Retail Relates
'Retail Relates' is not just a podcast; it's a journey into the heart of retail and commerce. Our episodes traverse the path from traditional marketplaces to digital platforms, highlighting the successes, trials, and invaluable lessons learned along the way. We're conversing with those shaping the industry—from the front lines to behind the scenes, the creative minds to the global strategists - offering a diverse 360-degree perspective. We're revealing the relationships and personal narratives that make retail engaging and accessible. 'Retail Relates' is an invitation to explore the world's interconnectedness through the lens of retail, encouraging listeners to discover the personal journeys and stories of those who drive innovation and unite us across cultures and continents.
Retail Relates
Transforming Global Retail through Innovative Intelligence: A Conversation with Deborah Weinswig
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Discover how a childhood surrounded by intellectual conversations and the influence of a trailblazing mother in finance shaped the charismatic Deborah Weinswig, founder and CEO of Coresight Research. Her aspirations, from being a doctor to discovering accounting and then eventually analytics, coupled with a love for technology, paint a vivid picture of unexpected career pivots. Deborah's story unfolds with personal anecdotes about how playing the violin sharpened her listening skills, critical in her roles as an analyst and strategist, and how the wisdom imparted by her mother guided her through professional challenges.
Mentorship plays a starring role in overcoming obstacles and seizing opportunities. Through personal stories and experiences, we explore how guidance from mentors can illuminate paths previously unseen. From competitive tax and audit programs to navigating overwhelming work commitments, listening and seeking advice from mentors has been a constant and invaluable resource. Deborah shares her gratitude for the support received as she ventured into an adjunct role, underscoring the ongoing significance of mentorship in cultivating professional growth and resilience.
Coresight Research is at the forefront of retail transformation, utilizing technology and AI to redefine the industry. This episode highlights how the company assists C-suite executives with strategic insights and innovative solutions, supported by a global team spanning nine countries. Debra and I delve into the challenges and opportunities in retail, from legacy systems to the transformative potential of predictive AI. We also reflect on the tensions between short-term pressures and long-term strategies, inspired by leaders like Mike Ullman, whose patience and people-first approach leaves a lasting legacy in the dynamic world of retail.
Biography:
Deborah Weinswig, CEO and Founder of Coresight Research Inc., leads the Coresight Research team to provide actionable insights and solutions for retailers and brands that accelerate innovation and growth in the fast-changing retail and technology landscape.
Previously, Deborah served as Managing Director of Fung Global Retail and Technology (FGRT), the think tank of Fung Group. Previously, she was Managing Director and Head of the Global Staples & Consumer Discretionary team at Citi Research.
Deborah has been a trusted thought leader at the crossroads of technology, finance, and retail for nearly two decades. As a leading analyst and strategist, Deborah has deep expertise in AI, Metaverse, China, live streaming, retail media, supply chain, commercial real estate, and data monetization. In 2023, Deborah conceptualized and launched the first AI Council for the retail industry.
Deborah is a best-selling author and a board member of several prominent retail and technology companies and several charitable organizations. A member of the prestigious LinkedIn Top Voices program, Deborah is recognized as one of the top retail influencers in the world and has received multiple awards and honors for her industry leadership and impact.
Deborah has been invited to share her insights and Coresight Research data at over 200 events across the world including the Consumer Electronics Show, ShopTalk, World Retail Congress, NRF, ICSC, Money 20/20, Retail Innovation Conference & Expo, Future Stores Summit, NACDS, Total Retail Tech, Groceryshop, Women in Retail, NACS and more.
Today's guest on Retail Relates is Deborah Weinswig, Founder and CEO of Coresight Research Inc. She leads the team to provide actionable insights and solutions for retailers and brands that accelerate innovation and growth in the fast-changing retail and technology landscape. Previously, she served as Managing Director of Fung Global Retail and Technology FGRT, the think tank of Fung Group. Previously, she was man director and head of the global staples and consumer discretionary team at Citi Research. Deborah has been a trusted thought leader at the crossroads of technology, finance and retail for nearly two decades. As a leading analyst and strategist, debra has deep expertise in AI, metaverse, china live streaming, retail media, supply chain, commercial real estate and data monetization. In 2023, Deborah conceptualized and launched the first AI council for the retail industry. Deborah is a bestselling author and a board member of several prominent retail and technology companies and several charitable organizations. A member of the prestigious LinkedIn Top Voices program, Deborah is recognized as one of the top retail influencers in the world and has received multiple awards and honors for her industry leadership and impact. Deb's been invited to share her insights and core site research data at over 200 events across the world, including the Consumer Electronics Show, shop Talk, world Retail Congress, nrf, icsc, money 2020, retail Innovation Conference and Expo Future Store Summit.
Paula:Nacds. Total Retail Tech Grocery Shop. Women in Retail, nacs. Deborah, we are so excited to have you join us at Retail Relates. Welcome to the podcast. We want to get to know you a little bit, so, instead of asking you the standard questions of you know, tell me about yourself. Your bio is going to be in the show notes, but tell me what were the three pivotal moments in either your professional or personal career.
