How AI & Smart Data Capture Are Converging To Improve Retail Store Operations | Ask An Expert

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Hello, everyone.

Welcome to another exciting and hallucinating episode of the Omnitok Ask an Expert series.

I'm one of your co hosts for today's interview, Anne Mazinga.

And I'm Chris Walton.

We're the founders of Omnitalk, the fast growing retail media organization that is all about the companies, the technologies and the people that are coming together to shape the future of retail.

Chris, we have a great episode today because as we know from our two podcasts that we record monthly.

Just two.

Ann.

Right?

Yes, we record a lot of podcasts on technology, without a doubt.

Yes, yes.

Our Spotlight series and our Fast5, we cover new technologies that are coming out for the retail industry nearly every day.

But what we don't often hear reported on and what you and I, I think, really pride ourselves on trying to do is, is make sure that we talk about the impact that this has on the stores teams.

You worked in stores, I worked in stores.

This new technology is great, but it's a lot of work, right?

Yeah, a hundred percent.

I mean, if you don't think about how the technology investments are going to ultimately impact the people on the front lines, you're missing out on something.

So that's got to be a part of the equation and the discussion every single day, you know, if you're running a retail organization.

Right.

Well, so today we're going to bring on an expert on the topic.

We have Scandit's Director of industry solutions, Jessica Grizzolia to talk about the key retail trends that their clients at Scan IT are investing in and why retailers should be looking at the right software to use to integrate, you know, all this new tech into their current and existing stores ecosystem.

So with that, Jessica, welcome to Omnitalk.

We're so thrilled to have you.

Hello.

Hi.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, it's great to have you.

So thanks for being with us today.

And, and just a quick note before we get started.

For those watching live on LinkedIn, feel free to ask your questions of Jessica at any time via the chat session window on the right hand side of your screen if you're on your laptop and also right below the the video if you are watching on mobile.

So, all right, let's get started.

So Jessica, before we dive in though, why don't you tell us a little bit about your background and your role at Scandit and also what scan it does for those that maybe aren't familiar with listening to previous shows that we've done.

So I'm Jessica Grisolia looking after all things Retail at Scandit being around for over 10 years now talking about digital products.

And since six years after joining Scandit really focused on how do we bridge the digital war with the physical one and how we make those technology technologies really meaningful for customers, associates and retailers.

So for the ones that don't know Scanvit, we are the global leader in smart data capture, which means that we Capture barcodes, text, IDs, object, and then we package those data to get real time information that then inform the users, especially workers for today and store associates, on how to process their actions, how to prioritize them, and how to then gain the time to be closer to the customers.

So that's us in a nutshell.

So Jessica, how would you explain the core.

Go a little bit in depth there.

So how would you explain the core technology of what scan it does for our audience?

Yeah, so the technology at its core is a SDK or library that you would integrate into any existing application that normally runs on devices that have a camera.

So this means that cameras are everywhere.

At the core, we are a computer vision company.

So big machine learning techies over here and, and therefore everything that has a camera, which right now is really everywhere.

In stores we have fixed cameras, robots, we provide devices to our store associate and the store managers and so on.

So everything that has a camera can capture the environment around it.

And then those information through, for instance, AR overlays or other complex AR technologies, can then translate what the data means to the user.

So we make that the whole complexity more transparent and easy to understand and act upon.

Got it.

So essentially, so essentially, if there's a camera in operation in a store environment, you guys are making sure that it works to the best of its possible ability.

That's the way to sum up what exactly.

All right.

Exactly.

Yeah, good, good starting point.

Nice.

Love it.

Well, Jessica, let's start by talking about some of the retail trends that your team at Scandit really sees hitting the market this year.

And especially the trends that you've seen some of your clients look into as well.

Where's that focus for them?

I've seen like really three main trends that I'm particularly also happy to see surfacing.

The first one would be retail focusing on being human centric again.

I think after the last couple of years and the tremendous opportunities that they have, the I really bring into the market that for a second we forgot the.

That technology doesn't need just to be cool, but it needs to serve a strong purpose.

So I've seen a lot of our retailers Focusing again on who am I solving a problem for?

What is the problem?

Is this a problem that they feel on an everyday basis?

