The Grocer – 13 January 2018

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comment & opinion

Voice is loud at CES, but be wary

the saturday essay

H

ey Google’ proclaim post-
ers across the Las Vegas
monorail and conven-
tion centre as the Consumer
Electronics Show (CES) opens its
doors for 2018. The search giant’s
ad dominance on the strip is a
fitting welcome: voice-activated
virtual assistants are the battle-
ground at this year’s show.
The migration of digital assis-
tants from our phones to our
homes and cars caught on fast,
and a spike in Christmas sales
of Amazon’s Echo units show
that mainstream appetite is still
growing. This year Samsung is
using CES as its bid to enter the
race with Bixby, while Sony is
marketing speakers that incor-
porate existing voice platforms.
Amid the buzz, retailers are
rightly curious to know how they
might integrate voice assistants
to their retail experiences.

CES is a playground for futur-

ologists. Amid the hype, it can

be hard to spot potential viable

assets for retail brands. Despite

waves of new iterations demon-

strated by CES exhibitors, retail-

ers must still be wary of adopting

voice tech at this stage.

Significant as these assistants

are, they currently inhabit a ‘toy

phase’ – a period of novelty and

restricted use. It is not an oppor-

tune moment for retailers to

snap up Echo for their shelves or

Google Assistant for their check-

outs – these devices simply aren’t

sophisticated enough to sustain

meaningful, highly variable

interaction. However, the intel-

ligence that both devices have

access to could be an invaluable

tool for your retail workforce.

Customers now come to stores

often with deeper understanding

of the specifications, reviews, rat-

ings and reputations of the prod-

ucts than store assistants.

So what if shop-floor staff were

empowered by the information

access provided by the data

giants? Could Alexa be used to

access customer reviews and

ratings direct from Amazon? Or

Google Assistant to support store

teams with customer insights

and shoppers with tailor-made

offers? The in-store experience

then becomes less transactional,

and a dialogue can be re-estab-

lished with customers.

Bridging the gap between in-

store teams and the vast store of

intelligence out there is a ques-

tion of new training for hybrid

skills. Retailers must be able to

use data and tech as tools applied

with human intuition and emo-

tional intelligence – setting a new

standard for customer service.

Looking slightly further ahead,

more retail-specific innovations

at CES include facial and gesture

recognition. With the promise of

more bespoke services and data-

gathering opportunities, these

are attractive features – but when

issues of privacy, trust and secu-

rity are at the forefront of cus-

tomers’ minds, adoption could

be challenging. In an age of pri-

vacy concern and demands for

transparency, brands can always

do more to educate their custom-

ers on the data exchanges going

on behind the scenes, and the

benefits for both parties.

CES showcases a host of tech-

nologies, like voice, which await

their ‘killer app’ to turn hype into

action. Smart retail brands will

be exploring how to make these

innovations part of an ownable

brand experience, employing

only that which provides real

customer benefit.

Geoff Wilson is brand strategy

lead at Household

“Voice assistants

currently inhabit

a toy phase of

restricted use”

Geoff Wilson

Resurgent Tesco is Christmas victor

third party

Dave McCarthy is head of the

consumer retail team for Europe

at HSBC Global Research

is 13-month growth. In other

words, one-year growth is rela-

tively easy, particularly against

negative comps, and growth on

growth is what really counts.

On a two-year view, Tesco

is the clear winner and in

cash terms looks to have out-

grown Sainsbury’s by 10:1 and

Morrisons by about 6:1 (for sup-

pliers it is cash/volume growth

that counts). Tesco has turned

into a formidable competitor once

again. It is improving its offer

with investments in price, qual-

ity and service, but it is perhaps

Tesco’s scale that makes it such a

worry for the competition (and a

good partner for suppliers).

When Tesco was at its peak, it

shared the benefits of scale with

customers. But when it started

to struggle abroad, the benefits

were used to prop up a failing

P&L. Now Tesco is again sharing

the benefits of its scale, growth

and efficiency gains with custom-

ers once again. It built momen-

tum going into Christmas and

held on to it. And growth by Tesco

means losers elsewhere.

This quarter should see the

merger between Tesco and

Booker complete. Both will

become stronger, have more

resources (synergies and man-

agement), and both focus on

long-term customer satisfaction.

But as well as Tesco has done,

the discounters were the real

winners, as they march on relent-

lessly, opening new space. At the

same time, growth has become

harder to come by for the dis-

counters and it is less profitable

than previously as the big four

fight back.

The discounters and Tesco can

grow simultaneously – they only

have a combined 40% market

share. There is still 60% to com-

pete for and someone out there

looks set to lose.

O

n the surface, 2017 was
a good Christmas for
food retail. Nielsen
data shows this was the best
Christmas for at least six years,
with sales up 3.5% over the
Golden Quarter. There were no
real losers in absolute terms, with
all major retailers likely to have
met their sales budgets. On a rela-
tive basis, though, there are clear
winners and losers.
We should focus on two-year
growth. It’s sometimes said that
the only growth that counts

Dave McCarthy