Transforming the Retail Industry: A Conversation with Neil Saunders

Ever wondered how a hilarious misstep in placing a manual order could lead to some serious career development? Well, our guest Neil Saunders, Managing Director of Global Data Retail, did just that. Neil shares his journey through the retail industry, from his humble beginnings at John Lewis to his current role, and highlights a memorable ordering blunder that changed his perspective and fueled his passion for improving retail systems.

We've all been told the importance of honesty, but have you ever considered the power of speaking your opinion in the world of retail? Neil stresses the value of transparency and open dialogues, a philosophy that has led both to his personal growth and to advancements in the industry. Listen as we delve into the importance of understanding data for businesses and how storytelling plays a crucial role in data analysis.

What does the future hold for AI and technology in retail? We explore this intriguing topic, touching on the pros, cons, and the potential this tech holds to revolutionize the consumer experience. We even delve into the implications of Amazon One's palm recognition technology. Rounding off our discussion, we ponder on the importance of living in the present and how growing older impacts one's perspective. This insightful conversation is sure to provide you with a new lens to view the dynamic world of retail. Don't miss out!

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Connect with Neal on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilretail/

RetailWire is the retail industry's premier source for news, analysis, and discussion. With a focus on the latest trends, technology, and consumer behavior, RetailWire provides a platform for industry experts and thought leaders to share their insights and perspectives. Whether you're a retailer, supplier, or service provider, RetailWire is your go-to destination for staying informed and ahead of the curve.

Be sure to leave us a comment and let us know what you think. You might even hear your comment read on the next episode!

To learn more, or to join our Daily Discussions, visit RetailWire.com.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Retail Wire Podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:05

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Retail Wire Podcast. I am your host, Brian Crum, and I am really excited for today's episode. We have another member of our brain trust with us today. This person is well. He comes from a long line in the retail industry. I tell you what I've seen him featured on a lot of different news stations, a lot of different resources around video, audio, everything. This guy knows his way around the retail space. He is a visiting fellow at the University of Surrey and is currently the Managing Director of Global Data Retail, which is a retail research agency and consulting firm focused on retail and consumer behavior. This guy's been with us here, retail Wire. He's been a brain trust member since around 2017. I think that pretty much makes him the expert on staff here. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show, neal Saunders. How are you, sir?

Speaker 3: 1:06

Thanks very much for having me. Yeah, I'm great. Thank you, Brian. How are you?

Speaker 2: 1:09

I am doing very well. Thanks for making time for us today, man.

Speaker 3: 1:13

Yeah, you're welcome. I love the brain trust. I love contributing every morning reading what everyone has to say.

Speaker 2: 1:18

It's great to do more in-person stuff face-to-face, absolutely yeah, and that's one thing we're looking forward to doing around here. More is having these conversations right being able to. I was telling you a little bit offline here that this is why we do the podcast is we want people to know that not only are you guys experts in the retail field, but you have families, you live in houses, you drive cars, just like everybody right. That's a fun way that we can take the approach to this man. Again, just thanks for jumping in. So tell us a little bit about who you are. Where do you come from, what do you do? What makes Neil Saunders a professional that you are?

Speaker 3: 2:05

Well, as you say, it's good to see face-to-face because it proves we're not AI. I'm just putting these comments on. We are all people. So I am managing director of global data. So that is the primary role, the primary job that I have, and in that role what I do is really help our clients in the retail field. A lot of retailers, a lot of people who supply into retail, really just understand the sector, understand their place in it, look forward to see what might be happening in the sector so they can project things and ultimately build better business plans that they can grow market share or cut costs or become more effective at serving customers, whatever their objective is.

Speaker 3: 2:49

So that takes up a lot of my time, but outside of that I do quite a lot of non-retail stuff. I do visit a lot of stores on the weekends, as anyone who follows me on Twitter will know, and that's kind of like a Bustman's holiday because he's doing research whilst going to the mall. But outside of that, I do a lot of cycling. I love cycling. Every weekend I'm out on my bike, weather permitting. When I say weather permitting, it's not that the weather is bad, because I live mostly in Arizona. Sometimes it's far too hot to go cycling, so I have to confine it to either the very early morning or the very late evening, and I've lived in Arizona since about 2018. So I have climatized to the heat and I prefer the heat to the rain, which we got a lot of when I used to live in the UK, so I'm actually fine with it. But it's been very hot this year, which is why, at the moment, we've escaped and come to New Hampshire, which is why it looks green outside.

Speaker 2: 3:53

I was going to say I don't see sand or brown behind you, so that's a good thing to escape and get away to some greenery.

Speaker 3: 4:02

Yes, there's no cacti either, which is a big difference. But yeah, it's really nice to have that contrast, because Arizona is a bit like it's a Martian landscape. At least where I live further up north it's not, but around Scottsdale it's very much that kind of tan everything's sandy. It's a beautiful, stunning landscape, but when you come out of it and come to somewhere like New Hampshire, I think it's really nice because you see the contrast and you're like wow, isn't everything so green and lush? So yeah, it's nice to switch between the two and, as I say, at the moment it's super hot in Arizona, so it's great to escape that heat.

Speaker 2: 4:37

Yeah, this summer has definitely gotten a little crazy. I know I've got a family out near Flagstaff and so they have definitely been feeling it more this year and that heat is just. It's crazy too, because correct me if I'm wrong it's a drier heat out in Arizona, right? So it's not quite as humid and everything out there.

Speaker 3: 4:57

Yeah, oh for sure. I mean, if it was humid I don't think I would want to live there. The humidity, like Florida, it's a killer with that kind of heat. We're lucky because it is very dry so you can go for a walk outside and actually you don't really get sweaty. You'll get hot, okay, but it sounds quite unpleasant, but the sweat literally just evaporates so you actually remain quite dry. I think if it was swampy it would just be terrible with that heat, because sometimes we can get up to like 120, something like that. It's super, super hot with zero, zero humidity or very little humidity. Fine, you put some liquid in there.