So I've observed a strong focus on human centric retail and linked to this particular problem for the store and the store associates in particular, what we see is a strong need to gain that 100% visibility of the inventory.

We've talked a lot in the past few months about the inventory distortions amounting about $1.7 trillion globally.

And how do we solve that challenge is in a way linked to our workers as well.

And to me, this comes to two strong trends of looking at the inventory management that we have, especially the backrooms for retail and how we receive items.

And secondly, how do we improve shelf intelligence and on shelf availability in the store?

Got it.

So, Jessica, I want to, I want to, I want to, I want to dive into what you just said there.

So because you said something that's really interesting that I don't think Ann and I have ever heard before and I want to make sure that I caught it right.

You said, you said the, basically the rise of AI is making it so that retailers are just really, businesses in general can focus more on the human element of how their work gets done, which should ultimately be, you know, better for the workforce.

You're saying that's because of AI?

AI first and foremost is a copilot.

That's how we have always seen it at Scandit.

We started with traditional AI already 10 plus years ago because that's the foundation of machine learning in and of itself.

You know, you need to be able to interpret through the camera as if it was the eyes of a person, the world around you.

And, and I do believe that initially the tremendous potential that AI has to also replace the human factor was tempting.

And we had to experiment as retail tech and technology.

And 80% of AI project failed last year.

And I think this is telling a lot.

And that's why I'm seeing the purpose being back.

Without the purpose, technology really struggles.

Whereas the AI led projects that we're seeing be more successful in the market are the ones that use AI as an enhancer of the worker or for the customer instead of, instead of the worker.

Does that make sense?

It does, actually, it does.

It's really, it's, it's, it's very well articulated too because you're saying like yes, AI can do that, but at, at the same, by the same token, you have to deploy it in the right areas.

And you're saying what you're seeing now is that area of deployment specific being in the store around inventory and making the workers more productive.

Is that right?

It's exactly right.

And the link here is truly that if you want to provide the right items to your customers when they want it and in the right place in the store, first of all, you need to be able to know what the shelf is supposed to look like.

You need to be able to understand the state of the shelf.

So that's where the on shelf availability comes into place.

But this is only half of the equation.

The other half for the associates is now, well, there are items missing.

How do I prioritize what I replenish?

So my actions based on one, what do I have on the balance on hand?

If I don't have any stock, my purpose going in the back room is still not going to be solving a problem for the customer.

And secondly, how am I going to prioritize the action in ways that creates a sales lift for the retailer?

Because ultimately this is very important for our retailers.

They need to sell more and therefore use balance on hand.

So you need to know that inventory visibility, as we were saying before, and you also need to be able to then take and prioritize the items that are the best sellers, the ones with the best margins and things like that.

Right.

And, and this is, and this is really interesting.

This I'm going to you on.

This is really interesting because like what Jessica is getting at here is the whole idea of the next best action that we've talked about through AI.

And so now the next best action comes into every software provider's tech that is has a software component to it too.

Right.

So like, you know, scan, it's going in and they're helping you scan the, you know, the items more efficiently on shelf.

They can potentially provide you the next best action you should take too.

Which is a whole new realm of discussion around technology that we've not had before on this show.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I think it's, it's, it's getting into the core of what we wanted to talk about today too, which is how are you, how are you making the right software investments here?

Like I think we've been talking so much about the, the hard new elevation into stores.

Yeah.

And it's really about how are you making sure that your software is making the, is allowing your, your stores, teams, members to do the right next thing versus, you know, putting a bunch of tech in there and hoping that it survives and that you have successful results.

Like Jessica was saying, it's not you're not getting the results by just throwing the tech in there.

Right, right.

All right, well, Jessica, so like, even with that said, like, it's a very cool angle to think about now in terms of like, how software providers are going to go to market and how AI is going to impact them as well, especially around this next best action idea.

But you know, you know, at the end of the day, like none of all this kind of talk is cheap and, and the technologies are, are not cheap at all.

So like, how are you and your clients and others best, and how are the best in class retailers successfully trying to attack, you know, what you've talked about in concept at the store level?

Yeah.

So Chris, that's a, that's a great question.