Deborah:You know it's interesting because I think back to kind of what were some of the things that helped define kind of who I am and what I do. So one growing up in our home we had like a tiny little 13 inch black and white and that was it. We had no TV, and so we had really deep dives at the dinner table. My mother had a finance background and worked at PepsiCo and my father was a real rocket scientist and worked at ITT in aerospace and aeronautical, and so we really talked about very academic topics and went deep and everybody at the dinner table had an equal kind of part in the conversation and so in some ways you almost felt like you had to do your homework, research, before you got to the dinner table. Why I bring that up is that as I progressed throughout my career, I thought I wanted to be a doctor, couldn't stand the sight of blood, but only realized that after going to school for pre-med and I was like I love numbers right, I'll go into accounting because that's numbers and so that was probably about as much thought as I put into it and I did love it. The practice of it was much different than theoretical. I probably would have enjoyed like a PhD in accounting. But in terms of the practicing accounting, I ended up going to PWC, and so you go to job sites for six, eight, 12 weeks. You know you have lunch with new people all the time, and when people didn't know each other, they talk about what they watch on TV. But I would have nothing to talk about because I didn't watch TV. And so I would work through lunch and you know, my bosses were always like oh, you're such a hard worker. So I got promoted very early, but it was interesting kind of appearance. I was also very early on somebody who had a cell phone. So if I was going to be literally two minutes late, I would call my manager. And they were like you know, other people will be late, they're not calling because they don't have cell phones. And so it was interesting kind of what really mattered. And I thought about this a lot professionally right, I would tell people if I was going to be a minute late, let's say on the innovation edge. I was one of the only people who was doing that. And then, secondly, this appearance at least, and, yes, did I work through lunch? Because I would be sitting there talking to myself if I wasn't. That is what helped me basically get through where most people got in three years and a year and a half. It really kind of stayed with me throughout my career and so I would say, sometimes the foundations of what you do at home you don't realize, kind of, how they impact you and you don't know where they impact you. So that was one.
Deborah:Secondly, I played the violin growing up. Now the reason I played the violin is my brother played the violin and I would see my parents pay all this attention to him every day and I'm like, oh, I got to play the violin. We learned in the Suzuki method, right, because we were very young and you can't read or we couldn't read music. And the Suzuki method is about listening and so because of that, right in conversations, I remember almost word for word what people say, and it's also one of the reasons I've been so comfortable in other geographies, because I can really understand what people are saying and learn languages fairly quickly. And so this idea about listening is, I think, really important, because so many people are thinking about what they're going to say next, that they're talking over you, as opposed to listening to what you're saying and, as an analyst, remembering those conversations, writing things down. We all record everything like we're recording this. But I do think the second for me was playing the violin.
Deborah:And then the third was my mother was an early professional in finance and a female. I looked up to her amazingly and she gave me pieces of advice that I don't even know if she knew she was passing them along. But she's like never say no, you don't want to hurt people's feelings. And maybe at the point in time where they're asking you, she's like say maybe, and if someone's talking about something and you really truly don't know what to say or you're really not, it's not something. She's like just say that's so interesting, but this idea that you're positive and you're upbeat and you're constructive, you're not committing to things that you're not going to do. Then she said, right, never tell a white lie because you can't remember them and you want to. She said say like what you think without hurting someone's feelings, but in a way that they understand that you are either committing or not committing, and so some of those things right very early in my childhood, and I don't even think she realized she was like spitting off these pearls of wisdom Really from like my first job.
Deborah:I actually had a paper route when I was 10, as we did those days and my brother and I did it together, we were actually the paper people. We won this kind of big award and I mean my father, like his heart was like bursting through his chest with pride. But going back to right, if we were late, we apologized. We just addressed things in a way that was, I think, people were surprised and we were very young kids. My dad would, like he's dealing with papers super early in the morning and my father would sit outside. And we didn't.
Deborah:I don't think we thought about it, but my dad was getting up, he had a full day of work. I mean not that we didn't have a full day of school, but he was getting up at 5am every day to watch us deliver newspapers so that he was comfortable with us doing it. We learned about, you know, taking a lot of the principles that we learned at home and then applying them into the real world and so taking those early learnings. Not much has changed in terms of how one engages with clients, with friends, with colleagues, right, being open, honest, committing when it makes sense and being really careful about people's feelings. I mean, those are things that I've always embodied, so I'd say a lot of what I learned very early on in life was really pivotal to where I ended up and what I enjoyed and what I still, today, focus on.
Paula:That's a beautiful tapestry there that you painted for us. Thank you for taking us on that journey and through all of that you know you've had to take risks, you've gotten out of your comfort zone, you've had to go for challenges and we know that some of your successes from your bio. Is there a particular failure that stands out to you that you'd like to share?
Deborah:So my first job was at PwC. There's actually I'm going to answer that, but I'm going to answer something before that. So, going back to listening, I had interned there. I really enjoyed it. Like every day I get to show up with like 18 other people and we're working, but we're talking the whole time and we're eating the whole time. I'm like this is so fun, right, and they bring in food for us. I was like this is this is the greatest job ever and we and and we were learning. We were learning about so many different companies in depth, really in terms of research. That was like some of the foundation.
Deborah:So I wanted to because, shoot for the moon, why not? There was one kind of extra or special aspect of what we could do where it was a tax audit. You're spending six months in tax and six months in audit and you were becoming, you know, very skilled across kind of the accounting, if you will, phenom. And so I applied for this. There are only two spots out of like an opening class of 80. And I went into the interview and, unlike other interviews I'd had, it was like an hour and he just talked the whole time. I think he asked me like one or two very quick questions and I walked out there. I remember calling my parents and I'm like I didn't get it. I said I didn't get to say anything. I said I just listened and my father's like that's, he's like maybe they've already made up their mind that they're going to go one way or another, and so he said, just wait. And I did actually get the job. I did get this amazing opportunity and it goes back to right for me. I was like it was another kind of point around listening, not worrying about what you were going to say next. And I bring that forward because I ended up in this tax audit rotation the first time. I did it.