Speaker 2: 5:37

Yeah, oh, I tell you, I understand that all too well because I was actually. I got to go to Mexico this summer for a little getaway and it was crazy, because not only was it 95 degrees, 98 degrees, you know somewhere near 100. And then suddenly I remember sitting there one evening, looking out over, there was an island a couple of miles off the coast there we're on the north tip of Cancun and so you could literally see this wall of humidity rolling through. We thought it was rain. No, it was just a gray cloud of humidity and it just rolled across and you could feel the humidity come up. Everybody in the entire restaurant starts sweating, because it was an outdoor restaurant, and we all just start, you know, sweating through our clothes and, okay, all right. Well, good news, we're in Mexico. So when you're on vacation.

Speaker 2: 6:28

It doesn't matter does it?

Speaker 3: 6:29

When you're on vacation.

Speaker 2: 6:30

I think Nothing matters, so so okay, so now you've got. So you live in Arizona, you're currently up in New Hampshire. You said so wife, kid, spouse, pets, what Tell us a little bit about just your. What's your family look like?

Speaker 3: 6:49

Sure. So most of my family is actually in the UK, which is where I'm from, so that's kind of nice because it means I can go back there quite a lot and they can come over here and actually there's a lot of travel and it's nice for everyone to experience the new things. I do have some family here in the US. I have a partner, so that's quite nice. An occasional pet, I think. Unfortunately, the lifestyle that we have is very sort of travel oriented and quite busy, so it's difficult to have a permanent pet, but do have an occasional pet, so that's quite nice. Dog, so I think that's the best of both worlds. No kids, I think, for the same reason as no permanent pet, because it's very.

Speaker 2: 7:36

So actually it doesn't necessarily relate to that life, and that's okay, that's all right.

Speaker 3: 7:42

But there's plenty of time for that, so we'll see further down the line. I'll never say never.

Speaker 2: 7:47

Absolutely. Yeah, no, I had to kick my two dogs out of the office here, otherwise they'd probably be nosing me the entire time. So that's very cool. So tell us take us back to, kind of, the beginning of your retail journey what got you into retail? Tell us a little bit about where your parents in it, where you're around it growing up, or was it just something that you kind of had a fire lit up inside you one day?

Speaker 3: 8:11

Well, interesting, my parents weren't involved in it at all. Our family in its businesses and all of the professions it's had, hasn't really ever had anything to do with retail at all. But obviously as a child I was dragged along shopping with my parents when they would go shopping. And I think back then, when I was still very, very young, maybe like 10, 11, something like that I was always fascinated by retail. I mean, I would go into a supermarket or go into a department store, usually John Lewis, which is a big department store in the UK and I would be absolutely fascinated by not just what I saw but like the process I would think about how did these goods get here? Who chose to put these products here? How did they decide to lay this store out?

Speaker 3: 9:02

And obviously, being quite young, I didn't really have any answers to this, but I was just absolutely fascinated with, like, the mechanics of how retail or the shops worked. And you know I always want to look behind the scenes. If there was kind of a you know a stock room door propped open, I'd always poking my head around it. My mom would probably be dragging me out, saying you're not allowed to go in there. But I was very curious and I think that really sparked off an interest in retail. I didn't really think about it much because as kids we don't really think about careers.

Speaker 2: 9:34

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 9:35

And when I was a kid, I actually wanted to be Prime Minister of the UK, which probably tells you a lot. I no longer would like that role at all.

Speaker 2: 9:43

I don't think any of us would like to be involved in no no.

Speaker 3: 9:46

No so I never sort of intended to get into retail. But I suppose the next major milestone was when I was at university I did a degree in geography. Primarily it had elements of economics and economic geography in it and what I really liked about that degree was there were a lot of numbers and there were a lot of data, especially on the economic side. But I was absolutely fascinated with like, okay, the data is, they're the end result, they measure what's happening and there's a whole series of human decisions and actions that underpin those numerical data. And I was very interested in that side of things, like all the behaviors that ended up with those numbers.

Speaker 3: 10:29

And there were quite a few elements on the degree course that looked at things like consumption and there was actually a very specific retail element or component. It looked at kind of the geography of retail location and how people would consume across different geographies, how retailers decided where to put stores, dealing a lot with GIS, geographical information systems and I absolutely loved that and that's the area that I focused on for my dissertation. It's the area where I took most courses and I absolutely loved it because it was that blend of looking at the data but also having that qualitative side of really understanding the human behaviors, the psychologists of consumers, and so when I left university I naturally looked for consumer and retail companies and I actually went to work for John Lewis, the John Lewis partnership, which is a UK retailer that owns John Lewis department stores and waitrose supermarkets. So that's kind of how I first got into retail.

Speaker 2: 11:29

Man, that's so fascinating and you're right, I think a lot of people don't realize, they don't really think about it, takes a special person to understand that a lot of these items don't just show up in a store, right, and it's not just accidental that it's placed in a certain area. So consumer behavior does play such this vital role and it's funny how I think the average person probably walks into a store and just says, oh, it's here, that's it, that's the end of the conversation for them. But to be able to be so curious about it and go, hey, what does it look like behind the scenes? I remember the first time I ever got to see I was working on a photo shoot and we got to be behind the scenes where they were producing some of the flower bouquets at a Walmart store. And so you think of, there's a flower display, sure, someone actually put those together, right? A lot of people don't think, oh, there's a florist, there's someone behind the scenes that actually created them, and I think we've become so accustomed to that.