And as you said, you know, technology is not the cheapest thing to, to invest in, so it needs to be done with a, with a strong intention.

So the frameworks that I've seen working best are normally made in four steps.

You know, it's a little bit, a little bit of a simplification, but nonetheless, let's, let's try to go in four steps.

So the first one is auditing your workflows.

I've seen from our customers that the most successful projects had a clear vision about what their workflows was intended to look at at the end of the process.

So not only the pain that they want to solve, which as we said before, needed to be tangible, but also how, what was the key result, how would they go and measure it?

So would it be efficiency?

And if yet what type of efficiency would it be cost reduction.

And if in that case, what type of cost are you tackling?

And so on.

So first looking at what type of pain points you want to solve and how the workflow can empower that objective.

The second part of the workflow or framework that we see working the best is leveraging your infrastructure.

That's where we can transform what we said before tech is expensive into tech is still not that expensive because we have a lot of infrastructure that still can serve a purpose.

We have legacy systems that we're not going to just like tear down completely and build anew.

We have a lot of tools that our associates already have and oftentimes our customers ask us, how do I look at the tools that they have?

Can I reduce the amount of tools that I provide them so that they have one that does everything?

But as we said before, store manager already have tools and then store associates have as well.

And there may be some more mobile solution like tablets or iPads already in store.

So how can we leverage the existing infrastructure?

And then we go into the flexibility of the technology.

That's where you need to look at hardware and software at the same time.

So we already mentioned something on the hardware, but then the software needs also to be a solution that is easy to integrate.

Oftentimes our customer have asked us, hey, I cannot redo all my applications, so how can I work on maybe the application that I'm rebuilding now that is native?

There are a lot of different frameworks and operating system, but sometimes we don't have the IT budget or the time to redo an application.

So can I use out of the box or no code solution to still unlock the software benefits?

And last but not the least is prioritize roi.

All the C level that we work with keeps on telling us there's no investment if the ROI is not at least five times the cost.

So ROI at least five times.

Okay.

That's what, what they tell us.

So it's not a, it's not an easy challenge, but nonetheless, I think that that really tackles your question because you ask, you said rightfully so, technology is not, is not cheap.

But if the ROI is worth it and the vision is there, then it accomplished something meaningful.

Yeah.

But the key piece in that framework being like you have to, the key thing I'm hearing from a lot of people right now, and I know answering the same thing too, is like, there's a sweat your assets approach to this.

Like you're, you're not just going to dive in and start rebuilding everything you've got to use what you've already got to the best of its ability and then keep it as flexible as you can with the software side of things as well.

That's the other key point I'm hearing from you in addition to trying to get that roi.

Yeah.

And what I've heard that translated with is something that maybe took six months to do a couple of years ago.

Now our customers are asking us, well, can we push an update in half a day?

Can we roll out a new technology in 90 days?

And the reply must be, yes.

You cannot say, I'm sorry, I need a year for that.

And for, for me, you can only do that using what you have.

At least partially.

Right.

And into your earlier point too, Jessica, like, like Chris was saying, we've been hearing directly from retailers like that that also needs to be able to integrate into the existing systems that they already have.

Like we've, I've heard retailers say point blank, I will not invest in something Unless it can talk to the other systems that are already at play in my store ecosystem.

So I have to imagine that, that that's a big part of this too.

That's spot on.

And for instance, and one of our customers, like recently a big luxury European company so active in the US they ask us for the reception process.

If they had RFID already deployed, they were doing the reception with rfid, but they had a lot of reception that was unexpected or maybe boxes that could be damaged during transport or shipments that came from stores or missing items.

And they asked us, okay, we're not going to replace the RFID technology.

Can you, though, enhance it with smart data capture so we can catch which information we have to act upon just using the technology and the, the phones that the associate that.

And this is what I mean, with using the infrastructure available that, that is very easy for us to do and for the retailer, then they can immediately visualize, okay, this parcel shouldn't be this store.

There's actually a VIP waiting for this item in the next store.

So you can catch it really real time.

That's so interesting.

And it's really opening for me at least.

I don't know about you, Chris, but like a new, new visibility into, like, what Scandit is doing.