Deborah:Right, I had just come off of an audit busy season. I mean, you're working, I'm a hard worker, but it was like 100, 120 hours a week, right every week, and I was still new in the professional world and so, right, you're taking everything with a different level of, I think, concern and respect. And I went right into a tax busy season and so I didn't realize, when people come to you, can you do this? Of course I can do this right, no problem. And so they give you work and they give you work and they give you work and soon I had the equivalent of like almost over 200 hours a week of work that I had said yes to going back to being careful what you commit to. And I didn't realize. Because I just didn't understand, because my whole thing was like, oh my gosh, I want to get to the end, I don't have any work. And so I failed.
Deborah:I disappointed people. I had one of the most senior people in the tax department basically berate me and I remember going into the bathroom, just closing the door, just taking a moment and closing my eyes and just thinking about like what is the right thing to do in this circumstance. I didn't understand, but I also should have asked more questions along the way. So I came out and I that point in time people had doors that opened doors. So I walked into her office, this very senior professional, and I said I apologize. I said I don't think I understood the impact of my actions and I was just very, you know, there was no tears or anything. I said I don't think I understood the impact of my actions and I was just very, you know, there was no tears or anything. I was just very pragmatic on how I'd gotten here and some of the mistakes I made along the way, and she, like she ended up taking me under her wing and mentoring me, because she's like every season, she's like somebody does exactly what I did, but nobody had ever come into her office and apologized and asked for guidance and kind of explained how they'd gotten there. And so I think that not being afraid to like lean into failure and understand what it was that got you there and also explaining what happened, but more explaining kind of what your thought process was, and asking for guidance, because there were definitely steps along the way where my thought process was incorrect and I wanted to know, going forward, how could I correct those mistakes so I didn't make them again. These days, do I get overcommitted? I really try not to, because it goes back to and this is what she did, I mean, many moons ago put everything on the calendar, review your calendar every day, have a to-do list. The to-do list seems to be getting too long, right, reach out and tell people, and so I would say that a lot of what.
Deborah:I'm very fortunate. I had great mentors and I sought them out right. I've always sought out mentors and there's somebody I have right now. I call him every Friday at 1230. And basically he's like I can't believe you did this and you did this. And I'm like please tell me, like how you have looked at this. Where did I have like a gap in my perception or understanding? And having that person and he's a friend, I've paid coaches before and whatnot, but I feel like friends guide you in different ways. I would say the lesson from that was lean into failure, understand how you got there and don't be afraid to ask for advice on how others would have done things differently. And I think having a mentor, somebody in your life, I think outside of your family, you guys are going to hear about your work, enough anyways. I found that that has helped me kind of throughout the years and I continue to do that.
Rich:I think I'll probably put that on a small clip and remind myself of it from time to time. I'm going to transition into the lesson part of it and turn it over to Gautham in a minute, but I want to give you a couple minutes to talk about core site research. Gautam is mentoring me when it comes to me trying to be an adjunct and I smile every time I see research that is attributed to core site research and say I know where this is coming from, but not everybody who listens is going to know what CoreSight Research is and what you-.
Deborah:I appreciate the opportunity. It's really interesting we had when I was part of Liam Fung, so I'll talk about how we got here. But we used to have, as we were spinning out and we had already kind of announced our name, we had one of our senior executives. He's like Debra could not have picked a better name for the company because she really she and her team are really our core insights and it's funny I hadn't even really thought about that just true truth about when we chose a name, but it really has stuck. So I started off going back to right, like my kind days.
Deborah:I love numbers. I loved understanding what was around the number right. That's what you know kind of very typical audit does at a you know one of the larger firms and seeing all these different challenges, I and I love to tell the stories and that, once again, that's what I did. You, you told the stories around the number right. Why did this number change this much year over year? And we would look across right, the income statement, balance sheet, cash flow, what could you tie into some of those changes and what were some of the themes that we were going to take out of that audit? I really loved that part of it.
Deborah:I think that as I went to business school, I had a unique opportunity to audit an insurance company and they have very complex financial instruments and there was one in particular I found just like my mind loved and I became an expert in this and it was really detailed. I think this idea around complexity and numbers. When I went to business school, I thought I wanted to be a basically a portfolio manager in an insurance company and what I found is just I love the number aspect and I'd never even heard of research as a career because there are so few research analysts right Each firm. I mean I went to Morgan Stanley. We hired four people in the US that year. I was very fortunate to start Morgan Stanley. I started off in global strategy and had this amazing career working with unbelievable people. I mean, my first week I'm sitting down with Barton Biggs and Byron Ween and I mean just eating up everything they're saying and trying to understand how they built their thesis and what was it right and because they were always early and whether they were right or wrong, they helped people make better decisions, because you got to see kind of both sides of it and so, as I you know, kind of spent almost a decade at Citigroup and ended up leading the global consumer staples and discretionary teams and thinking about making it through the global financial crisis, which was probably the most difficult part of my career.
