Canadian Retailer - Holiday 2014 - 41

are in a race to become digital. Those that get
there first will be able to disrupt their existing
markets and penetrate new ones. They will be
in control of their digital destinies. For business leaders everywhere, the next three years
will be about determining their organizations'
pace in this digital race-and their place in the
new world of digital." Most of the technology
trends anticipated by consultants for 2015 are
just advancements of many trends that are
already underway-they will just be accelerated and more ubiquitous. "Tomorrow's highperforming businesses will use technology to
strengthen their relationships with customers,
leverage their data, optimize and secure their
critical systems, and enable their workforces
with leading tools," says Accenture.
PWC consultants add, in its New Frontiers
report, that the pervasiveness of technology in
2015 "will drive more change in the way consumers shop in the next 10 years than it has in
the last 20 years."

plains. "You hear the term omnichannel a lot, but we shy away
from that label. The risk of omnichannel-and this happens a
lot-is the online teams don't work with the in-store teams. We
need to make the digital assets seamless, so what you see online is what you experience in the store."
For Canadian Tire-and for retailers who "get it"-the customer
is now king. They hold the balance of power. Roman says Canadian Tire constantly asks the following question: "What makes
sense in the digital world from the consumers' point of view?"
"We are always outward facing, not inward looking. We know
online is where customers now go first. Then, they make decisions from there whether they are going to come into our stores
or make a purchase via ecommerce. We are very specific on
how we go about this," he continues. "We call it the Cyberian
Revolution. We brought on board a next generation of 600 top
digital talent and opened technology solution labs in Toronto,
Montreal, and Winnipeg. In all of these ecosystems, it's about
how to serve the customer."
In these innovative, technological environments, Canadian
Tire is trying to figure out what the best practices are in this brave
new digital world. Look no further than the Canadian Tire Innovations (CTi) lab at Kitchener-Waterloo's Communitech Hub,
which set up shop in February 2013, shortly
"[technology] will be pervasive-driven by fallafter Roman started with the company. Many
competitors were bewildered by a non-tech coming costs, widespread access and adoption, a
retailer entering
working infrastructure and increased standardiz- pany and traditionalsaw the unlimitedthis space,
but Canadian Tire
potential
ation. digital and personal media will continue to and opportunity to tap into the bright young
grow exponentially and create new channels for minds in this Silicon Valley of the North and
with suppliers in a varcustomer insight, interaction and engagement." use this space to partnerpotential technological
iety of industries to find
- PwC'S Retailing 2015: new FRontieRs, technology solutions to a variety of challenges-from the
development of apps to better serve customers
canadian tire, seamless "e-tail" and
to finding ways to make its supply chain and inventory managethe agile aisle
ment even more seamless. "In a few short months, we've come up
In the quest to remain ahead, and on the with many useful solutions," Roman says. "Our employees there
leading edge of technology, Canadian Tire [Communitech] are connecting with other companies and creatis definitely a digital disrupter. Flash back to ing new supplier relationships...it's a true open environment."
2012 and the iconic retailer realized the warp
Canadian tire's digital
speed at which the world was changing. One winnipeg data centre
of the first steps it made was to hire eugene
Canadian Tire's next evolution media centre enhances the
Roman from Open Text, tapping into his ex- is its advanced gamification and entire company's existing
technology infrastructure
pertise in the technology sector. Today, as digital media centre in Winnipeg by providing:
Canadian Tire's Senior Vice-President, Infor- that opened earlier this year. The
mation Technology and Chief Technology Of- centre provides the Canadian Tire
ficer, Roman is driving Canadian Tire's digital Corp-Canadian Tire retail stores,
more
revolution and technological innovation. Just Mark's, FGL Sports (SportChek,
computing
power
28 months since taking on this new role, the Hockey experts, Sports experts, Nachanges for this 35-year veteran have been fast tional Sports, Intersport, Pro Hockey
and furious. His prime responsibility is to sup- Life and Atmosphere), Partsource,
port the evolution of all digital and interactive Gas+ and Financial Services-with
more network
technologies of the corporation.
20-times more computing power and
bandwidth
"What Canadian Tire is trying to do is drive 10-times more network bandwidth
innovation around the use of digital technolo- than its existing technology infrastructure. The 28,000 square-foot
gies, both online and in the stores," Roman ex- site houses a digital content warehouse, application lab, testing lab

+20x

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Canadian Retailer - Holiday 2014

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