Like, we knew we've worked with you guys for a long time and we know you as smart data capture, but I think you're really kind of being this facilitator, it sounds like, across, you know, all of these systems that are, that a retailer is already working with and being able to say with smart data capture, like, oh, yeah, we can, we can make up for that because we've got this flexibility in our platform.

Yeah.

And just as an anecdote there, I was really surprised when we audited with this customer how much those mistakes or exceptions were costing.

It was a million per year just for the little palette or reception item that you missed or that was in the wrong store.

So this is like a very small subset of all reception, for instance, or all backroom operations.

So that's what I mean.

With innovation that is progressive, like the, the small things, they can make a huge impact when you look at the holistic results.

Yeah.

I mean, and, and given the conversations we've had recently, like, the other thing that's coming to mind for me is like, if I'm a CEO or a cfo, I'm not green lighting anything besides replacement, like hardware.

And I'm like, yeah, doing most of my bulk of my IT investment into the software side of the bit.

Or my, you know, my capital investment, I should say into the software side of the business for the reasons that we're saying like.

Yeah, I mean, God, I don't, I don't know if I want to be a hardware provider in 2025, that's for sure.

Well, Jessica, what other examples do you have?

Because I love that one.

I mean are there any other like clients that you've worked with?

You, you have all this experience that, that's newfound experience to us, but maybe share a few more with our audience if you don't mind of like how this is all taking place.

Sure.

And I have like a lot of examples, so may take days, but let's try to do it.

Pick your best ones.

So a couple of the best ones.

So Chris, you mentioned like not always you want to change hardware.

We still do see successful implementation.

So I would start with a recent deployment that we did with Staples Canada.

Everybody loves and knows Staples and going back to that framework that we were looking at before.

So what their IT wanted to do was helping the workers because they were having challenges with lower tenure but still complex tasks.

So tasks like audit the prices and the promotions, understanding the product information or seeing if something was available for restocking.

So the challenge was to look at those workflows and try to understand how do we help our workers in being able to accurately and efficiently complete their tasks because otherwise then there's no time to help the customers.

So what they implemented was this change in the process and they moved to iPhone.

So I think it was like 1200 iPhones that they deployed in Canada and they went from a process for the audit of the prices and promotion that was I scan something, I look at the display, I try to understand is it correct or not.

And then I need to think am I going to scan the label right now?

And by the time that you do this, and especially someone interrupts you like a customer, you need to start again.

And they went from this three step process to a one step process I capture with the camera tells me it's correct and if not immediately automates the change on the price and sends the right activities that needs to be performed.

So what they saw there is, was a 45% decrease in the investment on the hardware side because they could go from more expensive hardware to a consumer grade and that's helped tremendously.

But not only that they could on the software side achieve the hundred percent of compliance that they wanted on the audits that they were doing for the prices and they were doing more than 20,000 price audits per week, and they were all accurate.

So that's where we look at those frameworks on flexibility and making it easy.

And for the workers, especially the newer ones, and especially the one with less experience, really easy to navigate what you're supposed to do and how you're supposed to do it.

Well, I have a couple more, if you want.

Oh, yeah.

I was just gonna say, though, Jessica, quickly, like, you talk about ROI being important and retailers needing to see that, certainly updating the pricing and promotion, it's a very good way to do that.

But it, I, I'm also curious, like, are some of these clients of yours factoring in, like, employee workload as an ROI too?

Like, you're talking about, like, the amount of work that that's cut down on.

Like, there's gotta be an ROI there too, is.

Is there a metric that they're using to capture that or to kind of put that into this equation as well.

So.

And I've seen different type of approaches, and it goes back to what we were discussing before of knowing your KPI upfront.

When you set your.

That case, there was a clear KPI, which was a target on how many price audits they wanted to perform.

Sure.

Because that had a link to customers being satisfied or not.

If I am in a store and the price is not the right one, and then I go to the cashier and you're now asking me for a different price point, then it's a problem.

And.

And that's where the ROI is unlocked.

We also had other customers in the U.S.

for instance, that.

So that, that problem was in the realm of millions, and they were either undercharging or overcharging for millions of dollars per year.

So I remember, like, there was one of the customers, There was a turkey gate situation in which the prices of the turkey for Thanksgiving was not.

