沃尔玛CTO：零售巨头的5个数字化创新亮点

沃尔玛一向以拥抱数字创新而闻名，从利用无人机和自动驾驶汽车送货，到为数十家商店添加自动微配送功能。 CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

在刚刚过去的数月时间里，沃尔玛宣布将测试一个Text to Shop工具，进一步将其应用与通用搜索和结账流程进行整合，与此同时，山姆会员店也在开发一个新版本的Scan & Go技术，并测试一项名为Scan & Ship的功能，让购物者可以在店内选择他们想要的商品之后再送货到家。

沃尔玛正在把科技及其体量作为他们的竞争优势，特别是与电商巨头亚马逊的竞争中。上周，沃尔玛全球首席技术官兼首席开发官Suresh Kumar在科技领导力论坛上接受采访时，介绍了这家零售商在打磨全渠道战略时是如何进行数字化创新的。CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

一、决策：是自建，还是合作

沃尔玛有很多知名的科技合作伙伴，包括Adobe和福特；还曾与很多合作伙伴解约，例如取消了由爱沙尼亚公司Cleveron制造并由Bell & Howell分销的自助取货亭，以及停止使用Bossa Nova Robotics提供的货架扫描机器人进行库存管理。CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

“考虑到我们的体量，我们希望自主开发并且将我们的技术聚焦于业务的核心领域，在这些领域拥有自主权，将让我们的软件能够适应自身的业务需求。”

但是他表示，当内部软件成本太高而无法在某些区域或者市场部署使用的时候，沃尔玛就会选择采用能够满足他们需求的商业软件。CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

“这并不仅仅关乎于打造我们自己的技术，也不是关于采用技术、对其进行模块化、用技术提供服务、并且提供给他人使用，二是涉及到构建整个生态，以便将一切都建立在这个生态之上，让所有人都可以从中受益。”CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

Kumar指出，沃尔玛也会将技术转化为收入来源。例如，沃尔玛通过与Adobe的合作，开始对其他零售商提供基于云的取货、送货和履约服务。今年夏季，沃尔玛还开始向其他企业出售其自己的白标配送平台。

二、提供无收银技术

虽然亚马逊等一些零售商正在涉足无收银员商店，但沃尔玛选择了提供多样化的结账选项。

Kumar说，无收音技术发挥了重要的作用，因为沃尔玛希望减少摩擦并让结账流程尽可能简单。他说，山姆会员店和Walmart+会员都可以使用Scan & Go技术，到目前为止，这项技术已经解决了顾客排长队的痛点。CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

沃尔玛也已经在门店中测试了无收银员技术，包括在加拿大的几家门店用自助结账方式取代收银员，在阿肯色州费耶特维尔的一家超级购物中心打造了“实验式结账体验”，并在佛罗里达州开设了一家无收银员的Neighborhood Market街区市场店。

但Kumar指出，并非所有顾客都想使用其中一部分或者全部这些技术，因此他们仍然是需要收银员的。CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

“我们将继续提供所有这些选择，”Kumar在谈到无收音技术与收银员相结合方式的时候这样表示。

三、探索未来的颠覆性技术

沃尔玛利用技术成为了颠覆零售业的领导者，Kumar指出，沃尔玛正在探索一些可能是未来几年最具颠覆性的技术。CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

他说，语音技术是减少客户摩擦的一个“非常自然的延伸”，目前沃尔玛已经为其员工提供了语音技术：Me@Walmart应用里有一个语音激活的个人助理Ask Sam，以前它是作为一个单独的应用提供给一些员工使用的。

“我认为在一段时间内，你与一个系统交互——包括购物——最自然而言的方式就是通过语音。”CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

而且他很兴奋地看到沃尔玛正在加码区块链技术，用于确保食品透明度，尤其是绿叶蔬菜。“如果有行业性的召回，你就可以非常非常迅速地确定沃尔玛是否收到了受影响来源的产品。”

他说，沃尔玛正在考虑在多个领域将区块链技术“作为一种能够使供应商、承运商、物流之间交易自动化的机制”，并指出，区块链的可追溯性和透明度也许可以和资源再生以及可持续性措施联系在一起。CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

Kumar说，沃尔玛已经提供了服装虚拟试穿功能，也将增强现实和虚拟现实技术运用到家具和户外商品领域。CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

“你可以取一件家具，然后放在你的客厅里。假如，你想买一个帐篷，可你并不想真得把它买下来然后摆放好才发现它并不适合你。”

