Spotlight Series Podcast

Spotlight Series | Store Management As An Agile Product with Quorso CEO Julian Mills

September 15, 2020

Julian Mills, CEO of Quorso, sits down with Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga for the latest edition of their Omni Talk Spotlight Series, the series that highlights the people, the companies, and the technologies changing the future of retail.

Quorso first caught Omni Talk’s attention a few months ago, right when the pandemic hit. As former store-level and HQ-level retail executives, Chris and Anne have always wondered if there were better ways for both sides of a retail organization to connect and to optimize performance around clearer priorities, and COVID-19 has only brought that question to the forefront even more.

While many decisions in retail get made by the loudest voices in the room or just trickle down from the top, they could and should, especially during a crisis, come from all directions and be prioritized around what matters most, iteratively, over time.

In reality, as Julian elucidates, retail management, especially at the store level, should be no different from agile software development. It is just that retailers have never had the tools to help them run a store in this manner before.

Julian shares how Quorso’s weekly performance platform works, how it prioritizes decisions, and how it helps leaders drive accountability and personal attachment through real-time metrics monitoring and feedback down through every level of an organization.

This just may be the most important retail technology podcast of the entire pandemic or at least one that will get you thinking differently. For, without leadership, accountability, and shared goals, not even the best of the best technology matters.

Spotlight Series | The Future of Virtual Try-On with FIT:MATCH CEO Haniff Brown

September 11, 2020

In their latest Omni Talk Spotlight Series interview, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga chat with FIT:MATCH Founder and CEO Haniff Brown.

Haniff shares his unique background and inspiration for FIT:MATCH, a startup that is making waves in the virtual try-on space. With implementations already in the books at a number of Brookfield Properties’ sites, Haniff and his team are attempting to change the way consumers shop for clothes.

Walk into any one of their virtual fitting rooms and within moments consumers can expect to have detailed view of their fit and body type as well as understand what products are right for them across a myriad of apparel retailers.

This podcast will challenge your thinking about everything from online personalization to what the roles and looks of physical stores and fitting rooms may actually be in the future.

Spotlight Series Podcast | Standard Cognition CEO Jordan Fisher

September 9, 2020

Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga interview Jordan Fisher, CEO of Standard Cognition, about the future of checkout-free retail.

AI Computer vision-based checkout-free retail is all the rage right now, and Standard Cognition, with over $80 million in VC funding to date, is right at the center of that conversation, and especially in light of its recent announced plans with Circle K.

Chris and Anne discuss the origin of the company, where the technology is now and where it is going, and why deciding whether or not to retrofit physical store footprints is one of the key questions that will determine future retailer adoption.

They also put Jordan right on the hot seat (which Jordan handles with aplomb) when they ask him the question on every retail insider’s mind — “What was the deal with all those marketing claims of 3,000 Standard Cognition stores in Japan in time for 2020 Olympics?”

Jordan explains how that rumor came to be and why the next few months will be a put up or shut up moment for him and his company.

Spotlight Series | Walmart’s Tennille Webb on Being First Retailer To Roll-Out Lactation Pods

August 26, 2020

Walmart’s Tennille Webb joins Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga to discuss how she worked with Mamava to make Walmart the first retailer to roll out lactation pods in over 100 U.S. stores.

Spotlight Series | FastSensor EVP Kalon Welch Discusses Active Distance Alert Monitoring

August 18, 2020

With COVID-19 now ever present, knowing where and in what parts of a store social distancing is working or not working, by way of real-time data, is more important than ever.

Kalon Welch, FastSensor EVP Business Development, sits down with Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga of Omni Talk to discuss the ever-trending topic of workspace journey measurement through anonymous radio frequency tracking to make better decisions during these difficult times and how active distance alert monitoring (aka ADAM) could be one of the most important tools for retailers to deploy in their stores, in their warehouses, or even as they are unloading trucks to protect all involved.

As Kalon says, “That which gets measured, gets done,” and social distancing is pretty darn important to get done.