Deborah:And so making it through that and starting to think about what I loved. I loved innovation. I loved understanding what the numbers like to, to improve the numbers, what you needed to do and how to take kind of what you understood to be true versus what you thought could be, and having numbers tell that story in between. And so there was an Israeli tech startup called Profitech and I thought the CEO was great. He always explained everything in ways that I could really understand it, and so I was very open with him one day and I said I'm just thinking about what's next and he's like well, we're looking for a chief customer officer. Mind you, I had no idea what that was at the time, because retailers didn't have chief chief officers back in 2012, 2013 for the most part, and I was like that's what I've wanted to do my whole life. And so starting there and starting to really be in the heart of tech and innovation and creation you know this was early days. This was more predictive AI right this was before Gen AI and seeing what we could do. I mean, we were literally investing entire data sets from the largest retailers in the world and then coming to them with recommendations, which I didn't look at as being so different than what I did in accounting right. We were ingesting numbers, we were trying to gather stories, and I really loved it. We were acquired actually by a company that I had known very well in the tech world.
Deborah:When I started to think about what I might want to do next, I had two opportunities One to go back to Wall Street and I still, to this day, am very appreciative of that opportunity and one to lead a think tank based in China. This idea of something new, something kind of undiscovered and unexplored, really kind of spoke to what I was interested in. So that is the road that I took, and that was with Li and Feng. They had four public companies, they had VC arms, private equity arms and much more and to be able to knit together all of those data points in the organization and different people.
Deborah:The time I joined, I think we had about 50,000 employees scattered in like 41 countries, and I tried to make it to almost every country to sit down with people to understand what they were seeing. Sit down with people to understand what they were seeing so that, at the corporate level, we could start to tie together themes so that we could point the company in the right direction. We had somebody come to us to write a report for them and they were going to pay us what I considered at the time an unbelievable amount of money. And so I went to you know my boss, who's the CEO? And I said you know he's like well, where you sit at the corporate level, right, we don't generate revenue, I'm happy for you to do it. He's like we just can't. So it's basically like. My response was I'm happy to do the work, I can't take your money. And they're like this is amazing, right? So we wrote this paper. We then went into three cities Tokyo, shanghai and Seoul, korea. We were on stage with this company talking about the research that we had done, right? So, going back to taking data, turning them into insights, and I realized how much I loved it and what had been.
Deborah:The challenge is, on Wall Street, you're measured every day, right, the number of inbound calls that you get, the kind of you know, the ratings that you get from your clients. You know we all focused on institutional investor. I missed that, right, like I missed this idea that I knew I was doing a good job. So I started to lean into that and I went back to our CEO and so we figured out a way that we could start to do more in this area. He and I both ultimately realized right with the cost of the team and we were just a cost center that maybe it made sense for us to spin out and then we could start to generate revenue, cover our costs and still provide services to them. So that's what we did. That's what CoreSight is today.
Deborah:So a long background, but, I think, an important one. But ultimately, we're based on data. We have over a decade of proprietary data. In late 2019, as we were starting to see things change, we decided to do a weekly survey of the US consumer and the Chinese consumer publish those results every week. So you're talking five years now of data and we've gone and backtested it. It's 98% predictive, which I think has blown even our minds in terms of what the consumer is going to do based on what the data says and I think our whole team right we get really excited about this right. We really geek out on this and you know we've done a lot of work around store openings and closings. Where are those stores located that have closed? Because a lot of these D2C companies, as they've looked to take down their customer acquisition costs and move offline stores and locations aren't necessarily easy to locate, and so that's been another really interesting way to take data and have an impact and so much more.
Deborah:But the core of what we do is subscription research. We have a global team. We're nine countries on four continents. We try to look at things both by verticals and what we do is really retail only. So that's how we differentiate ourselves versus other research firms, and I always say we're complementary, because we look at things from a very specific lens. Others have their own lens and when you put all of us together, I think you get a more complete picture. Ultimately, I want clients or potential clients to have access to the information they need, and then you know we can come in and do a special project or something like that. So we have subscription research. That's the core, and off of that we've built an advisory practice.
Deborah:I'm doing anything from like major strategy projects, which I find that my learning is exponential. I typically am there at the beginning, the middle and the end because I do a lot of public speaking. I'm very and we have a lot of clients in financial services. I'm very careful about my own acquisition of material, non-public information, but we have an unbelievable advisory team and we've done actually it's been interesting, just to say it We've done a lot of pricing work recently which I find with like like for us.
Deborah:You start to see very early right where these new technologies, like Gen AI, where they're having an impact, because we're starting to get inbounds from you know, the C-suite on different things that they'd like to figure out and almost right, single point, right, we'll come in, we'll do these. We call them sprints because we do them very quickly right In six weeks, eight weeks tops, and so we'll go and we'll tackle a topic you know we'd love to do that under kind of like a bigger strategy project. However, we kind of engage with folks where we're excited and then, off of the kind of advisory side, we've built this, we call it innovator intelligence. But what we often find and we found this in our advisory work that tech companies can be challenged explaining what they do to the end customer right, because they're talking tech Retailers, brands or whatnot are truly talking a language from the consumer point of view.
