Your Solution to Technology Disruption

By Doug Baker, Vice President, Industry Relations, FMI

According to the dictionary a disruption is a “disturbance or problems which interrupt an event, activity, or process.” Considering the past few years of rapid change, grocery tech industry has certainly been disrupted.

In his recent book, Retail in the Age of i: A New Worldview for the Retail Industry, Gary Hawkins, co-founder for the Center for Advancing Retail & Technology (CART), writes:

“The challenge for retailers is learning to adapt to this new world, a world where they no longer necessarily drive new capabilities or services, often it is consumer adoption of new technologies that retailers must respond to. I would suggest, given the scope and impact of a new technology-enabled capability, that retailers of all sizes would do well to develop and implement strategies and processes for managing innovation.”

FMI has teamed up with CART, to offer food retailers Marketechnics, a private, curated program designed to address the disruption food retail technology professionals are facing. This program takes place at or near a food retailer’s company campus and brings technology insights that align with the organization’s goals and culture right to your doorstep. Driving discovery and innovation efficiently, Marketechnics also allows the retailer to ensure business and technology leaders are part of the conversation and exploration together, reducing the time to implementation.

In February 2022, FMI and CART worked with the Hy-Vee executive team to curate a Marketechnics event on their campus in Des Moines, Iowa. The event included an executive confab workshop, executive briefing and a personalized tradeshow where Hy-Vee associates learned about new technology capabilities.

Jessica Ringena, chief revenue officer for Hy-Vee spoke about the event experience and said, “Spending time with the sourced solution companies here on our campus is worth our time, because at the end of the day, there's a plethora of solutions and opportunities out there. So being able to create a day where we have our undivided focus and attention on all the solutions that are available out there and the ones that might be the best fit for us just makes it that much more valuable. As a team, we have everything in one nice package and be able to really compare things as we're looking to create roadmaps.”

Ringena added, “Having the partnership between CART and FMI, I think really validates that grocery industry relationship.”

How is your food retail company facing technology disruptions? What’s your roadmap ahead? Consider a Marketechnics event to get a jump start. For information and more details, contact me at dbaker@fmi.org.