In 2011 Intel saw opportunities to invest in bringing new technologies to physical retail. Previous to this time, most retail technology investment was focused on the supply chain and store operations, not the front of store customer experience. Intel tapped A+A to help define this early vision for a new generation of retail experiences.
The objective was to develop a new industry vocabulary that the Intel sales force could use in engaging conversations with retailers around the world. Experiences were clustered into five experience types, each with a common set of challenges in the delivery of content, the presentation devices on the floor, and the systems behind the scenes.
Through this visioning process with retailers, it became clear that the major hurdle for these large retailers was the cost and complexity of integrating all of these new capabilities, offered by many different vendors, alongside the burden of connecting them with diverse legacy systems.
Working with the Intel technologists, A+A supported the early definition of a middleware platform that connects front-end digital experiences with back-end retail supply chain systems. The objective was to enable engaging and interactive in-store customer experiences, capture insight about how customers shop and buy, and provide retailers with the ability to adapt the retail offer in response to new forms of business intelligence.
From 2011 to 2018 Ancona + Associates was commissioned to explore experience concepts and develop use cases, marketing and trade show concepts, and prototype applications for a wide range of problems that cut across retail sectors. Tom Ancona has supported a number of Intel engagements with major retailers in the US and Europe, in which he participated in customer experience workshops and helped these retailers imagine how and where to invest in these new technologies.
A+A has been recognized alongside a select group of global consultancies as part of the Intel Retail Solutions Partner Network.
