Pets at Home's Mariusz Kwiatkowski on Modernizing Supply Chain, AI Hype vs. Reality & Breaking Down Silos | Live from Paris

Hello, everyone.

This is omnitalk Retail.

I'm Ben Miller and I'm coming to you live from the Vuzion podcast studio.

And that's booth E043 at NRF Retail's big show Europe in Paris.

Joining me now is Ismarit or Maz Kwiatkowski.

And apologies if I mucked up the pronunciation, thank you.

Who is head of supply chain Transformation Pet at Home?

Maz, welcome.

Yes, great to be here.

It's great to be here, Ben.

Thank you.

So look, we've got a global audience on Omni Talk, Maz, and so not everybody will be familiar with Pets at Home.

So can you kind of tell us a little bit about the business and then tell me about your role in it?

Yeah.

So Pets at home is the UK's biggest and leading pet care provider.

We service our customers through 460 physical stores.

We have a very, very substantial omnichannel e commerce presence.

We also offer veterinary services and grooming services.

So ultimately, our vision is to be a one stop shop for all the things that your pets might need.

My role, it sits at the intersection of customer proposition, operations and technology.

So what that means in some practical terms is that I look at everything all the way from suppliers through our supply chain strategy, through improving the ways we operate with a single goal in mind.

And that goal is to make sure we have the right products at the right place at the right time.

You know, supply chain cliche, but to make sure that really we meet those customer expectations.

Okay, so Mads, before we talk a bit more about your role, just on the Pets at Home, if somebody hasn't been into a Pets at Home store before, I mean, they're large stores, often on retail parks.

Describe the core format.

Yeah, so if you were to walk into one of our stores, you'll be walking into a store typically on the retail park, what I would class as a medium sized stores with the range of about 6,000 products.

You will find anything that you might need for your pets, whether that's dog, cat or a small animal, whether that's food or accessories.

And I think as you walk in, I think you will be greeted by one of our knowledgeable colleagues.

He will take you on the journey of pet ownership.

Okay.

Okay.

Cool.

Right.

The theme of the show over these few days is the new now, which is just a reflection of the amount of change we've all been dealing with.

So from your perspective, when you think about your role, your supply chain, what are the biggest forces that have been impacting you?

I think it's fair to say that throughout the last few years supply chains have been put to the test and we're no longer dealing with a single event.

I think we're dealing with multiple overlapping events.

Whether that's geopolitics, whether that's freight limitations, whether that's inflation, and I think above everything, changing customer behavior.

So customers are becoming more demanding.

They're becoming more demanding of convenience, availability and value, but not in isolation.

They actually demand all three of those things at the same time.

Now that is putting operational pressures that I believe we actually do a really good job at.

But I think, look, if we, if we boil it down to basics, I think the needs of supply chain now are not really that different to what they were a few years ago.

A is all about great availability of products and the end of the day retail is about selling products.

Secondly, it's doing that in the way that makes commercial and operational sense.

So it goes without saying that there's been some external pressures affecting the retail market.

So I think to approach the ranging decisions and operational decisions, it's actually quite important.

I mean, Mads, you talk about just making sure we've got great availability.

Isn't it something that's really easy to do?

And I know pet at home you've just gone through a cycle of significant capex and significant software implementation as well.

So tell us what you've done to kind of modernize the supply chain to make that we just need things in stock happen.

Yeah, and I think it's very easy to say that is making it happen.

And I think this is where I think the magic happens.

So we made two big investments.

I think investment number one was actually to open a purpose built distribution center at Stafford, which is right in the middle of the uk.

That distribution center was built with automation in mind and was built with productivity in mind.

So really addressing what I've just said, I think the second big building block is to really invest in supply chain planning and supply chain execution from a people, process and platform perspective.

So we have had some great successes with quantitative AI.

I know today there's lots of AI, there's many companies with AI in their name.

But I think what has got a very, very proven track record is the quantitative AI that we use to power our forecasting, our replenishment.

That's the way we optimize.

I was still calling.

Okay, so tell us what though.

