Tim Crawford, former CIO, shares his perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing retail organizations. He discusses the importance of engaging with customers and leveraging technology to improve efficiency. Crawford emphasizes the need for a solid data strategy and the complexities of managing data across different systems and departments.
He highlights the role of AI in revolutionizing the retail industry, with a focus on personalized customer experiences and targeted upselling. Crawford also addresses the impact of data quality on the success of AI initiatives, stressing the importance of trustworthy and relevant data.
From a CIO's perspective, Crawford delves into the complexities of dealing with legacy systems, data silos, and fragmented customer interactions within retail organizations. He stresses the need for simplification and alignment across different technology platforms to create a seamless customer experience.
Looking ahead, Crawford predicts a shift towards more practical and business-focused technology initiatives in 2025, with a focus on real value creation and productivity growth. He anticipates a more stable foundation for technological advancements, setting the stage for meaningful innovation in the retail sector.
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Tim Crawford, Avoa
Tim Crawford, former CIO, shares his perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing retail organizations. He discusses the importance of engaging with customers and leveraging technology to improve efficiency. Crawford emphasizes the need for a solid data strategy and the complexities of managing data across different systems and departments.
He highlights the role of AI in revolutionizing the retail industry, with a focus on personalized customer experiences and targeted upselling. Crawford also addresses the impact of data quality on the success of AI initiatives, stressing the importance of trustworthy and relevant data.
From a CIO's perspective, Crawford delves into the complexities of dealing with legacy systems, data silos, and fragmented customer interactions within retail organizations. He stresses the need for simplification and alignment across different technology platforms to create a seamless customer experience.
Looking ahead, Crawford predicts a shift towards more practical and business-focused technology initiatives in 2025, with a focus on real value creation and productivity growth. He anticipates a more stable foundation for technological advancements, setting the stage for meaningful innovation in the retail sector.
Tim Crawford, former CIO, shares his perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing retail organizations. He discusses the importance of engaging with customers and leveraging technology to improve efficiency. Crawford emphasizes the need for a solid data strategy and the complexities of managing data across different systems and departments.
He highlights the role of AI in revolutionizing the retail industry, with a focus on personalized customer experiences and targeted upselling. Crawford also addresses the impact of data quality on the succ...Read more
exploreKeep Exploring
What are some considerations and concerns a CIO may have when implementing new technologies for customer engagement in the retail industry?add
What are some trends and advancements in the retail industry that are impacting the consumer experience?add
What are the challenges organizations face in ensuring that customer data is integrated across different departments to present a unified image to customers?add
What is the importance of simplifying technology for CIOs in order to avoid fragility, reliability problems, and accuracy problems in retail industries operating on thin margins?add
What are some factors influencing the future of the retail industry, including the impact of companies like Amazon and Walmart, as well as the rise of social media in driving consumer behavior?add
>> Hi everybody. Welcome back to the NYSE Wired community and CUBE's coverage of NRF Week. My name is Dave Vellante. I'm here with Tim Crawford of AVOA, former CIO. Hi Tim. Thanks for coming in my friend. Good to see you.>> Always great to see you, Dave.
Dave Vellante
>> Okay, so I'm going to give you a prompt. I'm like, you're my human AI. Imagine you're a CIO of a retail organization. What's on your mind? What are you worried about? What are you excited about?>> I'm both excited, but I'm also concerned. So maybe let's unpack that a little bit. So I'm excited because there's a lot of potential, especially when you start to think about the importance of how you're engaging with customers. So top line versus bottom line. So top line, I'm looking at opportunities to understand my customer, how to engage with my customer, and there's so much technology that's coming to market now that allows a deeper relationship with customers that we haven't seen before. On the other hand, there are also new technologies that allow me to be more efficient in the way that I engage with my customers. And we all know, depending on the industry you're in within retail, the different subcategories, that can make a big difference to whether you make the year or you break the year. On the other hand, there's also a lot of concern. How do I ensure that I'm using data in an appropriate way with my customers? How do I know that the data that I'm looking at is actually real and that it's not manufactured or a hallucination of sorts? And so I think there are a couple of things that you have to parse in here and you have to work through. And as a CIO, there's a lot on your plate already, but then you also have to factor in all of the cyber components that come into it, and then regulatory and compliance as well.
Dave Vellante
>> So you've been a CIO, you've consulted in number of organizations. Think financial services, were down here on Wall Street and you think retail, right? Different businesses, different margin profiles, JPMC spends, I don't know how much on IT a year. I know it's a big number.>> A lot, a lot.
