Accenture-Google Cloud Data & AI for retail

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

Accenture and Google Cloud have announced the Accenture-Google Cloud Data & AI (AGDA) initiative to help enterprises across Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa harness the power of data and AI to transform customer experience, anticipate trends and accelerate business outcomes.

Accenture’s Market Unit Group Lead, Fabio Vacirca, and Google Cloud’s APAC VP, Karan Bajwa, weigh in with their responses to questions about AGDA.

EITN: Could Accenture and Google briefly share about their respective initiatives for retail and CPG (consumer packaged goods) before they started their collaboration?

Fabio: Consumer demands fluctuate persistently, and COVID-19 has permanently changed consumer behaviour and transformed the future of the CPG industry. What to do now and next, is learning how to satisfy these rapidly changing demands for engagement and experience while seizing new growth opportunities in today’s integrated marketplace.

Accenture has Solutions.AI that provides many pre-build AI solutions for multiple industries.  Accenture also created the Centre for Data & Insights (CDI) that offers a way to bring data from different sources to provide data-rich insights that can help our clients differentiate in the market.  As part of AGDA, we will apply Google data/AI technology and Google data sources for these solutions for specific industries and further improve the performance and accuracy of the insights and outcomes for our clients.

Karan: Google Cloud is working with retailers around the world to help them transform all parts of the retail value chain. With our robust ecosystem of partners, we are empowering retailers to gain faster insights with data, predict future outcomes with AI, create dynamic customer experiences and transform their workforce.

For example, Google Cloud gives retailers access to the tools needed to create new and engaging digital customer experiences. Retailers can leverage Google Cloud products including BigQuery, Cloud Dataproc, and DataStudio to unify consumer data, shopping data, ads data, transaction data, and web analytics data to build a true 360-view of the customer for their business. They can also use App Engine, Cloud Datastore, Cloud Storage, and Chrome-based devices to build custom apps and power dynamic kiosks/signage enabling retailers to improve customer engagement and influence in-aisle purchase and point of sale decisions.

Google Cloud also provides the technology platform for a broader strategic partnership with Google, helping retailers connect with different Google products and services – From Google Ads, to Google Maps, Google Hardware and much more.

AI is also being applied in new and exciting ways in retail everyday, and our Google Cloud machine learning helps retailers make sense of customer information. Our  pre-trained Google ML models like Vision API, Translation API, and Video Intelligence API that retailers can use on their internal datasets to automatically annotate their product catalog to enhance the product search experience, or to build a store traffic analyser using video captured by in-store cameras. For retailers who have AI skills, they can build and train their own ML models on proprietary data using Cloud ML Engine to deliver personalized recommendations, and provide dynamic visual product search experiences.

Google Cloud also provides the technology platform for a broader strategic partnership with Google, helping retailers connect with different Google products and services – From Google Ads, to Google Maps, Google Hardware and much more.

EITN: What are the immediate changing needs of retail and CPG that the collaboration wants to address? How does cloud come into the picture?

Fabio: Through the AGDA initiative, clients would be able to create new value across the enterprise from data and AI and develop industry-specific solutions and assets to help accelerate cloud adoption. This is important for CPG and retail companies to meet changing consumer demands, which include gathering important data about consumers’ behaviours and spending habits. This is crucial, as the dramatic rise in the adoption of ecommerce and omnichannel services, continues to grow.  The latest data from Accenture’s COVID-19 and retail consumer research suggests there will be a 169% increase in ecommerce purchases from new or low frequency users, post-pandemic, meaning that consumers who have increased their use of digital and omnichannel services, expect to sustain these activities into the future.

Being able to set this data free from legacy systems, developing deep insights from it, and leveraging it to drive better business decisions is the name of the game.

With cloud at the core, CPG decision makers and retailers can cost-effectively, continually, and sustainably innovate to provide the right D2C experience in the moment. Being able to set this data free from legacy systems, developing deep insights from it, and leveraging it to drive better business decisions is the name of the game. Moving retailers’ back-office systems to the cloud to fully integrate with the cloud-based front end will open up a whole new world for retailers and support the next-generation shopping experience.

Karan: The retail industry – and by extension supply chain and logistics – saw incredible disruption and opportunity during COVID. Where digital used to be part of the strategy, it very quickly became the strategy and “make or break” for too many retailers around the world.

And even as the COVID situation stabilise, we’re seeing several important trends:

Consumers have heightened expectations when it comes to their shopping experiences. Shoppers today are more curious, demanding and impatient. As a result, retailers are being challenged to become more data-driven in order to deliver rich, engaging experiences to customers and stay competitive. What they need is to meet consumers with consistent, seamless and assistive experiences everywhere they choose to shop – online, mobile and stores.

