Retailers must focus on digital twins, data analytics for compelling customer experience: Neelima Sharma, Lowe’s

American retail company Lowe’s that specialises in home improvement and runs a chain of over 1,700 offline and online stores in the US, is betting big on the India market. The company had set up its Global Capability Centre in India nearly a decade back and has come a long way from providing operational support to now building cutting-edge technology products and solutions. In an interview with TechCircle, Neelima Sharma, SVP Digital Commerce and Technology, Lowe’s Inc, explains how the company’s India centre leverages technologies such as artificial intelligence, digital twins (AI) and data analytics to enhance customer experience. Edited excerpts:

What technology trends excite you the most in the retail and ecommerce space?  

Customers today are becoming digital-savvy to an extent that companies have to completely focus on a customer's journey. They need to identify their problem and have a clear understanding of the right digital platforms and channels to create the most compelling digital experiences. This is particularly true since pandemic and beyond. We can expect to see continued growth in areas such as personalisation, location intelligence, visualisation, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and omni-channel experience in retail. Data also plays a big role in the retail sector and helps in various decision-making processes such as product recommendations, inventory management, supply chain operations, and demand forecasting. Retailers who can stay ahead of these trends and offer exceptional customer experiences will be well-positioned in the coming years.  
 
What are the new technologies Lowe’s India is toying with?  

In the last 5 years, we have been at the forefront of technology innovation at Lowe's and the India team plays a significant role. In that regard, our partnership with Google Cloud helped us tremendously in modernising our e-commerce, merchandising, supply chain management and pricing systems. We also rolled out geofencing technology that recognises when consumers picking up online orders have arrived at the store, making store-based fulfillment faster. It basically determines when that audience is within a certain radius, and sending them ads can help drive those consumers in store to make a purchase. Most of the technologies we use here are simple, customisable and extensible as they are API enabled and cloud native. We also built an omnichannel self-checkout experience for our customers that resulted in 90% reduction in POS terminal start-up time and makes it very convenient for customers.   
 
Can you tell us how Lowe’s is leveraging AI/ML and digital twin across its functions?     

The majority of the products that we build here and deliver are intelligent with AI/ML integrated in them. These technologies help us in constantly improving and personalising customer experience. For example, it helps us recommend products to our customers based on their browsing and buying patterns. Our product strategy is guided by our strong UX design, engineering strength, and data science and machine learning capabilities. We also leverage digital twin to boost efficiency and customer services - the whole concept of digitally testing and bringing new concept to life. Digital twin modelling also allows us to track how customers use interactive ads. If you take the digital browsing interactions, physical interactions, or the physical behaviours of the customer inside the store, you can start modelling based on what customers want to shop for home improvement. And that's just one example. Our logistics, inventory management and shipping are further modelled via digital twins. On generative AI (the buzz notwithstanding), we are exploring opportunities and how this can help our customers and business. We are more in an exploratory state.
 
What are your hiring plans for the next 1-2 years? Also what skillsets do you look for in the engineers that you hire at the India centre?  

Lowe’s India has grown significantly in the last 36 months, with almost 100% growth in headcount. Today, Lowe’s India has over 4,000 full time employees in India and close to 1,000 contractors who deliver service to over 17 million plus customers globally. As India continues to be an extremely important market for us, we are very much focused on continuous hiring and upskilling in various roles, especially in the pure-play digital commerce areas.  We have been hiring engineers with a knowhow in data science, cloud native architecture, product management as well as in UX/UI design, to name a few.