STORES Convention Daily - 2018 Big Show Day 2 - 8

2018 MONDAY

Technology and Business: An Essential Partnership

n a presentation held late Sunday morning, two executives of QVC Group,
Mary Campbell, chief interactive experience officer, and Todd Sprinkle, chief
digital officer, discussed how the giant
direct-sales media company is investing
in - and ruthlessly evaluating - technological innovation to manage its rapidly
expanding portfolio of brands and channels.
They were introduced by Healey Cypher,
CEO and co-founder of Oak Labs, a retail
startup specializing in interactive magicmirror technology for dressing rooms.
"If there was just one change you
could make within your organization,"
asked Mary Campbell to begin the discussion, "that would help you solve many of
your major challenges, what would it be?
At QVC, it was blurring the lines between
technology and the business, so that technology and the business are one team solving many of these challenges."
The session was of particular interest
because it was the first opportunity for most
attendees to hear QVC's plans - on the
technological side, at least - for managing systems and assets after completing
its $2.1 billion acquisition of HSN, in the
process creating the world leader in video
commerce. The post-merger QVC has a
base of 23 million customers, reach into
360 million households globally and annual

revenues of $14 billion.
transactional retailer. We are an experiential
Today, QVC consists of eight retail retailer, which means we're competing for
brands: QVC, HSN, Zulily, Frontgate, her time - time she spends with other
Ballard Designs, Garnet Hill, Grandin retailers, and time she spends with other
Road and Improvements. It is a direct retail content."
company, a traditional media company and,
Which means that QVC needs to
increasingly, a social media company as create a consistent experience across
well. "QVC," Sprinall these channels.
kle said, "really does
There are, Campcreate a multi-platbell said, three key
Our goal is to make
form, multi-format
challenges to doing
sure we are constantly
experience across
that: complexity, the
creating meaningful
broadcast, web, moneed for speed and
experiences that are
bile and social."
the need for innorelevant on each of
"But we don't
vation. "To manage
think of our custhese challenges,"
these platforms."
tomer as a mobile
she said, "we really
-Todd Sprinkle, QVC
customer, or a TV
are blurring the lines
Group
customer or a dotbetween our techcom customer -
nology teams and
because that's not
our business teams."
how she sees herself. She sees herself as
Take, for example, the issue of coma QVC customer. Our customers actually plexity. "We have less control of where and
tend to interact with us across all of those how the customer engages with our brand,"
platforms. And our best customers shop Campbell said. "We also have the challenge
with us across all those platforms, so our of both listening to what the customer is
goal is to make sure we are constantly saying and also looking at data. And, of
creating meaningful experiences that are course, we have the challenge of integrating
relevant on each of these platforms."
all of these different capabilities of all of
And constantly assessing how their these technologies and platforms into our
customers are reacting to them across the legacy systems."
platforms. "QVC," Sprinkle said, "is not a
Then there is the need for speed.

"There are changes in the customer's adaptation to all these channels, and, of course,
change in customer expectation."
The question is how to make sure the
company is moving quickly as well, at the
same time investing in what will give the
greatest payoff. One solution being used
at QVC to help manage this is DART, data
analytics response technology. DART isn't
from-the-ground-up new; it's built on a
base of legacy systems, but it's fast. "The
power of it," Campbell said, "is what it allows us to do in the day. And to do things
in the day, we need to figure out, what is
the minimal amount of information that
allows us to make a decision?" DART,
in other words, is essentially a business
intelligence tool. It enables - at least to
a workable degree - the business team
and the tech team to be talking about the
same thing at the same time, while looking
at the same dashboard, and reach a quick
conclusion about what can be done "in the
day," i.e., right now.
Does it work? Campbell and Sprinkle
cite the case of Beauty IQ, a live, multiplatform social shopping network running
across QVC, HSN and Facebook Live,
which they managed to launch in 90 days.
To do that, the tech people and the money
people are speaking the same language.
They're blurring the lines.

http://multidev.com http://chaindrive.com

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