Mobile World Congress Day 3: Another Amazon Echo Competitor, a Retail Tour of MWC and What We Learned on the Floor

Transcription

1 Mobile World Congress Day 3: Another Amazon Echo Competitor, a Retail Tour of MWC and What We Learned on the Floor 1) During Day 3 of the 2017 Mobile World Congress, the Fung Global Retail & Technology team toured the floor for retail solutions and met with representatives from NEC, Conversocial, a leading cloud-based social customer service solution, and Panasonic. 2) Through conversations and demos, we explored omnichannel platforms that integrate chatbots for customer service and VR for shopping and payments. We also saw an increasing number of mobile POS hardware and software aimed at empowering store associates and removing friction from the in-store checkout experience. 3) Day 3 also came with the announcement that instant messaging app Line is developing a voice assistant together with Naver, and is planning to launch two smart devices, the Wave and the Face, later this year. Another Amazon Echo Competitor The big news from Day 3 of the 2017 World Mobile Congress is the emergence of a new competitor to the Amazon Echo and Google Home devices. The CEO of Line, Takeshi Idezawa, announced today that the Japanese messaging company will be partnering with South Korea s Naver to launch the digital assistant Clova. In turn, the assistant will power two smart devices, the Wave and the Face, which will be launched later this year. The strategy of the new partnership is to leverage Naver s dominant position as a leader in search in South Korean and Line s data and chat capabilities to deliver devices akin to the Amazon Echo and Google Home targeting the Asian consumer. 1

2 A Retail Tour of MWC During Day 3 of MWC, we spent more time on the floor looking at technologies and their retail applications. In our Day 2 report, we highlighted Samsung s Nexshop solution, and today we add to the list with the best from MWC. Panasonic: Panasonic is showcasing its connected airport concept at MWC17, and, at the same time, is also exhibiting a suite of hardware and software for retailers: A transparent screen which uses projection to create window displays to pull in and engage shoppers. A monitoring and managing system that tracks the usage and performance of instore digital equipment such as displays and signage to optimize maintenance and minimize cost. A connected display coupled with facial recognition and RFID product identification. Parcel Picking Director, which uses barcode technology to manage key parcel information for a smooth logistics operation. It projects key parcel information onto the parcels themselves, making it viewable from a distance by workers. 2

3 Genesys: The company developed an omnichannel platform that helps retailers interact with the digital consumer. Genesys showcased its chatbot and customer service solutions as well as its platform s ability to make use of 360-degree view of the consumer with data collected from digital and physical customer touch-points and IoT sensors in retail environments. Marks & Spencer, IKEA, H&M, Nike and Falabella are among the retailers that use the Genesys technology. NTS Retail: NTS Retail is an Austrian company that has developed an all-in-one technology retail solution used primarily by mobile operators across Europe. The platform integrates POS, inventory management, aftersales service and retail analytics to allow transactions in both the physical and digital environments. Wirecard: The Germany-based payment processing and IT company, Wirecard, showcased a VR shopping experience and a next-generation mobile POS hardware product that combines a tablet, card scanner and receipt printer. 3

4 Whisbi: This company showcased a one-to-one and one-to-many video chat tool that integrates directly with a retailer s website. The tool allows companies to broadcast promotion events or provide live video customer service directly on their website. This boosts engagement and the time users spend on the site, while also removing friction from the user experience, since site visitors do not need a separate app or log-in to enter the video chat. The company is already working with mobile operators such as T-Mobile and Vodafone and automakers such as Audi and SEAT, among other companies. What We Learned on the Floor Conversocial: Conversocial is a SaaS company that provides social customer service solutions. The software helps corporates identify customers that require service via scanning social media platforms and offers a seamless solution for service agents to engage with them. We met with Joshua March, the CEO and Co- Founder of the company, who shared that the vision of Conversocial is to offer seamless customer service on social media using chatbot technology. He said artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to revamp the whole customer service industry in the next 3 5 years. Not only can chatbots provide cost-saving solutions to enterprises, but they also enhance engagement with consumers. March said that solution providers such as Salesforce and Oracle do not focus on customer service via messaging, which he believed it is the trend going forward and hence the opportunity for Conversocial. Implications to retail: Conversocial provides a glimpse into the possibility of using AI to turn customer service via social media into loyalty. NEC Corporation: Katsumi Emura, Executive VP and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of NEC, hosted a sharing session on NEC s proprietary AI NEC the WISE. NEC the WISE includes facial-, speech- and emotion-recognition technologies as well as crowdbehavior analysis and heterogeneous mixture learning, among others. NEC the WISE is helping NEC clients deal with real world problems such as crime prevention, power demand forecasting and the inspection of deterioration in bridges. When asked about the biggest challenges to AI development, Emura pointed out that hardware has not yet fully leveraged the power of AI, adding that the effort and time to educate people about AI is massive. He also stressed the importance of quality data when it comes to AI, as this is what will likely determine the quality of the AI itself rather than factors such as computational power. 4

5 In our next update, the Fung Global Retail & Technology team will take a deeper dive into what the startup exhibitors have to offer at MWC and how these emerging technologies apply to the world of retail. 5

6 Deborah Weinswig, CPA Managing Director Fung Global Retail & Technology New York: Hong Kong: China: Kiril Popov Senior Analyst Simic Chan Senior Research Associate Hong Kong: 8th Floor, LiFung Tower 888 Cheung Sha Wan Road, Kowloon Hong Kong Tel: London: Marylebone Road London, NW1 6JQ United Kingdom Tel: 44 (0) New York: 1359 Broadway, 9th Floor New York, NY Tel: FungGlobalRetailTech.com 6