Dave Vellante
>> Retail organizations, super thin margins, but increasingly tech-savvy. From a CIO's perspective, how do you approach those industries differently? Is one just such a focus on cost? Everybody wants to do more than less, but frame that for us.>> Yeah, I don't think it's just about the numbers directly. It used to be. We used to look at, "What's the value of taking a certain action and what's that going to contribute to the top line or take away from the bottom line?" It's not that simple anymore. Now we have to think about how we're engaging with our customers too. And so sometimes if you create a better experience or a stickier relationship with your customer, that's what differentiates you from your competition. So you both might be operating at similar margins within your subcategory, but that's going to determine you're actually going to get the deal with that customer or not. Now when you look at other markets, so here at the New York Stock Exchange, you're talking about financial services, totally different ballgame. Then you also have to bring in a lot more regulatory and compliance requirements, especially if you're operating at a global level. It's getting really complicated and frankly, there's a lot of head scratching going on too, and a lot of confusion around what that really means and how that's going to impact that top line or bottom line. And so I think for a CIO, I've got to pick apart the pieces and prioritize accordingly because I can't do it all. You cannot do it all. So let's just call it what it is.
Dave Vellante
>> I want to get your thoughts on the consumer experience. I remember my first online transaction, I brought a pair of jeans on AOL. And they didn't fit, and I didn't know what to do with it. It wasn't like you had some kind of returns and you emailed somebody, , but I did it just to see like. It was actually pretty groundbreaking. And then obviously the e-commerce experience took off. It was like a step function in retail. And then it slowly got better and better and better. You had guys like Amazon meeting, you have Walmart responding to that, Costco obviously those are the big three. And then now we have the state pre-ChatGPT of what the experience looks like. Of course machine learning and AI were contributing to that incremental improvement and then all of a sudden expectations are going to the roof again.>> They are.
Dave Vellante
>> So I wonder what your thoughts on that step function, gradual improvement and then another step function. What can we expect as consumers and what does it mean for the industry?>> Yeah, I think there are a couple of things that come out of that. Number one is speed. So we're seeing that transactions are happening much quicker than before. The second is they're more accurate. So now I can make sure that those are the right pair of jeans that you're interested in and they're the right size. So there's technology that exists today in retail that will actually size you up. Submit some pictures, and it'll actually determine, "Are you sure that you're really a 30-inch waist?" Maybe it's something a little different, but-
Dave Vellante
>> elastic band.>> Yeah, maybe you want a different size. And so you can actually start to factor that into the mix as well as starting to upsell customers too. So we know that you like jeans, you've happened to browse on some other areas. Typically, there's also the recommendation engines that have been around for a number of years, but we can start to put together pieces based on your individual profile. And this is something that is relatively groundbreaking and new is that now we can really drive toward that true market of one. So speed, more accurate decisions are two that we're going to see more and more of especially in retail. And I think that's a powerful one-two punch because it starts to create a different dynamic for the customer. And that's ultimately what everybody's driving to.
Dave Vellante
>> Retail's pretty fascinating. At the time, everybody's said, "Okay, Amazon's going to just run the table." Walmart, you remember beer and diapers.>> Yeah, of course.
Dave Vellante
>> It's always been very tech-savvy. We've had them on theCUBE before. we've done, they've explained the triplet model, they've explained their AI framework, they've got amazing technologists. I don't know as much about Costco's infrastructure, but obviously they're doing something right. And then you get a firm like Shopify that comes out of nowhere and then finds a niche, and you're seeing all kinds of opportunities now popping up. Let's talk about AI and its impact on retail. Where's the real action versus the AI washing?>> Yeah, there's a lot of AI washing, and this is part of the head-scratching and the kind of parsing you have to do as the CIO is to say, "Okay, there's some things that are not well-defined today and we need to step away from that." But we need to focus on those areas that are here and now and can be valuable. And we're starting to see that in chatbots turning more into agents and starting to automate some of these processes. But you've got to have an appetite for the automation of that process. Are you okay with that? Is that a good process? How do you start to tie these agents together? And so when you move into that agentic age, if you will, you have to remember that agents do very specific things. They don't do a whole bunch of things. They do a very specific thing. So the key is how do you tie different agents together? So going back to your question of the jeans, how do you start to tie one agent that's looking at, "Okay, you're interested in a pair of jeans." To another agent that might be looking at inventory in different places, might be looking at sizing based on personal preferences. So there are a lot of different dynamics that come into play. The other piece that is factoring in, especially when you start thinking about the Costcos and the Amazons and the Walmarts and the Nordstroms of the world is quality, and what is the degree of quality that I'm interested in? So it's not just I'm looking for a pair of jeans, but I might be looking for a particular brand or a particular degree of quality. And depending on what it is, I may say, "I'm looking for high quality here and low quality there." The price matching of that is going to be really important. And so again, that dynamic is constantly changing for each individual, and we haven't had the ability to truly understand that. We've had to group people together. And now we have the chance to do that. So I think the first step that you're going to start to see is agents and more engagement with customers through call centers, through online agents. You'll start to see it through email communications, because let's face it, people still respond to that. And then of course when you go to a website, how do you start to guide people through the right process and the right journey that's going to be most interesting for that individual?