Speaker 2: 12:36

I think in a lot of our, specifically in America, I think probably we've become so accustomed to just seeing the item as just a thing, right, it's just, it's there, and so we don't necessarily think too detailed into how it got there or who put that there, and so you know your fascination. I definitely identify with that very well because I always loved looking into the stock rooms. I loved kind of pulling back the curtain and kind of seeing what's going on. How did this become the reality here? So you started out there and then you started out and, I'm sorry, you said, john Lewis, is that right?

Speaker 3: 13:17

Yeah, john Lewis partnership, which owns the department stores and has a supermarket business as well, so it covers all of retail. Really, it's the ideal retailer if you want to get your feet wet and be in a lot of different areas.

Speaker 2: 13:31

So what were your first kind of experiences in retail like? Did you catch on very quickly? Were there any fumbles that you want to share as a laughable moment or anything, or what was that like for you?

Speaker 3: 13:45

Well, I loved it overall. I mean, I was immersed in the environment, which was fascinating to me, and I was now able to go behind the curtain, as you put it, and see how everything worked, and so it was absolutely wonderful to do that. And because it was straight out of university, it was a training scheme, so we were able to do absolutely everything, from serving on the shop floor to going out on the delivery vans with the drivers delivering orders, to doing proper research work and development work, which was kind of like the primary role of it. So I absolutely loved that because you got to see everything and it's really critical because you can make a decision in an office based on some data and what you think is right. But you'd speak to like drivers going out on the vans. They go, yeah, well, they changed this, and you know what. It just doesn't work because the schedule now is wrong and you would pick on all of these nuances. So I really liked that. It wasn't problem free, as I think no job is.

Speaker 3: 14:45

I was for a time working in the electronics department and I was put in charge of a category and the category was electronic accessories. So it had things like headphones in their batteries, all the types of little electronics. You get cables and leads, and one of the things I had responsibility for was making sure that the levels of stock were correct, and most time it would replenish automatically, but you could manually override it if you needed to, because you could say well, it's not enough. We, you know, there's something coming up like a big event where we think people will buy more television cables or whatever. And I went onto the system on the computers and placed an order for batteries and I was not really thinking, and I was thinking like it was rather numbers. I was thinking the numbers of units, I was thinking it was like pounds and pens. So I put two extra zeros on the end to count for the pens when it was units.

Speaker 2: 15:47

So rather than change things a bit.

Speaker 3: 15:50

Yeah, rather than kind of, I think it was 20, I was supposed to order rather than 20 of these these things turning up, I had 2000.

Speaker 2: 16:02

That's exciting. So what did the, what did the boss say to that one?

Speaker 3: 16:07

Well, I kind of like was the first reaction was like oh, how can I like cover this up? And these things went through quickly to remind that maybe I could just buy them all by all the stock and I was like, no, this is crazy, it's going to cost a fortune. So I just fast up and said, look, I'm really sorry I've done this. And he just laughed and said, look, it's not the first time it's happened. He said, actually it's a good lesson because it's fine, we can just send them back to the warehouse. And he showed me what you're doing the computer just to do a return. Yeah, luckily it was. I mean, it's the relatively small item so it didn't like fill up the whole department. But there are also things that are quite common a garden, I mean. They probably have, you know, millions of them in stock for the whole group. So it didn't deprive anyone else of them. So it was quite fortunate. But I I think I went super red at the time and was just extremely embarrassed and I never made that mistake again, I'm sure.

Speaker 2: 17:05

You know, I think we've all had those moments, especially as you're getting started in a certain area. It's bound to happen. The best part is having that leader that can just say hey look, it's okay, we're going to be all right, we'll move forward through this. And here's, here's how you learn through this. You know the the fail fast, fail forward kind of approach, right, so you have to learn from it and move on.

Speaker 3: 17:28

That's right, and they did improve the systems they then put in I don't think it was just because of me, I think it probably happened a lot they put in place a failsafe eventually where where you did these manual orders, if it was X percent above, kind of like the average daily sales value, it would like up and say are you sure you want this money? So unfortunately just didn't have that when I made the mistake.

Speaker 2: 17:49

Yeah, that's wise. I mean, even you know, thinking of that from an ordering standpoint, it's. It's funny how that was not the standard until you and several others had, you know, made that mistake enough that they said, oh yeah, this is something we really need to pay attention to. You know, I think of there's a, there's an app that I use occasionally, whenever I'm at the gym, right, whenever I'm working out, and it's funny because it'll say, you know, like, do 20 of these or what, you know, 20 curls or something, and if you accidentally hit an extra zero, it will pop up and say are you sure that's 400 percent above what you said or what it was recommended for you, or something? And it's oh yeah, I hit an extra digit in there somewhere, so it's good to have those fail safes in there.

Speaker 3: 18:35

Yeah, it is, and I think the systems to be fair in my defense and everyone else's defense who made this mistake they were extraordinarily antiquated. I think they're a lot better now. They certainly weren't as modern as they should have been. They worked, but they often work by the skin of their teeth and one of the things I worked on at the time was improving those systems and looking how, how you could improve both the user interface of the systems but also the reporting back, because one of the things I liked most about that job was seeing the reports at the end of the day, the end of the week, the end of the month, like how many units of soul?

Speaker 3: 19:11

And you could. You could look at everything. You could look at individual products, you could compare yourself to other branches, you could look at the group total of these things and I absolutely loved all this data. But it used to come out in the most horrible way on like printed sheets and it was all very, very sort of undigestible and I think you could download into spreadsheets and things. But one of the things that we worked on was like how can you improve that visually so you could automatically look at how you ranked in a chart compared to other branches, so it actually became a lot more useful. So there was a lot of great stuff with the systems that happened and has happened since I left.

Speaker 2: 19:50

Yeah, so, okay. So I just I'm all I can say here and just think of like 2000 batteries or whatever coming in and you're like, oh no, no, we can't do this, but no, I think that's. It's really cool to hear your journey. So you came in, you came in through through John Lewis, and then where did you kind of move from there? What? What was your next step like?

