3D Sensors — What Is Out There?

AI Progress Measurement

The increasingly political consumer

“Customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator by the year 2020.”

What disrupted the retail industry was not technology specifically, but how digital tools helped some companies deliver exceptional experiences.

Especially as digital customer care and CSR become focal points for retailers, online forums and social media are now one of the most powerful tools for consumers.

Retailers feel that the top three concerns are: (1) supply chain management and logistics issues (67%); (2) Labour availability and cost (56%); and (3) tariff costs (48%).

Same store sales – what is the typical brick-and-mortar store for a business type earning? Do these numbers grow year over year? What hurts them? Sales per square foot – what is the average revenue a brick-and-mortar retail business creates for every square foot of sales space? Inventory turnover – how many times does inventory sell out in a given time period? Cost of Goods Sold – what does it cost to purchase the goods sold by a retailer? What do the materials and production process cost? Of course these are only a baseline to set your research against. If you’re interested in digging deeper take a look at some of the opportunities here!

Risks As with any business, retail has its risks. A few things to keep in mind: Competition is rough, especially for the small business. Superstores such as Walmart and internet stores such as Amazon offer a breadth of selection and convenience that is tough to beat, and are frequently able to offer products at more compelling prices. Changing consumer trends can have an adverse effect on retailers. For example, technology spending is currently dominating softer goods like clothing - the new iPhone is often considered a “must have” as compared to a nice-to-have new shirt. In certain retail segments even the weather can be risky – consider a clothing store that stocks up on winter inventory only to experience a warmer than expected season. They’re left with overstocked shelves as spring comes in, and might have no choice but to offload product with deep discounts. Economic stress or uncertainty is a constant risk in the retail sector. Put simply, people spend less money when they’re not feeling confident about their incomes.

Smaller retail stores are now shying away from deep inventories with a broad selection of products and are instead focusing on a narrower spread of specialty items.

Retail sales were $5.3 trillion in the United States in 2015, a growth of 2% over 2014. In 2009 during the recession sales were $4 trillion. Excluding sales of automobiles, gas and restaurants, 2015 US retail sales were $1.2 trillion. This narrower selection of the retail industry includes general merchandise, apparel, furniture and specialty items, among other things. Internet retail sales grew a whopping 23% in 2015 and the numbers are in line to grow at a similar pace in 2016. Global retail sales were $20.8 trillion in 2015 and are expected to reach $22 trillion in 2016. Some estimates put global sales at $27.7 trillion by 2020.

What is the Retail Industry?

As retailers buckle down and prepare for potentially challenging times ahead, supply chain improvements can be a significant growth driver. But rather than just investing in trends like automation smart packaging in reaction to competitors, retailers should think about accumulating long-term competitive advantages through wider supply chain strategies.

With regulation after regulation hitting the market, it’s time retailers had their privacy compliance road maps in place. But compliance can also be a catalyst for reinventing personalization and having honest conversations with consumers. Integrity matters in creating loyalty, especially when it comes to dealing with personal identity.

online-to-offline, last-mile delivery, supply chain as a service, social commerce, and the implications of advanced public and private infrastructure.

They should be able to consistently mine the data they collect, transform their operations to deliver on the brand promise, and adapt to the future of work.

through innovative offerings, personalization, authentic engagement, differentiated fulfillment,

As such, retailers must now provide a hassle-free, seamless experience for the consumer in order to remain competitive

The large majority of researchers accepted my invitation to connectwith practitioners.

As shown below, practitioners very clearly prefer hands-on matchmakin

Overall, however, these data showhow practitionersare often nottime-sensitive when interacting with res

Do practitionersprefer to speak withresearcherswho are local?

As shown below, most of the 37 practitioners that reached out were facing a mome

Afterwards I followed up with practitionersand asked if the conversation provided useful information addressing their cu

Describethe conversation as a mutually beneficial learning opportun

One way to reduce the impact of status differentials is to communicate each individual’s expertise to the entire group upfron

fast data visualization dominates the professional literature

It is operating in a territory that offers people more concrete learning (and more interactivity) than a Netflix documentary while not being so specialized as to be a professional course.

there’s just enough must-see content to keep coming back to.

democratizing access to genius,

whether a person could be placed into an intimate conversation – a “teaching moment” – with some of the most skilled people in the world.

(1)Primary homelessnessPeople without conventional accommodation (livingon thestreets, sleeping in parks, squatting in derelict buildings, orusing cars or railway carriages for temporary shelter).(2 )Secondary homelessness(moving around/temporary accommodation)People who move around frequently fromone form of tempo-rary shelter to another, including: people using emergencyaccommodation; teenagers staying in youth refuges; peopleresiding temporarily with friendsor relatives; and those usingboarding houses onan occasional or intermittent basis.(3 )Tertiary homelessness(boarding house population)People living in singlerooms on a medium to long-term basis.Residents of private boarding houses donot have a separatebedroom and living room; they donot have kitchen and bath-room facilities of their own; their accommodation is not selfcontained; and they do not have security oftenure providedby a lease. Theyare homeless, because their accommodation isinferior to the characteristics identified in the 'communitystandard'.(4)Marginally housedPeople in accommodation situations whichare only slightlybelow the communitynorm. This category would include: acouple living ina single room with their own kitchen andbathroom, but withouta separate room for sleeping; or a fam-ily staying with relatives (doubling up);or a couple renting acaravan without security of tenure