The Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are the foundation of the next major shift in the retail technology landscape – the intelligent edge. Edge computing allows data to be accessed where it is created and enables business processes outside the core IT environment.   

Retail margins are under pressure from all directions – labour costs, supply chain challenges, inflation, and digital budgets that need to meet customer expectations – yet retailers are missing opportunities to automate store management.  

Technology transformations are often touted as the holy grail of business change and rejuvenation. This feeds into an expectation that the transformation project will change everything for the better overnight. And since it is a 'cloud' system, it will be like stealing candy from a child. Clearly, people have never really tried stealing candy from children – or they wouldn't find the raging tantrum that ensues 'easy'.

To deliver value and accelerate growth, enterprises need to change their fundamental approach and add speed and accuracy to the various business processes. New digital technologies present both game-changing opportunities for and existential threats to companies whose success was built in the pre-digital economy. Digital transformation is a pre-requisite for sustainable growth and in some cases, survival of enterprises in the current dynamic and pace-driven market.

Modern innovations, such as Robotics Process Automation (RPA), Cognitive Process Automation (CPA) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) allow businesses to accelerate their digital transformation journey and reap the rewards of increased customer engagement and improved worker productivity, faster.

With the take-up of automation increasing rapidly across industries, AI-driven bots are at the centre of business process improvement, helping to enhance the user’s experience -- and customer engagement more generally -- with more intuitive, easy-to-use interfaces.

According to MIT Sloan Management Review, we are embarking on a journey where the rules-driven bots will be replaced by Artificial Intelligence or AI-driven bots that have the capability to self-learn and continuously improve their knowledge, just like humans. The technologies that are powering such AI bots are Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML). AI bots are well on the way to becoming intelligent personal assistants for consumers across many industries.