Bealls Inc.

Have you ever walked through the aisles of a store and wondered how a product got there? Who do you think would buy them? I remember living in South Florida when these questions first came to mind. While shopping, I stumbled upon an assortment of heavy winter coats. For anyone who isn’t aware, South Florida does not get cold. So why were winter coats even sent to this store? I could speculate that either there were poor analytics or no analytics at all that resulted in this guaranteed markdown.

Retail has become faster and more challenging than ever before. The times of predictable sales resulting in more accurate location and financial plans are a thing of the past.

With the speed at which consumer demand continues to shift rapidly, we are also faced with more uncertainty due to climate change, political discourse, and monetary policy impacting inflation and high-interest rates. The effect of each of these factors often varies by geographic area, so the subsequent needs by location become more dynamic. Fortunately, we also live in an era where technology is rapidly improving.

But how can we leverage this technology and apply it practically?

A retailer’s ability to leverage localized assortments could mean the difference between continual growth and bankruptcy. Successfully localized assortments mean less unproductive inventory, taking up space where highly productive inventory would ideally be positioned. The challenge is easily seeing data at this level and making complex decisions. This is where technology takes the stage and enables massive benefits without requiring much effort and time. By creating strong forecasts where the data is rich but is also at a low enough level to capture demographic or regional trends, you can semi-automate the planning process and allow your team to focus on the exceptions.

In the future, I envision our workforce shifting toward utilizing more AI and automation, thus changing how we all work.

Automation in the workplace isn’t a new topic of discussion, but it certainly has moved to the forefront with all the frenzy created by ChatGPT and generative AI. The fun and scary thing about these types of technologies is how life-changing they could be. Part of the fear comes from a lack of understanding of automation, which is not necessarily a result of ill-informed people. Automation can look uniquely different when applied to many different industries. It can even look different when applied to the same role at other companies. It's not surprising that people are a bit nervous about what AI means for the future of their jobs because, in many instances, we are in a new area and haven't discovered what practical application looks like.

In the future, I envision our workforce shifting toward utilizing more AI and automation, thus changing how we all work. However, we will not entirely replace the need for humans in the planning and allocation arena. The types of work they do will morph into more strategic roles.

The target for automation will occur in two places. The first improvements will be in repetitious steps – clicks the user must complete to get to the next step, especially where no real thought is required. These tend to be things that humans do not enjoy doing because they are mundane and take up time from other worthy causes.

The second focus for automation will be on improved sales predictability. The benefits of hyper localization could be huge, but the complexity of planning by location is also very substantial. This can only be done at a granular level, so if we use AI for most plans, sales are more predictable. The teams can then focus on planning by exception where they need to address an issue or toward more strategic decision-making. Their work will be focused on things that can’t be easily built to a forecast or instances where we want to change our business trajectory by buying and selling product that isn’t built into our history.

The future of working in retail is bright! The technology is here to transform how we operate and tap into unseen sales potential. How quickly business process specialists will build this automation into the tools and user processes remains to be seen. Additionally, how well will those in planning accept these changes? Effective change management will be critically important for change and the success of AI in the workforce. Ironically, a people-first mentality will be required to implement radical shift in how we do business.