Dave Vellante
>> So you've got me both excited and concerned. And I'll go into my concern->> Isn't that where I started?
Dave Vellante
>> Yeah, exactly. So my concern in listening to all this, and specifically agent stuff is the data. What's the state of data inside of retailers based on your experience, their clients that we talked to, ?>> Let's be honest, the data is a mess. Let's just call a spade a spade. The data is a mess. And this is one of the biggest challenges that enterprises across industries have today is how do they start to get their arms around the data and understanding what data do they have, what data do they need? And then the mechanics of how do I start to bring it together? And then I've got this overlay potentially of any sort of regulatory and compliance, especially as you move to other markets like financial services and healthcare. And so the state of the data is in disarray. Now, companies are trying to bring that together, and we see that from the different database providers, the data management providers. But at the end of the day, it's the enterprise that understands their data best or can understand their data best. And so this is one of the top things for CIOs today is, "How do I get the right people in the room to be able to talk about what our data strategy is?" And we've talked about this in the past in terms of a data warehouse and transaction-based data, which relatively speaking now is incredibly simplistic compared to the complexity that they have today.
Dave Vellante
>> In a lot of ways, the data industry, as amazing as it is, I love data, I love the data industry, but it's never really lived up to promises, data warehouses like you mentioned->> Data lakes.
Dave Vellante
>> Yeah, right. And so Hadoop, we all know that story.>> Yep.
Dave Vellante
>> And now AI is all about data. And now you've got table formats, you've got distributed data, you've got omnichannel. It's got to be a real challenge. So I guess my question is, will these agents work without good data?>> The short answer is no. The short answer is no. They need good data, because again, bad data in bad results out. And so you need solid data that you trust, that you trust, and you need to use that data in a meaningful way too. So you want to make sure that you're using data, especially when you're talking about customer data in an appropriate way. And so there's a trust and a relationship that you have with the customer too in how you use that data. On one hand, I want to personalize things, going back to retail for a minute. I want to personalize things to the Nth degree with you. I want to know everything there is about Dave. But I also want to be careful that I don't go too far and sound like big brother that, "Whoa, how did you know that about me?" And we can get there today with the technology and the data that is available to us. The challenge is knowing that with the customer, and then also knowing what data you have internally and what you have to augment that with externally as well. But at the end of the day, it comes back to I've got to have a solid data strategy within the enterprise. And that is one of the top things that CIOs are grappling with today.
Dave Vellante
>> Tim, one of the things I want to ask you about is from a CIO's perspective. CIO, he or she inherits a lot of stuff. It's like we used to say GRS. We never get rid of stuff in IT. And so you've got M&A, you've got different departments, you've got data that's all over the place. I've got a little bit of Snowflake here. I might have some Databricks, I might have some Oracle. I've got other backend systems. I've got legacy systems. And the CIO, they inherit all that. And that creates data silos and creates data problems. Broadly across any industry, this is the case. And then specifically in retail, I wonder if you could give us some insights there. How does the CIO deal with that problem?>> As you can probably imagine, it's overwhelming. There's a lot on the plate already. And then you start to layer in all the data pieces and it just exemplifies how complicated it is to lead an IT organization today. It's not just the technologies though, it's also the data element. So let's maybe unpack that a little bit, and especially in retail. So you have different parts of the organization that are engaging with your customer. And so how do you ensure that the data comes together so that you look like one company to the customer as opposed to, "Well, there's this department, that department." And the person is going, "Wait a second here, I thought you were all the same dad, same paycheck." And the reality is they don't talk. And this is one of the problems with those data silos, and we see this today between marketing to sales to support. Dave Vellante, Tim Crawford is a different person to each of those different personas in each of those different camps. And so then on the backend, you're trying to make that fidelity connection between the three core pillars. That's problematic, as opposed to flipping it and saying, "There's only one Dave Vellante. We have a relationship as a company with Dave Vellante." And how do we start to think about it from that perspective and then break down these silos? So there's an architectural challenge, there's also a technology challenge, because as you mentioned, there's a ton of technology that's in-house right now and we've got to start to simplify that. One of the things that you've talked about is how there's a lot of overlap between the different products, and that is part of the problem. There's the complexity that comes with the exceptions to that commonality between the products. And so how do I ensure that I'm using the right aspects of a Snowflake or Databricks or Oracle or SAP or Salesforce? Let's not forget, there are much more business applications out there like an SAP, even Oracle or Salesforce, that are engaging with customers. They're first-hand touching customers. And so we have to figure out how to tie those pieces together too. And those are just more data repositories that become part of this complexity soup that we have to parse apart. But I'll say one of the things that I've talked about extensively with CIOs, and I've heard from CIOs, and I've also expounded upon this with CIOs, is we have to get things more simplistic. The world is getting more complicated in the technology realm, if you will, and as a CIO, that is not a good thing because that complexity leads to fragility, which then leads to reliability problems and accuracy problems, which when you're talking about retail, which runs on these razor-thin margins.