Deborah:Usually we try to understand kind of the unique aspect because every tech company, even if, like on paper, it looks like they're doing similar things, there are nuances and one may be a better fit for a multi-brand retailer, one may be a better fit for luxury, for athletic footwear, for specialty apparel, and we really try to listen to that. But we also help them tell their stories and, once again, we use a lot of data to do that. So we'll do a lot of survey work and it helps them then tell their stories, right, no-transcript, and they're like you have to own AI in retail. You have to own this conversation. It's going to be really big Right. It's going to be really big right, and this was, you know, kind of let's call it early, you know, right out of the first quarter of 2023. And so I'm now I feel like the weight of the world on my shoulders because two people in my world who are very important have you know, I felt we're leaning into to us to do something. I was like, okay, we should probably get people together, probably in a private setting so they're comfortable talking about what is this Gen AI thing and how is this impacting their business. And then we've got to figure out a way to pay for you know kind of our time and we ended up hiring several researchers, so we brought in sponsors.
Deborah:We started in August. Actually, it's funny, we were going to have just one opening meeting but we had so many people join us, we had two and we've gotten together every other week. We had a conference. It was truly unbelievable. And then, as we moved forward, we hosted another, like a summit, april 15th in Paris.
Deborah:And then we just had another event in June 23rd in really in collaboration with AWS, in their office, and I later got to go to their builder studio, which was nothing short of I mean, I think, in builder studio, going back to listening and not talking, I think I just took notes the whole time and some of them it's like the quietest you've been.
Deborah:I'm like I said I'm just ingesting so much. All at the same time, I said I want to kind of have like a coherent right you know aha moment, because like the aha was coming like every 30 seconds. And so I go back on that perspective in terms of core site, really is founded in research. We then moved into advisory because that seemed like the next natural step, which then took us into innovator intelligence, which then took us into the AI council. But at the heart and soul of it, we really want to help retailers, brands. We've been working with more healthcare and financial services companies as of late. That's kind of the journey we've been on. That's how we've gotten to where we are and I can't wait to see what's ahead.
Rich:So, Deb, just a real quick question. Obviously, CoreSight has expanded. You've got your finger on the pulse of a lot of the rapid transformation that is going on in retail today, especially from a technological perspective, but on many different fronts around the world. I'm amazed at your travel schedule. If I had half your energy I would feel great right now. But as fast as you're running and as fast as change is happening and as much as the team is growing, how do you stop and make sure that they're finding balance and that they are not burning out with as rapidly as things are moving?
Deborah:Unfortunately, we had somebody who's definitely like, very obviously, had been working a lot of hours and I just I wasn't sure exactly what to do. And so the person and I still to this day, I'm very sad they're not part of the company anymore and I was like thinking about. I said, like we have to give people time off, right, we've. I didn't realize, actually, how many people have built the company for over five years. It's actually about a third, and so, starting this year, we started to do mandatory sabbaticals, five weeks. You Like we don't want you logging in, we're not locking people out of the systems, but we've been pretty blatant in terms of how much engagement we want. And what's been amazing is when these people take truly five weeks off to do what they, you know, spend time with their families, they travel and whatnot. They read, you know, books that they've put off, read books that they've put off. When they come back to see how reinvigorated they are and the ideas that they have in terms of what we can do moving forward. It's been such a blessing to see that. And as we move into 2025, we've got a whole other group of people who and so I want to get those who've gone on sabbatical with those who are about to go and talk about what that's meant for them and how it's kind of changed their perspective, because I've been. I mean, hey, I probably should take some time off myself, but I do find it hard.
Deborah:And that's and one of the last right from a researcher, one of our team members was like he's like I just can't go. He's like I've got so much to do every day. He's like I need to help with this and that. And I said, well, I said that's what we have to figure out is how to do what we're doing without you for five weeks and for you to also see how you're living without us for five weeks. And it was amazing. It's like when you come back, you're like running towards each other because you're so excited to see each other. But I think giving people that gift because we all love what we do. But it's important to also realize you know kind of what's around what we do, like our family and friends, and how important they are. Without your health, you have nothing. I always prioritize that. Family is second and core site is third and I'm very specific as we help people make decisions. That's the decision tree. Take care of yourself first, because if you can't take care of yourself, you can't take care of your family.
Gautham:Well, thank you for walking us through the journey not just of how CoreSight was built, but how retail has evolved. In some ways, One of my pet peeves is build technology for technology's sake, and you kind of hit that as well. So, given your vast experience with data and data-driven decision-making, Given your vast experience with data and data-driven decision-making, talk us through to how you advise clients on what, like you, need to have the foundations correct right Before you can build a building. What are those foundations before you can get to the Gen AI? Can you just give us some a brief overview of what you think are the foundations of successful retail on which these technologies can build itself?
Deborah:That's a great question. And just coming back from Dreamforce, where we're talking AI agents and whatnot and they're very underpenetrated in retail. If you think about it right, with retail, right, most companies are running on legacy systems. Their data exists kind of within function. The challenges are whether you're multi-brand or vertically integrated. Multi-brand right, you are working with different customers and clients, and so you may have data sitting with each customer and client. If you're vertical, you then start to replicate different aspects of your business, but maybe in a different way inside each of those brands.