It's quite a process you've gone through complete centralizing to a brand new automated future focused warehouse, replatforming the Demand planning software.

You're a couple of years through that now.

When you reflect on that time, what have been your main learnings?

I think the biggest learnings were, well, firstly, I think we have delivered what we said we would deliver.

Right.

I think that's probably learning number one.

Right.

That it was the right choice and I'm glad that we did make those choices.

And I think the second learning, but maybe more of a reflection on reality is that I think supply chain professional of the future is changing.

Okay.

I think there is a degree of sophistication, there is a degree of high commercial awareness that those supply chain professionals of tomorrow will actually need.

So we can talk a lot about the latest tools, but actually we do need to think about how do we upskill our workforce to keep up with the change that is happening.

Right.

We've got a couple of really nice bookies to kind of bring together leadership people and AI.

Let's start with AI because you raised it.

How, how do you separate the practical reality of the benefits that AI can bring to your supply chain operations with all the hype?

Oh, that's.

I think, as I said, I think where, I think where the benefits are grounded with very firm results is the quantitative AI, you know, as the, is the thing that.

Sorry, let's start again.

So, okay, what I'll do is I'll just do the separate from the hype.

We'll edit in from that point and you can come up the answer.

So I'll do so look, AI.

You've already mentioned it.

AI has been everywhere in this show.

How do you separate the practical can benefit my supply chain operations now from.

All the hype, Right.

So I think this is where I think we need to make that clear distinction that I've referred to a little bit earlier, which is quantitative AI which has delivered proven results versus agentic AI and generative AI.

I think the latter two.

I think there are many, many multiple pilots and I think there's one thing I would like to do in that area which will convert it from a hype to reality, which is some real use cases, some real tangible use cases that would allow for a hands off approach.

I think I speak with many supply chain and not only supply chain colleagues and they always say one thing about the latest AI tools.

I think everyone is trying them, they yet to implement them into a robust process.

Now I see one potential big use case.

Okay, that's what I was going to ask you.

So tell me what you see.

So supply chain is inherently a data rich entity, right?

Yes, but I would often describe supply chain as an inside poor entity.

And I think we have, quite often people in supply chain will be answering questions about what has happened.

And I think the key for the future is to start looking ahead and start, start answering the questions about, okay, what may happen tomorrow, how do I mitigate it, how do I maximize its potential?

And I think those questions and those decisions come with multiple trade offs.

And those trade offs, A, have to be evaluated, B, they have to be done in a very, very timely manner.

And I think this is where things like agentic AI and generative AI, they could articulate those trade offs a lot sooner.

Simpler to somebody who can make an ultimate decision.

Okay, and Mads, we talked about the people and the people impact.

So you want to bring more analytical thinking in decision making, the moment into supply chain.

So what does that mean for the people and the supply chain teams of the future?

Yeah, I think especially if you ask that question in the context of AI, sometimes you will talk about the fear of the jobs disappearing.

But I don't believe that jobs will disappear.

I think jobs will evolve and I think what might have been a relatively admin heavy role of the past will most likely change into a value adding, fulfilling job of the future.

So, Maslow, one last question.

Here we go.

I'm going to give you magic power.

Okay.

I'm going to help you solve a structural challenge for the retail industry overnight, right here, right now.

What would it be?

Oh, structural challenge in the industry.

I think supply chain can often be seen as a back of house function, as a support function.

And I think amongst retailers, I think actually supply chain are the arteries, the beating heart of retail.

But it's not an organ that walks on its own.

I think it needs other entities to walk alongside alongside it.

So I think if I had the magic wands, what I would say is actually how do we create structures where all of those different entities, supply chain, commercial finance, logistics, they work together to the same goals, to the same plan.

Because I think this is where, this is how we could solve some of those pressures that I spoke about earlier.

And there's a chorus of amens coming from the listeners right now.

So Maz, look, thank you, thank you for joining us.

Thanks to the team at Vuzion and the NRF Big Show Europe for making this conversation possible.

And stay tuned for more.

Thank you for having me.