Speaker 3: 20:17

Well, the next step was to work for a company called Verdig Research, which eventually became a company called Data Monitor, and that was really a research and analysis firm and doing consulting as well off the back of the research and analysis, and I worked in the retail part of that business and so basically it was doing what I'd been doing at John Lewis, but it was doing it for lots of different clients on a much wider range of projects.

Speaker 3: 20:45

And that's one of the reasons why I left John Lewis, because, as much as I love the business and I love the whole business model of the John Lewis because it's a partnership that's owned by the staff I wanted the challenge of doing a much greater variety of work across different sectors, different retailers and really getting to understand lots of different businesses. And Verdig and then Data Monitor provided me with that opportunity. And that was a wonderful lesson because it just expanded my whole knowledge of retail. It expanded my knowledge of different types of business, the different types of challenges, business-faced, different solutions that could be put in place, all sorts of different projects, and we had data coming in from all over the place. I mean we had consumer research data, we had retailer panel data, we had receipt data, we had our own analysis, we had forecasters, we had economic data and it was just like a kid in a candy shop basically, my eyes just lit up all these different data that you could use on the project. So I really, really enjoyed that job.

Speaker 2: 21:51

Well, and when you have that mindset of understanding that, like you're saying, the data's there, but unless you can interpret it it's cumbersome, right. And so to have someone like you who can go in and see the data and go, oh well, this is the story it's telling, then that makes it a lot more accessible for not only the leadership but then also putting it back to the stores, putting it back to the consumers, and I would imagine that probably just made it a lot more enjoyable all around, right. I mean, everybody gets to see hey, I don't have to deal with the data, but you can tell me the story from it.

Speaker 3: 22:35

Oh, absolutely, and I think that's the biggest lesson really, in a way, that I learned from being in that kind of environment. It's that the data are interesting but they have to do something. And to do something you have to really analyze them thoroughly, extract what's useful and then tell the story out to them, get the insight out to them that allows you to go and do something on the ground that makes material difference to the business. And I think that still holds true today. I mean, you often see a lot of data that float around in the media, in reports and elsewhere, and there's a big so what factor to it? It's like, well, this is kind of interesting, but it's like so what? What does it mean? And I think you always have to nail things through to an ultimate conclusion.

Speaker 3: 23:21

Sometimes it's difficult, sometimes the data don't show much, and that's fine. You can say they don't show much, but very often you have to dig deep and try and tessellate things and put things together so that you come out with a story that's very informative and easy to grasp. And that's that's really important, because I think in retail, as in every industry, some folks are very numeric. I mean, I love looking at a big spreadsheet of data, but you put that in front of a lot of people and they're like I don't look at numbers, I don't like numbers, they're afraid of numbers Right yeah.

Speaker 3: 23:52

So you have to tell them the story or visualize it. And one of the interesting things there is we we still do do a lot of work for IKEA. They're one of our biggest clients. But back then IKEA was also one of our clients in the early days and we used to do a kind of quarterly presentation to them. We used to go and present to the board of the UK IKEA and we used to present what we thought was going on the market, what we thought of them. We used to monitor all sorts of things like pricing and we used to make it really visual and exciting.

Speaker 3: 24:20

And one day the then managing director of IKEA UK said you know, he said we love your data, we love your insights, we love all the consulting work you do for us, but you know what we think. Actually you should come in and give us lessons on how to present data and how to tell stories, because you do that really well. And that was like wow, that's a really nice compliment. It's like no one has ever said that to us before. But I think that really drummed home to myself and my colleagues who are presenting Like yeah, like how you tell the story, how you show the data is sometimes just as important as the data itself, and I think that's one of the greatest sort of come downs or the greatest shame of data sometimes is people sometimes have great data, they just display it in an awful way and it's like you, it just falls on stony ground and it's. It's such a shame because that storytelling is. We like stories, we're humans and it's very important, I think, with data.

Speaker 2: 25:15

Yeah, absolutely. I think that it's. That is so true because we do love story, we do love understanding that, and so it's not usually that people have no interest in the story, it's that if the story is not consumable by them in a way that they, that they can understand, well then it's like you said, it just kind of falls on stony ground, it just kind of goes over, it doesn't take root, you're not really going to, you know, they're not going to grasp it, they're not going to say, oh, I want more of that, because they just don't understand it. It's not necessarily a good or bad data situation, right, it's just it's in that presentation. So now, that's a huge compliment.

Speaker 2: 25:55

And you know, it's funny because one of the one of the topics I wanted to touch on too was I've seen, like I said, I've seen you featured on a lot of different news resources, and you know, one of my questions that I had was why do you think that is? But I mean, obviously it's because of the storytelling, right, like it's because you're able to take something that could be to the broad masses, something that is so detailed, right, and so you have a lot of different areas and angles to it. What's that been like for you, I guess, being able to be that figure that gets out and speaks all these different news channels and everything about the data of what's going on in retail.

Speaker 3: 26:38

Well, I think for me I mean, I don't really look at the coverage I think our press team monitors that but for me, to be honest, I just like talking about retail. I mean, it's quite simple. So when a journalist calls up or gets in touch, I'm always really happy to chat to them because they're kind of digging as well. They want the story what's the showing, where is it going, what's the truth behind this? And I like that. It's very investigative and so I love talking to them and I think that's very helpful. And being able to tell the story and be clear about the data is very important as well.

