Vusion’s Martin Bailie On the Execution Gap and Why It’s Retail’s Biggest Risk | NRF 2026

Hello, everyone.

This is Omnitalk Retail.

I'm Chris Walton.

And I'm Anne Mazinga.

And we are coming to you live from New York City at NRF 2026 from Vuzion's podcast studio in booth 4921.

Come on by.

Check us out.

There's only a few more hours of the big show and we'd love to see you.

Now, without further ado, I want to introduce Martin Bailey.

Martin Bailey is a senior advisor at Fusion and someone we've long talked about getting on this show with us because he's got more charisma that can fill a spot.

Something I don't know what, but we're excited to have you, Martin.

Thank you to be here as well.

Yeah, thank you.

Well, Martin, tell our audience a little bit about your background because I think it's important to kind of set the stage with that first before we dive into some of some other questions and things.

Well, look, I. I'm a retailer like you guys and extremely passionate about it.

And just to be clear, I love you guys.

The what you do for retail, what you do for forward thinking, allowing us US retailers good support.

It's fantastic.

So thank you for having me.

I'm retailer all my life, food and fashion.

So I've been privileged enough to sit on the board for Tesco's and Tata in India, also for Primark in Ireland, the fashion retailer, and Lidl.

Probably the longest period of time, 15 years as CEO for UK and Ireland.

I came out of that corporate world into advisory.

So I have my own advisory firm, MWB Advisory Limited.

So I'm similar to you in terms of passionate about retail, digital transformation, both esg, retail tech, hence Fusion Group, which is an amazing company as we know, and product as well.

So I've never left the shop floor, which is the key thing.

Yeah, well, Primark and Grocery man, that's a hell of a lot of experience.

And so we love having real operators on the show.

So our first question for you, we've been hearing a lot about.

The whole science experiment, or another way to put it, is kind of the pilot trap.

And so a lot of retailers fall into that pilot trap.

How do you think about that from an execution standpoint?

How big of an issue is that in the industry?

I think, I think it's large, especially when you see around NRF just now, which is bigger and better than ever before.

There's no doubt about it.

But it's that execution gap.

So I would.

The way I would say is that we're no longer able to survive.

We have to thrive as retailers.

And a lot of people talk about AI.

In fact, if you go anywhere in any of it's agenda and AI.

But the greatest threat to retail today is about that execution gap.

It's also about learning that it's no longer about omnichannel, it's about ambient shopping.

So this is beyond just your typical single channel, multi channel omnichannel.

It's moved now into how we touch our customers both in voice, in channel, in online, in social media.

It really is now a seamless conversation and they need to seamless as well.

And also the way leadership is changing, we're probably losing more CEOs than ever because ultimately even last year's playbook is out of date.

Right.

So how do we keep up?

How do we keep up?

How do the leaders keep up as well?

And when you see the innovation around here, you can easily get stuck in the pilot.

In fact, I had a good conversation.

It was a UK retailer, my apologies.

And they were talking about nine months ago, they were talking about X amount of pilots.

Yeah, nine months later.

Which in retail wouldn't have been that long.

But in modern retail nine months is like nine years.

They've shifted, everybody else has shifted.

And when they see the innovation here and seeing all the brand names that they're competitors of, they're suddenly we're way behind in nine months.

So blink of an eye changes as well.

So there is no doubt we're stuck in the pilot gap and we need to move into the thriving gap which is around execution.

Because innovation is a distraction if you don't have flawless execution.

And that's the difference.

So Martin, I want to ask you too, because.

So is it is the answer then less pilots overall in a given year or less pilots, but you're doing them more often.

It's a think about that from a no, it's okay.

It's about the right pilots because you can get within a company that has different stakeholders, the cfo, the cio, the coo, the CEO.

You can easily this fixes my problem.

But we need to realize it doesn't fix your problem and causes you a catastrophe.

And that can't be the case anymore.

So it's that ability to have alignment around the strategy.

It is about AI and how you can execute AI.

The success of 2026 is the retailers that will take the AI playbook and execute it flawlessly.

They win all day long.

And that's the key thing.

It's your point about the CEO that CEO has to be acclimated enough to define what that new playbook is for their given organization too.

I'm sure you've heard a lot, but you got to start with your pinpoints rather than start with a shiny toy.

And there's a lot of shiny toys out there right now.

But what I would strongly suggest it is start with your pinpoints.

The board itself has to be fully aligned and then the team below.

So it becomes a cultural transformation, which is essentially what life is in retail with that continuous improvement.

So I keep talking about flawless execution.

It is honestly innovation is a distraction without execution.

Otherwise it's pilot.

Well, Martin, one of the reasons that we're so happy to have you here, if people couldn't tell by your lovely accent, but you also are a good person for us to kind of get some perspective at when we're looking at the differences of rolling out what you just talked about in a retail organization between what's going on in Europe and the UK and the US like, what are some of the biggest differences as you talk to more retailers in both places, what are some of the biggest differences between kind of the approach to the new frontier of retail in the US and then across.

Great question, and I won't offend both sides of the pond, but you're right, it is, There is differences and both can learn.

Hence you got the big show here.

But there's now a new big show in Paris.

There's also in Asia.

So we're all trying to learn as well.

So look, for me, I would say the US command that top line performance and that aggression.

I think that's a massive compliment as well.

Especially when you see the figures of Walmart, one perfect example, hitting that figure on top of a massive basis.

Just full respect and kudos as well.

Where the Europeans would be so disciplined in their processes and their systems that they are probably the masterclass of bottom line discipline.