Dave Vellante
>> Yeah, well, I was excited. Now you got me concerned. So my question is->> We'll go back and forth.
Dave Vellante
>> Yeah, after you answer this, we'll get excited again. Will these agents, will this agentic vision work without solving this data problem?>> To a limited degree. So I think there are some things you can do with limited piles of data. Pile is a technical term there, but-
Dave Vellante
>> So harmonized piles. That makes sense.>> Get some things together that make sense for that particular agent to be able to operate and provide value to the customer. This is not chatbots, this is something above that in terms of being able to take action. When you start to do that, that gives you a good foothold to then add on. But you have to be careful that you don't create a Frankenstein of data architecture, that you are thoughtful in the way you're bringing new data elements into the mix. And so there has to be some forward-thinking that goes into that planning process.
Dave Vellante
>> I want to come back to the retail leaders. We've seen obviously the ascendancy of Amazon. You saw Walmart respond to the Amazon threat brilliantly. Obviously very tech-savvy company. Costco, I don't know much about their backend. Shopify comes out of nowhere, adds value. There seems to be dozens and dozens and hundreds of opportunities, of course, not just in the US but globally. The China retail activity is really, really interesting. How do you see the landscape? Have you given any thought to that, and what's the future of retail look like?>> I think it's getting more complicated because you're also seeing social media leading to retail as well. Look at the TikTok Shop. The TikTok Shop, I hear about that all the time. "I'm buying something off the TikTok Shop." And the question should be for these companies, why are customers going to the TikTok Shop? It's because they've made a connection somewhere else that has led them to buying that product. Either it's an influencer or it's a persona, or it could be a perception or an experience, but there's something that's leading them to that specific purchase. And that's why I think for retail, you have to think beyond just the transaction and you have to think about how you're engaging and how you're creating demand for your products beyond the realm of the transaction itself. And so that's why social media has started to play a pretty significant role in retail purchasing.
Dave Vellante
>> Okay. Let's get excited again. Independent of retail, just broadly, what are you excited about in 2025? What's your scenario? We've had two years in a row of amazing S&P 500 growth.>> Amazing.
Dave Vellante
>> What's your outlook? Are we going to see three years in a row? You got any predictions on that? Any other things that are exciting or any other predictions you want to share for 2025?>> Yeah, I think that we're going to see a little bit of the tapping of the brakes in 2025. Some of the frothiness around technology like AI is going to start to subside, which is a good thing. I think that's really good. Because now we can focus on the things that really matter as opposed to this pie in the sky, "It'll solve world peace and world hunger." So I think that's one aspect. I think the other piece is we'll start to see this regeneration of excitement around how technology can really play a significant role in business. And we've been missing that for a while. There's been a pent-up demand that's been building over the last several years, but I think now we'll actually see the rubber hitting the road in terms of that moving forward, especially for CIOs. And so I expect to see technology playing a more central role, I expect to see more reasonable technology playing a central role. We'll get away from these motherhood and apple pie conversations and talk about real ways that it's making a difference for people, and that I'm really excited about.
Dave Vellante
>> So I'm excited too. So not black swan technology-driven momentum, not hype, less hype, more focused on business value, but taking a pause, which is a healthy pause.>> Tapping the brakes.
Dave Vellante
>> Tapping the brakes just to make sure you're not tailgating and then setting the foundation for some real productivity growth.>> Yeah. And I think that will create a much more stable foundation for us to build upon to move forward. And that's really exciting.
Dave Vellante
>> All right, big wave coming. Tim Crawford. Dave Vellante for John Furrier. Keep it right there. NYSE Community and theCUBE Media Week at NRF. Keep it right there, right back, right after this short break.
Dave Vellante