Speaker 3: 27:12

But I think the other trick to it if there are tricks to it is to be honest and not be afraid to give opinions. And that's something that it comes over time, because when I first started I wouldn't really give opinions. I wasn't confident enough. I don't think I had the experience, I don't think I earned the right to give opinions on things. I was still learning. But over time I have learned a lot, as we all do as we go through our careers, and I now will give opinions that I'm not afraid to give opinions on things, even if they're very blunt opinions. They are opinions. People are free to agree or disagree. But I tell it like it is because I don't really see the point to be honest in life, and especially not in research, of not telling the truth. You have to be balanced, you have to be fair, but you should also tell it like it is. You have to speak the truth of what you see and I think one of the reasons genus like it is because, to be quite honest and I know why they do it and I would do the same if I was in that position a lot of very senior management in retail they'll spin their story that they have to.

Speaker 3: 28:18

They have to say what they think the market wants to hear. They have to put a positive gloss on things. But sometimes what they're saying is not the reality on the ground and we all know it's not the reality on the ground. So it's very important to have someone saying well, hang on a minute, you're saying this is happening, but I'm not seeing it. It's not coming through in the data, it's not coming through on the shop floor, it's not coming through in terms of what your colleagues are saying on the shop floor.

Speaker 3: 28:42

So you have to sort of hold the industry to account, as it were, and I think you do a fairly good job of that, not just myself, but my colleagues as well, and we have all sort of learned over time to be opinionated and opinion-led based on fact, obviously, absolutely, and it's something we drill into our new recruits. We say to them look, when you have the confidence, don't be afraid to say what you think, especially internally to us. Always speak as you think something is, and we can have better dialogues that way. That's how we improve things, that's how we reach the truth of things.

Speaker 2: 29:22

Yeah, absolutely. I think one thing that you just kind of inspired in my thoughts there were be willing to speak your opinion. As long as it's rooted in fact, as long as it's rooted in what you truly believe to understand, then that's great. I think the only thing I might add to that would be and be open to changing your mind if you're proven otherwise. That's where I think a lot of us get stuck is going hey, I can be opinionated and then well, I'll just agree to disagree. But whenever you're opinionated but also willing to learn and continue to grow, I think that's phenomenal.

Speaker 2: 29:58

I think that's where, like exactly to your point, I think a lot of people are afraid to be opinionated. They're afraid to speak out the truth because it might offend somebody, it might bother somebody or it might contradict someone else's opinion. But if your opinion is firmly rooted and you actually have good data to back it up, well then by all means speak your opinion and have an educated conversation. I think that's really really wise for anyone, not just in the retail industry but in life.

Speaker 3: 30:28

Yeah, and I think that's what's great about the Brain Trust as well, because I think the Brain Trust does have a lot of people who will share opinions very openly and sometimes people will disagree always very politely, I have to say. But it's really interesting to read through those comments because you see slightly different perspectives and, as you say, if you're open, sometimes it does shift your opinion slightly and you'll say, yeah, actually you know what? I hadn't looked at that angle before. That's really interesting and it sort of makes your opinion more nuanced and balanced and it's a great forum for that discussion, I think, because everyone has such good experience, they're all very open to sharing and it's a very safe forum. I don't think people feel afraid to share their opinions. But also it makes it more valuable for the reader, because you don't want to read 20 comments saying exactly the same thing. You also don't want to read comments that just basically restate the facts. It's dull, it's like well, I knew that already. What you want is something that makes you think and you sort of sit up and say, oh, and this is interesting because this actually is very much the ethos of the John Lewis partnership where I started.

Speaker 3: 31:32

John Lewis is a mutually owned cooperative. It's owned by the people who work there. Any profit after investments is divided up and paid out as a bonus to all of the staff. Everyone gets the same percentage of their salary as the bonus. But one of the things that's enshrined in the Constitution of John Lewis is that it is your business, as in the people who work there, and it's your absolute right to speak out to say what you think.

Speaker 3: 32:01

And people are allowed to write into the house newspaper, the Gazette and some of the letters. When I was there they used to be anonymous. I'm not sure they are anymore, but they used to be anonymous and people used to give themselves funny names. They were quite peppery. I mean, some people used to be really blunt brutally blunt about criticism of senior management and senior management have to answer in the replies to the letters in the magazine that came out weekly. It was refreshing. It was actually like, well, it can be painful, but it's the right thing to do, because these are the people that work there. They have a right to have this say, and actually some great ideas come from people on the shop floor, people who are out in the vans, people in the warehouses, and it was that culture of listening, and I think that that probably is one of the areas that I get where I am today in terms of being not afraid to share opinions and trying to be open.

Speaker 2: 32:52

Yeah, would you say that's probably one of the bigger things you've learned about yourself through this journey, or kind of what has been your finding about who you are and how you operate.

Speaker 3: 33:05

I think, yes, I think definitely building confidence to have opinions and use data to take it to the next level so you can be very descriptive and take it forward into having that point of view. I've definitely learned that. Storytelling is another thing that I've learned. I think the other thing that I've learned is which is not really to do with retail, I think it's just a live lesson is that almost every problem you come across is solvable.

Speaker 3: 33:35

Yeah, I am definitely someone who is on the side of perfection and I used to get not upset but very anxious, I think, when things weren't right, either in the work I was doing or sometimes like in personal life or at home as well. Yeah, and I still retain that perfectionist streak. For example, if I'm doing a presentation, everything has to be aligned properly and you know the fonts have to be be right. It drives me mad when someone sends me something that's like can you not see this? It's just like misaligned. So I'm very structured like that.

Speaker 3: 34:08

But I think I've learned that you know every problem that you come across in work or an issue like ordering those too many batteries. It's really not the end of the world. You can solve it and get around it. You just have to be tenacious about it and logical about it. So now I would say I'm a lot more relaxed as a person and a lot more relaxed in my career than perhaps I was at the start, and that's been a good lesson for me. I probably can go a bit further in that direction.

Speaker 2: 34:40

And you know, I think that that speaks a lot to you know your growth and kind of just your own journey there.