随着技术的不断发展，技术最终能够让购物体验变得更加轻松愉快。

“我主要会从以下方面来审视技术，它是否减少了顾客摩擦？是否让他们购物更轻松了？在后端是否让我们更好更快地获得洞察，并能够更有效地对数据进行推理？”

四、利用机器学习和人工智能技术

Kumar说，沃尔玛已经在使用机器学习和人工智能来帮助节省资金、大规模地创造个性化体验、同时提高员工的工作效率。CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

例如，沃尔玛有一个“预测篮子”功能，它利用机器学习和人工智能来了解购物者的历史、偏好以及通常会购买哪些东西，以创造附加体验。CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

不仅如此，沃尔玛还在打造全渠道分类规划的能力，确定哪些商店需要沃尔玛数百万种商品中的哪些商品，以及如何分阶段地引入这些商品。他说，“机器学习和人工智能让你能够将所有这些信息聚合在一起，综合这些信息，并从中获得洞察”，从而实现更动态的管理。

沃尔玛还利用这些技术让店员的工作更轻松。沃尔玛今年6月刚刚上线的Me@Walmart应用，最早是内部开发的，使用了机器学习、增强现实、相机视觉和人工智能等技术，让美国员工可以通过移动设备进行打卡，查看即将到来的班次，并请求更改时间表等。Kumar表示，沃尔玛目前正在开发一款有些类似于Me@Walmart的、面向企业员工的工具。

机器学习和人工智能也帮助沃尔玛节省下不少资金。Kumar说，使用机器学习进行商品降价为沃尔玛节省了3000多万美元。今年早些时候，沃尔玛曾表示，自从针对在线百货订单开始使用深度学习AI（模仿人类大脑处理数据的方式，并且可以在无人工监督的情况下进行学习）以来，顾客对于替代品的接受度几乎翻了一番，而这个问题曾经是在线订单很棘手的一个部分，可能导致销售损失和顾客不满等问题。CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

五、更加注重安全

Kumar说，在疫情期间沃尔玛的客户一直专注于价值和便利，但越来越关心安全问题。

他强调了沃尔玛使用技术解决安全问题的几种方式。例如，去年12月沃尔玛增加了药房商品的路边取货功能，并在所有地点推出了移动Scan & Go功能（Walmart+会员可以使用的功能）。

今年春季，沃尔玛对其取货和配送服务以及Walmart Pay做出了一些调整，让人们可以在应用中选择一种支付方式，然后扫描收银机上的二维码结账，让购物过程变得更加零接触。

展望未来，Kumar说，沃尔玛不仅将继续倾听来自在线购物顾客或者店内购物顾客的意见，而且还将观察其他公司在做什么、有哪些趋势、社交媒体上正在热议什么，以确定下一项数字化创新。CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

翻译：

Walmart has long been known for embracing digital innovations, from making deliveries with drones and self-driving cars to adding automated micro-delivery capabilities to dozens of stores.CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

In the past few months, Walmart has announced that it will be testing a Text to Shop tool to further integrate its app with universal search and checkout processes, while Sam’s Club is working on a new version of its Scan & Go technology and testing a feature called Scan & Ship. Allows shoppers to select the items they want in-store and have them delivered to their homes.

Walmart is using technology and its size as a competitive advantage, especially in its competition with e-commerce giant Amazon. In an interview at the Tech Leadership Forum last week, Suresh Kumar, Walmart’s global chief technology officer and chief development officer, described how the retailer is innovating digitally as it hones its omnichannel strategy.CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

Decision: whether to build or cooperate

Walmart has a number of well-known technology partners, including Adobe and Ford; It has also terminated contracts with a number of partners, such as the cancellation of self-pickup kiosks made by Estonian company Cleveron and distributed by Bell & Howell, and the discontinuation of the use of shelf scanning robots from Bossa Nova Robotics for inventory management.

“Given our size, we want to develop and focus our technology on the core areas of our business, and having autonomy in those areas will allow us to adapt our software to our business needs.”CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

But when in-house software is too expensive to deploy in certain regions or markets, Wal-Mart chooses commercial software that meets their needs, he said.

“It’s not just about building our own technology, it’s not about taking technology, modularizing it, using it to provide services, and making it available to others. It’s about building the whole ecosystem so that everything is built on top of that ecosystem so that everyone can benefit from it.”

Kumar noted that Walmart will also turn technology into a revenue stream. For example, Walmart, through its partnership with Adobe, began offering cloud-based pickup, delivery, and fulfillment services to other retailers. This summer, Walmart also began selling its own white label delivery platform to other businesses.

