Why All Retailers — Not Just the Retail Giants — Must Become Tech Companies and Embrace Change

Retail margins are notoriously tight, so there’s a natural reluctance to invest in new technologies and embrace change. But change has come for the retail industry, and the only path forward for retailers — all retailers — is to implement the new technologies that will enable them to remain competitive. Failure to do so means risking being left behind.

The most successful retailers are leading the charge as “first movers” — better known as “early adopters” — that are fully embracing new technologies to drive growth. Amazon.com, a technology-first retailer, has disrupted many industries through its obsession over supply chain data; Kroger has employed hundreds of data scientists and software engineers to apply digital innovation and analytics to optimize operations; and Walmart’s Global Tech division has adopted so many new technologies that it has referred to itself as "absolutely a tech company.”

To maintain pace with these giants though, all retail companies must become technology companies, not just the industry’s “top dogs.” They must fundamentally reevaluate their relationship with innovation. And they must understand that a key part of this innovation is data, which will be the superpower that catapults the retail industry into the future.

Every Retailer Can Collect and Leverage Supply Chain Data Thanks to Ambient IoT

The key to retail innovation is data-driven technology, and more specifically, technology that can create true supply chain and inventory management visibility. The thought of investing in such a solution may immediately cause hesitation for certain retailers (and understandably so) because “end-to-end” digital visibility solutions have historically been perceived as complicated, expensive, and difficult to implement. However, most are unaware that technology exists today that's easy and cost-effective to deploy at scale.

Available to retailers now, the ambient Internet of Things (IoT) is a new technology paradigm that provides retailers with more inventory management and supply chain data than ever before possible, enabling retailers to track and trace in real time products everywhere, all at once.

Ambient IoT works by leveraging IoT pixels — self-powered, stamp-sized compute devices — that are affixed to all products in a retail supply chain: clothes, food, medicine, and more. These IoT pixels communicate wirelessly over standard Bluetooth connections with existing and off-the-shelf routers, sharing information about the thing itself, including location, temperature and humidity. The data is collected securely in the cloud, where retailers can monitor their supply chains, analyze data, program actions, and more.

By making supply chains intelligent, ambient IoT technology enables real-time omnichannel inventory management, carbon footprint tracking, and food safety monitoring and compliance — offering significant revenue-boosting opportunities for retailers to take their businesses, and the industry at large, into the future.

Risking Everything by Forgoing the First-Mover Advantage

It’s understandable that retailers are conservative in technology investments. However, the fear of making a mistake shouldn’t take precedence over the fear of being left behind. Questions like, “Is it mature? Can it scale? How soon will we see ROI?” are common, but while many executives puzzle over the answers, the industry moves ahead.

Leading retail companies are already taking advantage of ambient IoT to enable real-time visibility and advanced analytics.

A major pharmacy chain is piloting ambient IoT technology to track the shipping and handling of products to its many stores, seeing in real time, for example, when medicines that need to be kept at a certain temperature are not. An apparel retailer is using ambient IoT to reimagine stores, tracing the movement of clothes at retail locations to identify what’s popular or not, precisely manage inventory so customers are never disappointed, and free up sales associates to connect with shoppers rather than stock shelves.

With the advent of ambient IoT, it’s retail’s first movers that are driving the industry’s evolution. Now is the time for every retailer to adopt innovation to evolve the industry. The risk of being left behind in retail is real, and the time to act is now.

Ohad Perry is the vice president of sales and global business at Wiliot, a Sensing as a Service platform powered by IoT pixels.