Speaker 2: 34:46

Because that is one thing where it's okay it's completely okay to want things to be right and correct and true, but then also you have to remember there's that human element to anything right, Just like your manager did, whenever there was the one ordering fumble, they still remembered you're a person right.

Speaker 2: 35:05

They still remembered, oh, there's a human here involved, and so, yeah, let's learn, let's move forward from it. You know, and so you know. I just think that's important for everybody as we just continue to grow and I think, speaking directly about retail right now, there are so many areas of retail that are being changed around. Some of them are going through big growth, some of them are going through some shrinking right, and so there's some shifts. Unfortunately, there's been some companies recently that they've seen their last days, and then there's other companies that are just taking off and different brands and different technologies that are kind of emerging. Now, thinking of retail and kind of the current state that it's in, what are you excited for right now? What do you see like whenever you read something about? You know, read about a specific topic or anything. What is something that just really gets you excited.

Speaker 3: 36:02

Well, I'm very excited to see how people continue to integrate technology. I think this is one of the great challenges and great opportunities, because we're getting to a stage in technology now where there's so many questions around AI, there's so many questions around automation. I think there's some really creative ways that we can apply this to retail and to make the sector better for workers and make it ultimately better for consumers. I think we're still in the very embryonic days. It's a bit like the early days of computers, before they came around. When things started to computerize, you would have a lot of different attempts to experiment and try different things. I think we're in that stage with AI now.

Speaker 3: 36:47

I think a lot of people are testing it. They're looking at how it can be deployed in the business. No one has real answers to it. Of course, there'll be multiple strategies that work for different retailers. I think it's really exciting to see how different people are deploying it, how different people are viewing it as a solution for retail. I think in 10 years' time, we'll probably be still trying out a lot of things. It'll be fascinating to look back and see that journey and how we've evolved to the state that we're in, because I think, fundamentally, retail will be the same. I think how it works in a lot of senses could be very different for the consumer and for the people who work in retail, but for better and worse.

Speaker 2: 37:29

Yeah, absolutely no. I agree with that completely. I think that's been one of the things that I've continued to see and say as well is retail, at the end of the day, is all about person-to-person interaction. The vehicle, kind of like what you're talking about the way that it happens might be different over time, but in the end it's still a person-to-person interaction, end-to-end. So that's really good to see. And, thinking of technology and everything, I want to get your hot take on this one. This will date the episode. That's okay, whatever. But here's my question. So I've been seeing a lot about Amazon One lately with their little wave your palm and it's got the palm recognition technology to it. What's just your hot take on it? What's just your thoughts about it and technology of that type that, when it comes to security and when it comes to that unique application of it, well, I think the technology itself is absolutely fantastic.

Speaker 3: 38:28

I mean it's absolutely amazing, when you think about it, that this technology could be put in place. I mean, if I saw this technology when I was a child, it would be a Harry Potter type thing. It'd be like wow, this is like how does this work? How does this happen? I think we've become a bit more jaded to it now because we see so many technological things, but it still is amazing technology. I think it does have an application. I mean, look, it does save a bit of time if you can wave your palm. It is technically more secure than other methods. I'm not quite sure it saves so much time and is that much more secure than something like Apple Pay, but it's definitely better than paying by card. So I think it does have an application.

Speaker 3: 39:04

I think the two issues with it are, first of all, the obvious issue that some people don't like it. They think it gives up too much privacy. It's biometric data to a certain extent and we have to address those concerns. They're very reasonable concerns and I think it is a barrier to adoption. I mean, amazon is not saying that everyone has to use this. It's optional still, so I can take it or leave it, which is the right way to approach it, but I don't think everyone likes it.

Speaker 3: 39:30

The other thing is, I like technology. I like technology that makes things simpler, that makes things more seamless and takes out friction, but honestly, it's not a game changer. It's a bit like the Amazon Go stores. They are fantastic in terms of what they do and Amazon has led the way in building that type of technology. But as far as the customer's concerned, does it make a difference?

Speaker 3: 39:52

No, not really. It doesn't make you go to that store over another store. What makes you go to the store is all emotional. It's the quality of the food, the ambiance, the customer service you get, because you like the brands there, because the prices are really good, because it's close to you. It's emotional decisions that often drive where you shop, and I think that's. If I had one criticism of Amazon, it's that sometimes they are very technical and they're absolutely brilliant at being technical. They're not always quite so good at that emotional side, but that's OK. I mean that shows why they're not really a threat that some people make them out to be. They have weaknesses as well as advantages, as every retailer does. So that's kind of where I stand on that type of technology.

Speaker 2: 40:37

Yeah, I think it's fascinating. I think it's going to be really cool to see where I mean, we're recording this in 2023,. I'm excited to see where we're at in 2025. Two years down the road we're going to have tons of different applications, I think, between this and AI and everything else we're doing. So that'll be fun. And are there any brands I know you mentioned, like Amazon just now, but are there any brands or anything that you're kind of really paying extra close attention to right now and just kind of watching them lead the way? Or maybe you have some hesitations about them or anything?

Speaker 3: 41:13

Well, I think I mean I watch all the brands really. I mean it's a bit of an issue because there's so many to watch, as you know.

Speaker 2: 41:19

Yeah, it seems like every day there's like a thousand more right so oh yeah, it's incredible.

Speaker 3: 41:26

I mean it's difficult to keep up with it, especially when it gets into earning season. Everyone's putting out results at the same time.

Speaker 2: 41:30

Oh yeah. And we're about to go we tried to look through all the press releases on everything and we try to sort through all that. And it seems like every day, there's like 57 different press releases. It's about such and such company releases quarterly earnings and we're going. Ok, this is nice. Unfortunately, I don't need this for my application right now, but we'll keep that in mind, thank you.

