs changed hands, some bankruptcies, some renewed brands that came up,” Davidkhanian said. “All of that sort of lay the foundation of what was happening in 2023 that went into our holiday.”
New twists in technology seem to be brewing for the industry as well. AI in retail, often cited as a way to streamline operations and enhance efficiency, might be a way for retailers to reduce certain losses associated with product returns. “Using AI and a bunch of other tools to ensure that you are really giving the consumer what they need, and the right size at the right time, will really be something important in 2024,” she said.
2. Digital Twins and Scalability
A separate discussion on PepsiCo’s use of digital twins with Jeremy Jarrett, CEO of Kinetic Vision, and Tarik Hammadou, senior developer relations manager with NVIDIA, was moderated by Karen Rhodes, distinguished technologist, US retail with Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
Jarrett said his company works with brands such as PepsiCo, assisting them with digital twins — a means of testing or predicting the performance of a resource through the use of a virtual model. “Bringing in a new technology requires a lot of change that’s difficult to manage physically and with the IT infrastructure,” he said. Kinetic Vision helps brands such as PepsiCo optimize that process through digital technologies or to do virtual conditioning of new technologies such as artificial intelligence without interrupting flows on the work floor. 数字化转型网（www.szhzxw.cn）
Jeremy Jarrett, Tarik Hammadou, and Karen Rhodes at NRF 2024. Photo by Joao-Pierre S. Ruth
Jarrett cited sci-fi thriller “Minority Report,” a Tom Cruise feature about predicting crime in a future filled with augmented reality and interactive sensors, to depict what may be in the works for retail. “There will be technologies like in ‘Minority Report’ where you’re using AR, VR to help augment the human workloads. Those are going to be a little further off.” There is also a lot of data flow and integration, he said, that happen behind the scenes that will prove these processes.
Communication augmentations, Jarrett said, will also prove to be important to retail and packaged goods. “Once those data integrations happen, now we’re going to be presenting very simple alerts for shift changes. We’re going to be presenting very simple information that a lot of people know,” he said, by putting the data into context that an associate, a leader, or a shift manager could follow.
Hammadou said while retail and consumer packaged goods are part of traditional industries, they could be transformed further with new technologies. “The question here is, ‘How can we revolutionize these industries by incorporating AI or enabling AI?’” he asked.
One of the key hurdles to clear, he said, is to address scalability. “Scalability is achieved by bringing three elements [together] and bridging the gap between IT, AI, and operations.” Another element is organization culture, Hammadou said, between IT teams and groups, AI teams, deep learning engineers, engineers building large language models, and operations. “How do you align your KPIs with technology and advanced AI?” he asked, highlighting the importance of efficiently translating KPIs to technology metrics. “Every single retailer around the world, consumer packaged goods, they need to map and strategically design and build technology to scale.”
Understanding technology, and the data that drives it, may be increasingly vital across entire organizations going forward. Fulfillment centers, especially in a distribution center, cannot regard technology as an opaque black box, Hammadou said because operating a fulfillment center is a dynamic process with change every week, every month, and every season. “That’s why the scalability of AI models is very important,” he said. “The design of your IT infrastructure needs to be built around how you are achieving that scalability.” 数字化转型网（www.szhzxw.cn）
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