And that would be the difference between, between the two for me.

Even if I use efficiency versus skill, the Europeans can look at, look after that bottom line, but they have played a card that the Americans haven't totally played.

And that is the obsession with private label.

If you look at the percentage of private label in Europe today, it's over 45%.

Where it's 10% less, if not less lower actually in the U.S. so what I would say to the U.S. audience today is private label is no longer a defense, it's actually an aggression.

And what the US retailers are great at, top line.

So actually it works for top line.

And bottom line in terms of margin protection.

But also in Europe, whatever happens in Brussels when it comes to ESG or regulations.

Right.

Normally that's right in Brussels today and in the retailers tomorrow.

That ESG mightn't be quite here in the US as of to add to even if you think about in 2027 they're going to change to digital product passport.

Now that affects fashion first of all and then into grocery as well.

However, the ability to talk about circular economy, the ability to track this jacket and if I want to resell it to you, then authenticity etc, that's a huge operational change and will cost millions.

But.

But it will become EU law in 2027.

So the retailers have to follow suit example over this side of the pond, Walmart and the freshness innovation that they've shown it was due to a regulation of food safety that was going to happen in 2026.

Nobody else had done it apart from Walmart.

So it's moved to 2028.

But Walmart are now the vanguards, which they are a lot here in the us.

But that's one good example around regulation changing and defining.

And we're very good at compliance.

Yes, you are.

And then maybe the last one because labor costs are quite very high in Europe.

I mean it's over €15 in Germany for example, and less so here in the US.

I know there's certain states that are $15 etc.

But that Silicon or that ability to digitize because of labor costs being so high, we're very good at in Europe.

So that connected store, which is actually one of the big things that we have here with fusion, that digitalizing the store, digital transformation, connecting both the customer, the colleague and indeed central operations in terms of connectivity, we've had to do it in Europe because our labor costs are only going in one direction.

It won't be that far until it's €20 an hour.

And that's not easy to manage an operating model whatsoever.

So I would say that's another big difference where I think the US can learn.

But there's no doubt there's so many positives and so many great, great retailers that we've all and you've interviewed now, but I've seen them this week as well.

So if we keep learning together, we'll be far better.

But that would be the big difference between maybe US and Europe.

And my apologies on the if it's in Brussels today, it'll be in the retailers tomorrow.

No, no apology needed.

No, that's a really interesting point of view and it gives you a sense of why on the show we always kind of say that Europe from our standpoint feels like it's 10 years in front of the US on innovation.

But it's probably when I step back and think about it, it's probably the innovation that is more on the things that we get excited about, which is the operational efficiency drivers.

Yeah, look, even if I look at, I'm sad enough to come into New York and the first thing I do is go see retailers, food and fashion and there's some amazing, I've taken loads of photographs, there's some amazing things we can learn from both sides of the pond.

But I would say there's probably a must do in Europe and I think it's like we want to do here in US but that is changing now.

And even who you've seen this does.

Seem like it's changed.

It's definitely changing because it's a non negotiable.

The whole world has become more expensive.

Moving stock globally is now over $1.2 trillion.

Moving stock around the world, that's up 5.4%.

So how do you save 5.4% on your movement of stock and your inventory?

You got to find it with the technology.

You got to find it with AI.

And like we, we joked earlier on about, I think most of the booths had AI last year and they've just slapped agentic on it beforehand.

So now we have agentic AI is the big one.

But agentic AI is no longer a dream or no longer anything that you would like to do, you have to do.

Let's talk about that.

Martin.

I think that's a good way to close us out.

You know, like what, what is your take on the, the frontier of technology in retail as we look forward to 2026?

So if you look at the tech that I'm pretty excited about, agenda AI is, is, is the ability to make big data transferable, translatable and actionable.

And that is pretty powerful.

And that goes well beyond AI, generative AI.

And if you think about how the agent, the agents of agent AI, it multitasks first of all, which is brilliant.

Second of all, the accuracy from end to end process in which the human or the processes or the framework of retailers today don't have, they have maybe at best 86, 88% compliance, where if you do install it, a back office agenda guy, it's over 90%.

So that's going to create a lot of value, it's going to bring a lot of data that is actionable, you're going to make better decisions and ultimately you're going to find a more agile company because agility is back to the point around pilot, too many pilots.

Agility has just been razor sharp on your strategy around AI and agentic AI and then flawless execution.

What?

I would also say Metaverse is coming back.

Really?

Yeah.

Because obviously about 10 years ago, pre Covid, we were talking about Metaverse.

Feels like there's a lot of vision technology around NRF today, but even the examples of Metaverse, you can now simulate supply chain logistics, warehousing full value chain in the Metaverse before you even put a penny or a cent into your investment pot.

And that is pretty exciting as well.

So I would even say agentic AI by far is the thing that everybody's talking about.

But Metaverse is making a comeback.

Keep an eye out for metaverse.

Yes, RFID 2.0 is already here.

I'm pretty excited.

So there would be three big buckets in terms of technology that will shift the needle into making retailers more agile and more collaborative within their respective departments of their company.

I'm also then supporting the shareholders, making more money.

And that's ultimately what we want to do.

Serving our customers the right way as well.

Still can't believe you said Metaverse, Martin.

I'm sorry.

It's the comeback.

Metaverse 2.0.

I don't even know what world I'm in right now.

All right, well, thank you so much, Martin.

We really appreciate your time.

I'm sure our audience will too.

Thanks again to Viewsion for making all of our coverage here at NRF possible.

We will be coming back to you with one more interview today.

And until then, be careful out there.