Deborah:Where the information is and how it is structured or unstructured, I think is very challenging. But going back to my days at Profitech, we had the same challenges. Right, we were building on top of retailers' data sets and, in some cases, right, we would go in and we would clean their data for six, 12, 18 months so that we could then run our predictive AI engine on top of that. I got to see that very early in my career and see how challenging it was, but at the same time, all of the opportunity, Because if you think about the millions of data points these retailers are getting every day in terms of how the consumer is behaving, and we're starting to see. I mean, to me I always thought that they could monetize that, these alternative revenue streams, whether it's data or retail media or other areas. A lot of that is built on the challenges in some way that retailers have had in terms of gen AI-ing, if you will, their data, because in some ways it's not organized in a way that's really easy and it's going to take time. I think that the challenges that retailers face right now in terms of doing more with technology is around either who in the organization is engaging, and whether that's at the corporate level or kind of in the BUs and the business units, and then thinking about how to kind of move forward with that and when different tech companies, especially startups, sometimes can almost get lost in the maelstrom because there are so many different potential clients within a retailer. And to me, that's the opportunity on a go forward, especially with Gen AI, right, because of the speed with which things can be developed and learned. Right. We now have AI, building AI, and that is just speeding up, right, I think, the curve in terms of what we see around development. There are companies we talked to three months ago who were talking about building, and I'm like I was thinking two years and they built for retail retail and it's purpose built right. What we're starting to see now is solutions, purpose built for retail.
Deborah:Pricing is such a great example, which we talked about earlier. You know we're seeing a lot around. You know dynamic pricing, but also just thinking about pricing as a core competency for retail, which I don't think that they had thought about before. So I think retailers are understanding and brands how much more opportunity they have to drive their business to reduce returns, to improve profitability. And I would say a change in what we're hearing is around ROI Everything they do now, but they're happy to spend money to learn more about their business so they can make better decisions, and they're looking at ROI in a very different way. So the way that retailers are engaging with technology, I would say, has changed exponentially in 2024. And this is one of those things as you predict what it looks like going forward.
Deborah:Going back to my comment around Salesforce is very underpenetrated with retail because first you have to get the data organized in a way that these systems can utilize it and then you have to go back and train the retailers on what to do with all of that data.
Deborah:And having that complete 360, that's a commitment on a different level.
Deborah:And I think those technology solutions and those that have yet to be created, those who can start to and you have to right, I mean, gautam, you and I have seen you have to speak retail and and many of the right and and understanding what their challenges are, that, I think, is a challenge unto itself so you can also talk to them in their own words.
Deborah:And some of these startups, I mean you know, you see them day one and they've got that figured out. It's unbelievable to see how high they can fly. I mean a great example was Predict Spring, which was just acquired by Salesforce. I mean we worked with Nitin from almost day one. He spoke retail and he asked questions in a way that if he didn't understand what the retailers were saying or what they were telling, right, and he pivoted and pivoted and pivoted to the point that right, like he was always kind of at the right place at the right time. I think he's such a great example. But all four of us have so many of those great stories and I have to say it all goes back to listening right.
Gautham:Yeah, and building on your purpose, right, I think you hit the nail on the head is that you can't take off-shelf white-label solutions and just deploy it in retail. You have to know the customer as well as the other stakeholders. So, talking about customers, you talked about working in Tokyo, shanghai and Seoul Korea probably one of the bleeding edge of innovation, if you will and you have a weekly survey that compares the US to China. Talk to us about those differences and what drives that innovation engine in these countries.
Deborah:Nobody's actually asked that question quite that way. That's a really great, I mean. And we'll maybe just start by geography. So if we look at Japan, you know, and we've seen amazing breakthroughs in robotics. We're now seeing NLP around the Olympics right natural language processing, which is right, the foundation of these large language models. And we're starting to see, you know, with longevity we had actually written a bunch on gosh. It might have been back in 2015, 2016,. We did a lot of work in greater China and in Japan around aging and for us at Coresight, you know, with Coresight now, to understand what that means.
Deborah:I think Japan has an early, you know, just because of their population base, they've started to see, right, from a cognitive perspective and some of the other challenges, how to build technology for that consumer ultimately, and because they, I think, have a, they ultimately do focus on the there's a real customer focus, I find and practicality. So they're building things to solve a problem that exists today, there's, and they hold deadlines kind of very sacrosanct. So they make their deadlines. They're building practical tech and if you think about the fact right, where they have literally thousands of engineers who are being repurposed almost right, from building TVs to building robotics, building NLP right, and so I think this idea that you have a significant part of your workforce which is used to kind of being at the bleeding edge and is also very comfortable, kind of changing what they're doing, and also we've brought a lot of retailers to Japan. You know there's a real respect when someone's traveling to see the customer and spending truly as much time as needed to explain literally everything to the retailer brand. So I think that's really their superpower. If we start to look at Korea, I remember some of the tech that we were seeing there, and on the fashion side too, right Understanding, being able to do almost trend analysis and projecting that forward to build what the customer doesn't even know that they yet desire, but hitting the nail on the head over and over and over that predictive aspect almost of AI.
Deborah:And then, secondly, really understanding that the consumer does not want friction. And what can you build to take the friction out of their their day to day? I was recently with some executives from Samsung of their their day to day. I was recently with some executives from Samsung and I it was like one of those like I just felt like I could probably have stayed another two days to ask them questions. I was asking about how they train people who are US based on understanding the culture of the company, and they talked about having executives even come and live in Korea to understand the foundation of the company and how that has really allowed them to accelerate many different technologies, solutions and ways of working. What we see there is kind of taking data and looking at the predictive nature of it to build better outcomes and understanding the consumer. So I think this real understanding the consumer and that this frictionless kind of go forward. So that's how I look to Korea.