Speaker 3: 41:54

Yeah, it's like drinking from a fire hose there's too much stuff it is, but it says what I'm keeping an eye on. I think Gap I'm keeping a close eye on because obviously there's just been a change in leadership and the new leadership incoming seems to have very good skills and talents and I'm hoping that it is going to mark the start of a proper turnaround at Gap, because the company has had so many false starts and I think it's a great shame. Gap was a pioneer and it's still a big company in a lot of ways, but the core Gap brand has lost a lot of its credibility. It doesn't really know who its core customer is. And I like turnarounds. I always and people say this sometimes on the retail why like, oh, you can't turn them around. I always hate that because it's like I honestly believe anything can be turned around with enough F and application. Whether it's worth turning around is another question, but I think humans are very innovative and we can do most of the stuff we put our mind to, and I'd love to see Gap implement a turnaround and start doing better and I feel more optimistic with the leadership coming in than I've felt in a while, whether they succeed or not. I mean, it remains to be seen, but it's going to be fascinating to watch and I really wish them luck and hope they start to make those changes.

Speaker 3: 43:09

So I'm keeping a close eye on that Amazon. I'm keeping a very close eye on Amazon because I think they're at a bit of a crossroads at the moment. They're tremendously successful, but they're trying to make better inroads to grocery and they're putting in a lot of work there. They're also very mature in a lot of markets and we've got a new lot of upstarts like Sheehan and Timu, and I'm really interested to see the response to that.

Speaker 3: 43:37

And I'm also keeping a close eye on the regulatory side as well. That's a side that really worries me for the Amazon business and what happens there. I don't think that a lot of the criticisms that are levied at Amazon are particularly fair or reasonable, but nevertheless there is this legislative threat, and it's unfortunately a threat that is very difficult to deal with, because when you have an issue like your customers don't like you, or your customers aren't shopping with you, you can remedy it and change it and you can do it pretty quickly. I think with legal things and regulatory things, it's a lot more difficult to influence and have control over them, so I'm watching that very closely as well.

Speaker 2: 44:21

Yeah, I think it will definitely be interesting to see kind of going back to my other statement of where we're at with Amazon in two years, because I think that you're right, we are at a crossroads. We are at a point where there's going to be some big things that come down the pipeline that they may or may not even have control over, but it's going to impact them in such a way that it could shift their business model a little bit. So I'm excited to see where that goes. Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 3: 44:51

I was going to say, yeah, it's going to be very, very interesting to see. And I think that's one of the great things about retail, because if we go back 10, 15, 20 years, the story was all about Walmart and how Walmart was taking over the world. Now the story has been about Amazon and now the story is shifting again and it's starting to be like oh, what about Sheehan and Teemu and what are they doing? And I think that's one of the great things. Retail is very it's a very open playing field and in some sense it's a very level playing field and you can get people coming into the industry and disrupting it in a way that you just don't get, I think, in some of the big industrial type sectors, because the barriers to entry in those sectors are so high.

Speaker 3: 45:38

Retail has comparatively low barriers to entry and that's why it's so fascinating, because you have this constant change. But also, as well as the big pledge, you've got a whole bunch of small independent stores who collectively take billions of dollars in terms of sales and they innovate and push things forward as well. So it's a sector that's in constant flux, constant change and, as you know, it keeps us all on our toes, which I think is a really, really good thing, and it keeps all the retailers on their toes as well, because if you stop paying attention for a second, you can start to fail, and, as you mentioned, we've seen that Retailers do fail on quite a regular basis Big retailers like Bed, bath and Beyond. They fail because they don't do the right things, and that means that the sector is one that you've got to really be alert in and you've got to constantly evolve, constantly change up what you do, and that, yeah, it's stressful, but it's also great fun as well.

Speaker 2: 46:40

Well, and you do have to begin to bring it back to your core area of consumer behavior and understanding those metrics. I think that's one of the areas where, again, bed Bath and Beyond they're out of here now and so, watching them, I feel like they kind of landed. They were kind of like the jock in high school, right, they were maybe the football quarterback, the captain, the team or something, and they had their one-trick pony. That was what they ran on, right. And I think, just speaking from my understanding from the consumer side, it looked like they were banking so heavily on everybody coming in for their 20% off coupons and the big banners, the sales and oh, there's big flashy numbers over here.

Speaker 2: 47:26

But ultimately, every time I kept walking into a Bed Bath and Beyond store before, it was always I would walk in with hopes of finding a wonderful item and immediately upon walking through the doors I would just feel completely overwhelmed because everything just looked muddied, everything looked very kind of just. I don't know I'm not going to bash the floor mod person because they had their job to do, but there was a time when everything stood out really well and then, I think over the last 10 years, eight years, something like that. It just felt like the floor mods were laid out in such a way that nothing really made sense at least, and so it was kind of harder to shop as a consumer, to go through and find certain things I was looking for, and they had lots of trinkets, but then whenever it came to that higher end product that I was actually looking for, you would find it occasionally spread out, but it wasn't the feature anymore. So, yeah, we'll see what happens now in the next few years of retail. It's going to be a wild ride, I know that.

Speaker 2: 48:34

So, looking back as we kind of wrap up here, if you could go back in time this is why I love to end every episode with this but if you could go back in time to when you were just getting started on your own retail journey, understanding yourself better now than you ever have before, what would you go back and tell yourself? Is there something that you would change, or is there something you would encourage yourself more in or try to dissuade yourself from in any way?

