Last week’s biggest retail technology plays at a glance
RTIH rounds up the stand out retail systems deals, deployments and pilots from the past seven days. Featuring Marks and Spencer, Chipotle, Tesco, Instacart, and MandM Direct.
Tata Consultancy Services has helped Marks and Spencer (M&S) digitally transform its HR function.
TCS has been a strategic partner to M&S for over a decade.
For the HR transformation journey, its team built a cloud-based solution using the Oracle HCM suite.
As part of the programme, TCS migrated 27 million records of M&S employees working across 1,450 locations in the UK, and enabled “seamless, secure data connects across the landscape”.
The solution provides the workforce with anytime, anywhere, intuitive self-service capabilities.
This allows HR operations teams to focus on other value adding activities.
Bloomreach has been selected to fuel personalised customer experiences and data driven marketing campaigns for MandM Direct.
Clarks US has appointed TPP Retail to replicate the roll-out of the specialist labelling solution introduced across its UK, Republic of Ireland and European stores.
TPP has deployed its Label IQ application across 114 US stores. Clarks can now print its full range of label formats to suit where they will be applied.
TPP’s solution, ensuring compliance with the different labelling laws across the States, runs on a Zebra TC21 mobile device paired with a ZD610 mobile printer and features a bespoke Clarks branded screen protector.
Furniture retailer Upstairs Downstair is transforming its omnichannel processes with Brightpearl.
The brand will tap such features as Automation Engine, Demand Planner and advanced reporting functionality,
It says that it will also save countless hours with Brightpearl in place to automate and streamline time intensive manual processes.
Chipotle is launching a new interactive game called Buy The Dip that engages people in a stock market simulation to ‘buy the dip’ at its lowest point and gives away a total of $200,000 in free crypto.
You have to be part of the company’s loyalty programme to play.
Winners will get free cryptocurrency in the form of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Avalanche, Solana, and Dogecoin.
Promo codes will also be on offer for 1-cent guac and 1-cent Queso Blanco through to 31st July (National Avocado Day).
Tesco is working on a second checkout-free GetGo store.
Self-service terminals will sit alongside an autonomous retail option when the location opens in central London in the near future.
The store in Chiswell Street (near to the Barbican) is fitted out with Trigo’s cashierless technology, which is a combination of check-in gates, ceiling cameras and shelf scales, as spotted by Toby Pickard, IGD Head of Innovations and Futures.
A Tesco spokesperson confirmed the launch to RTIH, but did not share an opening date.
Tesco’s first checkout-free store opened in High Holborn last year, following a trial at the grocery giant’s colleague store in Welwyn Garden City.
This one is also powered by Trigo tech. (NB: Tesco announced an equity investment in the Israeli startup in 2019).
During a preliminary results media call in April, Ken Murphy, Tesco Group CEO, said: “What we're learning is that the technology works really, really well.”
“Our partnership with Trigo's been really successful. […] We're now working on a hybrid model that allows customers to do either grab and go and completely frictionless or check-out on exit. We'll see how that works as well.”
Grocery technology unicorn, Instacart, has announced that Electronic Benefits Transfer and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (EBT SNAP) can now be used to buy groceries online in 10 US additional states – Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming – through its app and retailers’ Instacart Platform powered e-commerce offerings.
Albertsons Companies and Sprouts Farmers Market are among the first to accept EBT SNAP online in these states.