No cash register technology available

While some retailers like Amazon are dabbling in cashierless stores, Walmart has opted to offer a variety of checkout options.CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

Tapeless technology plays an important role, Kumar said, because Walmart wants to reduce friction and make the checkout process as simple as possible. Scan & Go technology, which is available to both Sam’s Club and Walmart+ members, has so far solved the pain points of long lines for customers, he said.

Walmart has also been testing cashier-free technology in its stores, including replacing cashiers with self-checkout at several stores in Canada, creating an “experimental checkout experience” at a supermall in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and opening a cashier-free Neighborhood Market store in Florida.

But Kumar points out that not all customers will want to use some or all of these technologies, so they will still need cashiers.CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

“We will continue to offer all these options,” Kumar said of the way tapeless technology is combined with cashiers.

The checkout area of a Walmart store in Fayetteville, Arkansas

Explore the disruptive technologies of the future

Walmart has become a leader in using technology to disrupt the retail industry, and Kumar noted that Walmart is exploring some of the technologies that could be the most disruptive in the coming years.

Voice technology is a “very natural extension” of reducing customer friction, he said, and Walmart already offers it to its employees: Ask Sam, a voice-activated personal assistant, is included in the Me@Walmart app, which was previously offered as a separate app to some employees.

“I think the most natural way for you to interact with a system — including shopping — over a period of time is through voice.”CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

And he’s excited to see that Walmart is ramping up blockchain technology to ensure transparency in food, especially leafy greens. “If there is an industry recall, you can determine very. Very quickly whether Walmart has received products from the affected source.”

He said Walmart is considering blockchain technology in a number of areas “as a mechanism to automate transactions between suppliers, carriers, logistics,” noting that blockchain traceability and transparency may be linked to resource regeneration and sustainability measures.CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

Kumar said Walmart already offers virtual fitting for clothing and is also using augmented and virtual reality technology for furniture and outdoor goods.

“You can take a piece of furniture and put it in your living room. Let’s say you want to buy a tent. But you don’t want to actually buy it and set it up only to find out it doesn’t suit you.”

As technology continues to evolve, it can eventually make the shopping experience easier and more enjoyable.CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

“I mainly look at technology in terms of, does it reduce customer friction? Did it make shopping easier for them? Does the back end give us better and faster insights and the ability to reason about data more effectively?”

Me@Walmart Voice features on the app

Use machine learning and artificial intelligence technology

Kumar said Walmart is already using machine learning and artificial intelligence to help save money. Create personalized experiences at scale, and improve employee productivity.CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

Walmart, for example, has a “prediction basket” feature that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to understand shoppers’ histories, preferences, and what they typically buy to create additional experiences.

Not only that, Walmart is building the ability to do omnichannel category planning, determining which stores want which items out of Walmart’s millions of items and how to introduce them in stages. “Machine learning and artificial intelligence give you the ability to aggregate all this information together, synthesize that information, and get insights from it” for more dynamic management, he said.

Walmart is also using these technologies to make the jobs of its store employees easier. The Me@Walmart app, which Walmart launched in June, was originally developed in-house and uses machine learning, augmented reality, camera vision and artificial intelligence to let U.S. employees clock in, see upcoming shifts and request schedule changes from their mobile devices, among other things. Kumar said Walmart is working on a tool for employees similar to Me@Walmart.

Machine learning and artificial intelligence are also helping Walmart save money. Kumar said that using machine learning to lower prices on goods has saved Walmart more than $30 million. Earlier this year, Walmart said it had nearly doubled customer acceptance of alternatives — once a tricky part of online orders — since it began using deep learning AI for online department store orders, which mimics the way the human brain processes data and can learn without human supervision. This can lead to problems such as lost sales and dissatisfied customers.

Fourth, pay more attention to safety

Kumar said Walmart’s customers have been focused on value and convenience during the pandemic, but are increasingly concerned about safety.

He highlighted several ways Walmart uses technology to address safety concerns. For example, in December Walmart added curbside pickup for pharmacy items and rolled out mobile Scan & Go (a feature available to Walmart+ members) at all locations.

This spring, Walmart made some changes to its pickup and delivery services and Walmart Pay, allowing people to choose a payment method in the app and then scan a QR code on the cash register to pay, making the shopping process more contactless.

Looking ahead, Kumar said Walmart will not only continue to listen to customers who shop online or in-store. But will also look at what other companies are doing, what are the trends. And what is being talked about on social media to identify the next digital innovation.CXO UNION CXO联盟 cxounion.cn

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