Deborah:And then in greater China, this idea that you're encouraged to ask questions across all levels like why, how, and that has really kind of pushed forward a lot of the tech build. You know, I was fortunate enough to start to spend a significant amount of time there in the very early days of Tencent, jd, alibaba, the very early like Double Eleven festivals and whatnot. And you know, if you, if we can wrap our minds around PDD, which is, you know, also Timu, right, that was found. That was that IPO in 2018. I remember reading the S1 and it was like Disney world meets Costco and I'm like, how is Disney world meeting Costco? Right, like, but, but they were explaining it ways that, like, all of us could like, very much understand.
Deborah:And I think this open innovation ecosystem, where you're asking questions and they're responding with tech build in this very short period of time, is truly and I think that there, from thinking about the consumer, it's thinking about speed. How do we get things to the consumer faster? How do we make decisions faster? Because this understanding, I think in China, that inefficiency creates waste. I mean, if you look at green finance, if you look at everything they're doing around sustainability, they have the lowest return rate of any kind of major economy through live streaming. And so, as you start to think about some of these technologies and yes, they're fun and it's great to engage but ultimately, about some of these technologies, and yes, they're fun and it's great to engage, but ultimately you're getting more information to the consumer so they can make a better decision on what they purchase. As a result, they don't return.
Deborah:So I've always felt that there was this very interesting. Whether it was they were aware or it was just kind of part of their DNA, there was a sustainability aspect to what's been built technologically for retail. And then there's just this speed and this iteration and I feel that those two tenets of the landscape there and maybe the third is just being comfortable. You can always ask why You're never going to. Nobody's ever going to not answer your question and I think that that's allowed the speed that we've seen there. So very different aspects of growth in all those markets, all very unique, and I think that it has, you know, kind of driven a lot of the foundation that we're seeing in terms of, you know, technology and you know kind of purpose-built solutions. So great question, thanks.
Gautham:Let me ask you just a quick follow-up to follow up to that right. You talked about necessity, talked about the culture. Part of the culture is also your orientation short-term versus long-term. Do you think there is a more steeper pressure for short-term metrics here in the US, roi being quicker, in contrast to some of these other countries where you're given a longer runway?
Deborah:Absolutely. I always thought that that was the benefit and the curse of Wall Street. Right, because you're being measured quarterly. If we start to look at some of these larger right, these brand management companies or whatever you want to call them, right, like the WHPs, the ABGs and you know, we can even put you know, randa and Centric and many others who are starting to take these companies private, I think being out of the limelight of, like, reporting quarterly earnings and being on that like hamster wheel.
Deborah:I will say, when I left Wall Street and ultimately right, liam Fong, right, we owned many retail brands and I worked I really started to understand stores. Right at the time we had like 10,000 stores in China. I really started to understand stores. Right At the time we had like 10,000 stores in China, and so what I thought could get done in the time period that we were expecting from a Wall Street perspective was just not humanly possible. Those people who are writing the narrative versus those who are creating the narrative.
Deborah:The gap in time is truly immense, and that's why no retailer is ever going to measure up to anybody's yardstick. So I couldn't agree with you more. That's why no retailer is ever going to measure up to anybody's yardstick. So I couldn't agree with you more. This like short term nature around publicly traded companies. I think private we've seen have had a lot of success for a lot of reasons. But I think that what you said is a very important aspect, especially in retail, because retail transformation takes time, because, right, retail transformation takes time. I think that this is such a critical aspect and probably one of the reasons we've seen the landscape change as much as we have in the US in terms of, you know, the balance of private and public companies. It's a great question.
Rich:So, debra, before we head into the rapid fire round, we met back when you were covering JCPenney I was at JCPenney and when Mike Ullman was at the helm. I realized more and more today, especially with his passing, how many lessons I've kind of absorbed from him and how much I learned from him, not relying on his ego, but explaining how he didn't do something right and would guide us down a path of how we could do it better. You had the opportunity to work with him. I'm curious as to what your interaction was.
Deborah:I remember he had endless patience and as a Wall Street analyst, right, you would do marketing. So, you know, literally your day would start at 8 am. You do a meeting from 8 to 9. You'd have a 30 minute window to travel to the next meeting, which would be 9.30 to 10.30, and so on and so forth. Sometimes, you know, maybe you'd even have an earlier breakfast meeting. You'd have a lunch meeting Sometimes lunch was like you know, 50 or 60 people and then you'd have a dinner meeting.
Deborah:So, you know, going back to this kind of question that got him that ask about, right, you know, kind of short term, long term, around how he looked at the future of things and why some of the decisions he made he looked at as being kind of table stakes and never kind of digging into a decision that may have been the street looked at as less than stellar or whatnot, but basically like this is why I made this decision at this time, with this information that I had available. And I think this endless patience, right, I mean you saw it in his personal life as well. Right, he was one of the most philanthropic people I know. Right, he had adopted a bunch of amazing children. I mean just like he didn't just and that was the other thing he didn't just talk the talk, he walked it as well.