Speaker 3: 49:05

It's a really great question and I didn't really prepare it, even though I know you asked this question For podcasts. I think, honestly, I would tell myself to enjoy the ride, because I do enjoy the ride very much now. I think when I was younger, I was a lot more serious than I am now. I was a lot more sort of uptight and concerned about things already mentioned, like seeing things as a problem and not necessarily understanding that everything can be solved ultimately, and whilst I think you should take life and work very seriously, you also have to get the most out of it and you have to enjoy it and you have to not take things too seriously. I think that's what I would tell myself. I think I would probably have enjoyed my. I did enjoy my younger days. It's not that they were horribly times, but I think I was just a lot more intense back then and I think I didn't sort of almost like pause enough just to savor everything and to enjoy it.

Speaker 2: 50:13

And it was really the moment that you were in. While you were in it.

Speaker 3: 50:16

Yeah, I think I was always dashing on to the next thing. It was like, oh, I need to do this, I need to do this, I need to do this. And there's still an element of that in me. I'm still quite an impatient person and I think all traits have positives and negatives, and so in some ways I don't want to change things because I kind of like aspects of traits and dislike other aspects. But I definitely now am a lot mellower and I do savor things a lot more. I really just enjoy the experience of work or personal life or whatever I'm doing, and that's something I would have told myself. But the problem is I could go back, but I absolutely wouldn't have taken any notice whatsoever. I would have probably said what do you know? Even though you're from the future and you're me, you know nothing.

Speaker 2: 51:00

I'll continue to do that.

Speaker 3: 51:02

Yeah, exactly, I think that's a good thing about life. I think over time it's like sediment it builds up, you get the experiences and hopefully you become a more rounded and a better person in all aspects. And yeah, I'll continue to strive for that.

Speaker 2: 51:19

Good. I think that's a great reminder for everybody here. Enjoy the time you're in, just be in the moment. The easier way of saying that would be live while you're alive, right. Just act like you're able to enjoy it.

Speaker 3: 51:34

Exactly. I'd be grateful for every day that you've got, because it's a very cliched adage, but you don't know when it will be the last. And it's there for the taking, and it's there for the experiencing.

Speaker 2: 51:49

I have a friend of mine who he actually has a. He's got an app that will occasionally go off random times throughout his day and I think he has it set four or five times a day and it just says reminder, one day you're going to die, or it'll say something like that. And he's like some people will look at this. He goes I got dark humor, but he goes some people look at this as a negative way of like oh my goodness, yeah, why would I ever want to be reminded of that? And he goes to me it's just that reminder to live and he's like one day you will die. So right now that's not that day, so let's live.

Speaker 3: 52:30

Exactly. I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 2: 52:32

Well, neil, thank you so much. If people want to learn more about you, I would imagine they can follow you on LinkedIn. Is that probably the best place, or is there a different website or any way that they can kind of follow along on the journey of Neil?

Speaker 3: 52:45

Sure, If people want to follow along on the journey of Neil, LinkedIn is a good place. Twitter is also very good. I do lots of daily news updates on Twitter. I try to share all the retail news I come across. And also on the weekends, as I mentioned, I will often go out into the mall. So you can see my trips to retailers, especially Macy's, and some people have said it's very enjoyable. I'm not quite sure why. I'm quite sarcastic about what I see on the shop floor. I often try to pull out things that don't look so good. People engage much more with that kind of content than saying, oh look, this is a wonderful display. So if you want to see what I'm up to in the mall, Twitter is the place and Neil retail, or one word, is the handle. Oh, it's not Twitter anymore anyway, is it? It's X?

Speaker 2: 53:27

I think it's X. Now right, no, no, no, no, oh goodness, yeah, that's a little different podcast for another episode there.

Speaker 2: 53:37

So it is Well, I will make sure and put your LinkedIn and your Twitter handle down in the description of this episode so people can follow along there. By the way, you did get me paying a lot more attention to stores like Macy's and Dillard's whenever I go in and I will say I was in a Dillard's the other day, this is probably two weeks ago, three weeks ago and the one here in Northwest Arkansas specifically is very well-kept. They take great care of it here, so I thought it was merchandise well. The people actually were very attentive, so that was good.

Speaker 3: 54:11

It's funny. I agree with that because we have the claim to fame of Scottsdale. Well, one of the claims of fame is we have the biggest Dillards in the world in Scottsdale Russian Square. I don't know how I found this fact out, but it is true. It's somewhere on the Dillard's website buried away and it is an enormous store. It's cavernous, it's probably far too big, to be honest, for what they need, but I have to say it's kind of old-fashioned but it's nice. It's like retail used to be and the founding family are still running it and you can see these old-fashioned retail standards and disciplines and customer service. And Dillards have done really well over the past few years and I'm really pleased with that because I think they do make an effort and I honestly think they deserve to do well because of all the department stores in the US, dillards I think it really tries and it doesn't necessarily get everything right, but they make the effort and it's nice to see people who make the effort winning. So yeah, that's great that you found the same thing. We're aligned.

Speaker 2: 55:11

I've been following you on Twitter and I'm just like, yeah, no, this is a very real experience. So I have definitely found it useful and enjoyable and definitely entertaining for me too. So, anyway, that's good, all right.

Speaker 2: 55:25

Well, thank you so much, neil, for stopping by. I really appreciate you taking time today. If this is your first time listening to the Retail Wire Podcast, be sure and hit that subscribe button. Hope you've enjoyed it. If there's anything that you have heard today that you would like more information on, drop a comment down below. You can also find us. If you want to see what Neil and I look like, for whatever reason that might be, then you could go to our YouTube channel, the Retail Wire YouTube channel, and you can find us there because we have this in video format as well. But yeah, this will be another wonderful episode from our Retail Wire Meet the Brain Trust series. So thanks again for being here. We really appreciate you and we'll see you next time here on the Retail Wire Podcast.

Speaker 1: 56:08

Thanks for tuning in to the Retail Wire Podcast. We hope you enjoyed the episode. Be sure to subscribe to us on your favorite podcasting platform and leave us a comment for a chance to hear it read on the next show. See you next time here on the Retail Wire Podcast.