Retailers need to become more agile and create value-added services to help differentiate themselves. They are facing an explosion of data from new technologies – clickstream data, images, videos, location data, and beacons data – and the volume, variety and velocity of this data is rising. Nimble new competitors and business models will continue to push retailers to investigate new offerings to evolve their business.

Doing so via the AGDA initiative will enable us to successfully help clients integrate AI into their culture and processes, while at the same time generate real value from their enterprise data. As we lean further into that, many human tasks will be augmented by AI.

Our work on AGDA with Accenture and Google Cloud will accelerate cloud adoption, and bolster the data and AI talent development agenda in the region; thereby helping retailers across the region harness the power of data and AI to transform customer experience, anticipate trends and accelerate business outcomes.

EITN: How will this initiative guide the region’s data and AI talent development agenda?

Fabio: One of the key focus areas for AGDA is to scale talent, which is done by significantly growing Accenture’s trained and certified Google Data & AI staff.  Doing so via the AGDA initiative will enable us to successfully help clients integrate AI into their culture and processes, while at the same time generate real value from their enterprise data. As we lean further into that, many human tasks will be augmented by AI. Through AGDA, the plan is to develop the talent of the region by upskilling and reskilling our people to be “data native” with new ways of delineating jobs and tasks.

Karan: Fabio said it best!

Have current needs of retail and CPG necessitated industry-based cloud? What is an industry or vertical-based cloud and why is it relevant/required now?

It is immensely important to have industry-expert teams engaged at every level of our vertical customers which includes retail. We are building not just the toolsets, but the teams with a dedicated charter to advise on business solutions with Google Cloud technology that can help customers leapfrog their competition and ensure their long term success.

EITN: Fabio mentioned a pressure for enterprises to become more responsive, customer obsessed and market relevant now. Why is there this pressure now, and what are enterprises turning towards to help them be market relevant?

Fabio: The reason is simple; we’re on the brink of an experience renaissance, and it is becoming a mandate of every organisation to deliver exceptional experiences for their customers. Organisations are under pressure to be more responsive, and in order to do so, they would need real-time decision-making capabilities that are backed by AI and insights powered by machine-learning.  

Cloud is central to resilient, sustainable enterprise operations and future competitive advantage. Being in the cloud and having the data on cloud will help organisations unlock the capabilities a modern business requires, such as greater flexibility, more agility, and new opportunities for innovation. Without end-to-end data visibility that is free from infrastructure complexity, these will be difficult, if not impossible, to secure.

EITN: Have current needs of retail and CPG necessitated industry-based cloud? What is an industry or vertical-based cloud and why is it relevant/required now?

Fabio: There are certainly specific needs within the retail and CPG industries that have called for cloud capabilities. Within the retail and CPG goods industry, cloud will enable organisations to rearchitect the end-to-end retail business to get closer to consumers. For example, front-end platforms need to be tightly integrated with inventory, billing, and other back-office systems. Yet for most retailers, integration today means slow interactions across disparate legacy systems with limited ability to act in real time. And legacy doesn’t even have to refer to old code or antiquated systems. It could also mean modern applications and associated services that are no longer relevant to the business.  

Industry cloud encapsulates the underlying platform capabilities and overlays industry specific functionality to drive business outcomes.  For example, an industry cloud within the retail and CPG industry could benefit from a digital supply chain to better forecast demand, have a pulse on inventory and predict the impact of supply chain network failures.

EITN: As more consumers spend more of their lives online with shopping, entertainment, leisure etc, there is more data than ever collected about them and their online habits. Do you foresee a backlash later from say, privacy advocates?

Fabio: Consumers increasingly expect brands to show they understand their preferences. At the same time, consumers do not want brands to go too far and violate their privacy, and have specific preferences for how they want brands to interact with them digitally.

This brings forth the importance of data gathering within reason. Brands must treat data collection and data strategy as part of the consumer experience. By providing consumers with value for their data and ensuring that the brand will not lose or abuse their data will help put consumers at ease and help brands benefit from greater consumer willingness to share information.

At the end of the day there is a price to pay if it seems like a brand is invading consumers’ privacy, and the key to using any of this data is to use it responsibly.

Karan: I agree with what Fabio shared. We want to give customers the technology with multi-layered security built in so they can in turn deliver valuable, personalised and secure customer experience to their consumers and demonstrate that they’re using the data they’re entrusted with responsibly.