They called it turkey gate and turkey gate.

Yes, yes, I promised.

We have also seen, like, other type of meat and animal depending on the.

On the region.

But what was happening, for instance, was we had this retailer that was doing the picking for the turkeys for Thanksgiving, and they had to scan the correct price.

But, you know, the weight is something that you have on the label and then you have the price.

But sometimes they had to enter manually the final price.

And there was someone that was like, there were a lot of mistakes, but yet a turkey Suddenly has a zero more on the weight, and then it's $1,000 turkey.

Yeah.

So this is the.

The turkey weight.

So imagine being a customer getting at the cashier and now your.

Thanks.

Thanksgiving is much more expensive than what originally was planned.

A little bit, yeah.

A little bit.

Turkey is a little bit more expensive.

Yeah, that's, that's called sticker shock for sure.

Yeah.

So I mean, your point is really that, so there's the price accuracy side of this and then I would imagine too there's the, the hourly payroll that the retailers are allotting to.

The task of, you know, checking and auditing this to the degree that you have.

Which reminds me of all my nightmares as a store manager of having to do price and shelf audits, which is not a very fun job.

I'm curious.

So are there any other, are there any other examples that you have that you can share?

We still got a little bit of time.

What's one more good example you can share with us in terms of, you know, how you're seeing what we've talked about get deployed, you know, across retail?

Sure.

So my.

Another example that particularly closed more us on the software side was we were working with a very beloved large grocer in the US and they had over 10 apps that we were providing to their store associates.

And you've worked in retail, you know how many apps we provide to our associate and then we want them to know them by heart and have the same experience and be fast and like, managed to put the information together somehow.

And they realized that this was hindering the efficiency of their associates.

So what they wanted to do is restructure some of the application, remake them.

And they also wanted to provide a very consistent user interface.

So, and UX to their, to their workers.

But with 10 plus apps, that was really challenging.

So first of all, going back to the hardware as well, those associates had multiple hardware that they were carrying around on a daily basis.

So they move in this case to Samsung devices and in that device they were rolling an application that had either native low scan, a low code or no code solution.

So it means that the software was adapting on the application ecosystem and architecture.

So if they wanted to modify the app, they could, but if they couldn't because they didn't have the time from the IT department, they could just overlay the scanning capabilities in that case on their existing application without changing the investment that was previously done.

So what they did is they roll it out.

They implemented this process, this was the customer that I was talking about before they implemented this process in 100 store in 90 days for 10 + apps with all the new devices.

And the results was astonishing because they scored 90% satisfaction on their associate survey.

So I was gonna ask that.

Yeah, yeah.

So that was like a game changer.

And personally, I had the pleasure to be in one of the stores in New York and I was talking to one of the associates, and it was this young gentleman that was telling me how you felt empowered by the fact that his employer was providing him with a tool that he loved with all the knowledge that he needed, and he felt he was cared for and trained properly so that he could do his job with passion.

And you, you should have seen the passion of that, the man.

And I was like, those are the stories that really make an impact for us.

You know, when you see people empowered and happy about using the technology, that's what matters for us.

Yeah, yeah, well, and it goes back to what you said in terms of the framework that you would, that would, you would recommend people use to evaluate technologies too, which is like, you actually gave the retailer in question here room to grow too, in terms of how they deploy this.

So they, they're having success already.

But the other thing I took from it is that there's more that they can now add very simply to how they want to use this technology platform going forward.

All right, well, let's get you out of here on this.

You know, you've, you said you've set my mind particularly on some new trends.

This new trends for 2025, particularly software versus hardware, which is something that we've been hearing a lot.

This whole thing about, you know, the next best action being provided by software providers across the industry is really fascinating to me too.

So, so if we look ahead, we always like a little prognostication on the show.

If we look ahead to 2026, what are those, what are those things that you think we'll be seeing next year around the corner?

Yeah.

So, Chris, I, I hope next year we're going to be discussing the, the first large scales AI agent deployments.

And I'm really curious to know if we're going to talk about it in a positive.

I think there is potential for greatness and also for disasters.

I've seen a lot of different takes and that's where I think it links to what we've discussed today.

You know, it needs to be done with a strong intention.