Deborah:He very much cared about associates, he really cared about customers. He cared about people, like he was people first and I think because of that right like seeing that in a mentor, right like going back to like I would ask him questions about you know, how do you make this decision, or how do you see the future of this, and he would spend time answering that and was I mean, his analysts were trained to ask a lot of questions and it just got to the point like I almost ran out of questions to ask because he had done such an amazingly thorough job of answering them and helping me think differently and almost encouraging it and probably, you know, for somebody to really encourage you to step outside of your comfort zone, especially on Wall Street, where you might get, you know, 30 lashes with a wet noodle if you're wrong. He really encouraged me, even if he disagreed with how I thought about things. He's like you should go out with that right. Like you should not, don't hold back Having someone give you almost like that cape for you to be able to fly.
Deborah:I felt like Mike did that not only for me but for so many people and he's very much missed. But he really left a legacy, not only in terms of his philanthropic endeavors but also, I think, in terms of all the people, rich like you and me, who he helped kind of train for tomorrow, and so're right. The patience and every story was.
Rich:I did this. This is where I stumbled, this is what I learned and when he passed, I sent a note to my boss because I have a tendency to send my boss notes every Sunday, and I learned that from Mike because he talked about how he used to send. He used to write down his notes on Sunday and send them out to people and he wasn't sure if people were listening, but he said those types of communications matter.
Deborah:I remember him saying you know, there were some Fridays like we would just we started this like Friday See, I'm sure we had some great name for it but it was like a Friday call with CEOs. And I remember one of the Fridays he and I stayed on after the call and he said, oh, he said I, you know, he's like I'd love to get your feedback on a few things and he's like I want to include those in my notes that I'm sending out this week. And he told me how he just this was like a discipline for himself and how it like gave him because he said he could go back and read his notes from the prior week what he was very transparent. So it's a good thing for all of us probably to do internally, and especially now in a remote hybrid world, being able to have that communication with your teams. I mean, it's probably a great learning from Mike.
Rich:All right, so I'm going to kick off the relatable rapid fire round. First question you've traveled worldwide. You can transport yourself right now, 24 hours, one place. Get there instantly, come back instantly. Where do you go? What do you do?
Deborah:I go to Lagos. We have a team there. They have truly helped me think outside of my boundaries of what's possible. We have an office and there's an energy that I want to capture for myself that I see in that market of like what's possible. I remember we did, we do these call course. I connect. It's an internal call every Thursday and when people talk about like sometimes it gets very mushy and sometimes very just much more about some of the research we've been publishing. We had someone on our team talking about like how he likes to spend his free time and I just like I literally was like I'm like I love my job so much because I can really feel what he's talking about and I understand why he has this passion in his work. Because he has all this passion in some of the things he's doing and kind of his you know life away from work. So I would go to Lagos, that would be my call.
Gautham:All right, so it's my turn. Since you said you love your job, what part of your job would you automate away?
Deborah:Email email. I do that. I find that and I have to be honest. I mean this is one of those where we should get a few folks together. If I could AI away my email which I'm sure we probably can't I mean, I feel we probably will be able to in like 12 months right, I can have my own like AI agent to answering my email and my voice, and I'd like give it a rules around, kind of how to answer these kinds of emails and then it's like elevating the ones that it can't answer. I would love to AI away my email, yeah.
Rich:I think that's a fairly common answer. Last one I've seen you speak several times in several different settings, and I don't know if you have one. But do you have a walk-on song? Or, if not, is there a particular song that kind of hypes you up when you need it?
Deborah:It's so funny. So I love all kinds of music and I mean, all right, I started my life in classical. I mean when I live in Chicago, a lot of my friends love country music. I mean I learned to dance, I mean it was like I literally any kind of music I find that I will. I mean I couldn't be listening to anything from like a cello concerto to like truly like like heavy metal or heavy rap, I mean anything that like literally all kinds of music, and I am sure I listen to things people would never expect that I would be listening to.
Deborah:So I truly love all music and, depending on the day of the week, right, it's like a different walk-on song, and so I think that is, you know, that's also. I really want to. If you will champion, you know that's also, and I, I really want to. If you will champion, you know the, the current artist who is, you know, maybe they they've gotten one song out I want to champion those who are building their careers, and so that's kind of also where I always lean into as well.
Rich:Thank you very much, debra. It is an absolute uh it was an absolute pleasure to have the conversation. We've been looking forward to it. I know our students are going to look forward to it and you are truly one of those that I could listen to and talk to for hours, because I come away from every conversation a little smarter, challenged, inspired and have three more things on my list.
Deborah:I appreciate that. I thought that, so I actually really did put a lot of. I had not thought about the issue I'd had back in tax accounting, because I think it was such a painful moment Taking that off the shelf. It was amazing All these moons later how painful that was, and I will say, like, leaning into that though and thinking about how that changed I don't I mean I don't know if I'd ever even thought about it how that changed. Honestly, everything I did after that it could have gone a different way. Right, I could have like gone in the bathroom and like cried my eyes out and like gone back to my office.
Deborah:Those are the things I actually seek a lot of advice on, where there's something that didn't go the way I'd hoped it would, and you know, having knowing I mean you know both of you guys I mean being able to. I mean I think that's the one thing you can give advice to your students. I think sometimes, picking up the phone and really talking to people about challenges you're having and seeking advice, as opposed to like on, you know, in like an open forum, having that one-to-one, I think is really a huge opportunity and will change their careers. It's a skill right, like that's a skill to be built along with studying and whatnot. So careers it's a skill, right, like that's a skill to be built along with studying and whatnot. So I think what you guys are doing is amazing. I mean, you're building, right, the superstars of tomorrow, and you know anything I can do to help? I'm here.