You cannot just do it to replace the cost of having humans that take care of your customers.

So I really want to know how that pans out.

So I hope it's going to be positive, but there may be some surprises down, down the lane there and something that is more closer to the technology that we do.

I really want to see those hybrid deployment especially for shelf intelligence solutions.

As I said at the beginning, we have a lot of cameras all around the source and it's still tough for our retailers to put all those vision together and in the same type of technology and software.

And I do think the technology is almost ready to pull it together.

And I do think that in 2026 we're going to have amazing hybrid deployments where robots are around doing part of the job and your associates are doing the other part and maybe a fixed cameras in different store formats or for different type of aisles.

And I really want to see those one maybe with some wearables, who knows.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Coordinated computer vision AI is really, is really interesting.

I know and I believe in that too.

But I want to go back before I let you go.

Like I want to go back to the agent I think because hearing that a lot, can you paint it gets my interest.

Like what does that actually look like?

Like how does that, how does that change what you guys do?

How does that impact retailers?

How will they be doing things differently?

I have trouble conceptualizing what agentic AI means within in terms of like how a store will do its day to day jobs.

Like how do you think about that.

Question for the store itself at Scan it Personally we are not heavily indexing on agentic right yet.

It may be something that could be in the roadmap for our self intelligence solution.

We're still focusing heavily on AI for task management and predictive behavior, on what's the next best action as we were saying before.

So that's our main focus.

I've seen some of the retailers that we work with really looking at how do I provide a sort of like a almost human interaction to our customers that want to have more information in store.

And that's where I say it has a lot of good potential and bad because if it's done with the intention of helping your customer finding what they want that I think is going to is going to work.

If it's done with intention of getting that cross sell or their upsell at all cost, that's where I think that it may have some challenges and I've seen like both.

So some of our retailers or some of the retailers that we talk to are really taking it as a pure AI approach.

Let it work on its own and understand and recommend the best product for the customer.

And some maybe want to, you know, have a different take on it.

So I'm curious to see what, what that's going to look like.

Yeah, Chris, I think we have to start asking the same question that we used to ask people when AI started first was, you know, starting to emerge.

I was just thinking the same thing.

I know exactly what you're going to say.

You have to ask how, what agentic AI means to people.

And I'm so glad.

Jessica, I think you, you gave an example of what I think most of us assume is the first move for agentic AI, which is handling some of those early on questions or prompts at customers, like almost improving the chat bot experience and making it one that actually works.

But I think it's something that we have to go back and really ask each person that we talk to about it, the specific use cases that they see going forward here in the next few months even.

Yeah, it's something, it's something I'm going to be keyed in on at Shop Talk too.

And particularly like I'm, I actually want to understand, you know, what is agentic AI and how are, how are different people across the industry thinking it's going to play out?

Because, you know, a lot of what you just said too is just traditional generative AI.

But agentic AI is actually like where the, you know, from my understanding is where the AI becomes the worker.

And so that's where I have trouble seeing that in the store.

And Jessica, I think your point is exactly right.

You have to be very smart about how you deploy that in, in an actual retail store operation if it's consumer facing or maybe it's employee facing only too, which is another angle.

But we'll have to have you back to talk about that next time.

It's gonna be great then.

Well, Jessica, thank you so much.

This was incredible.

We really appreciate you taking the time with us today to share some of the trends.

And then I think even more importantly, just how some of these best in class retailers are really deploying this in their stores.

So thank you for shedding some light on that for us and for our audience.

And Chris mentioned it.

Shop Talk's coming up here.

In a few days, you'll be out at Shop Talk.

I imagine.

What's the best way for people to get in touch with you?

Whether it's scheduling time with you and the team at Shop Talk or, or following up after this event.

We are participating in some of the programs from the meetup from Shop Shop Talk.

So contact us there.

Book your meeting.

We also have a contact form on our website or hit on, on LinkedIn.

My contact, Jessica Grisalia.

Well, that wraps us up.

Thanks to everyone for tuning in, thanks to Jessica of Scan IT for taking time with us to interview with us today, and thanks to all of you that join us live on LinkedIn.

And for those that are listening in, possibly or even watching later as well, on behalf of all of us at omnitalk, as always, be careful out there.