AI prompts fearless dive into corporate reinvention

Siam Piwat Group’s digital chief touts AI’s transformative power in boosting customer value, personalisation, and brand trust.

LEADING brands are no stranger to change. As seasons come with trends, retail follows. But the future calls for reinvention, something companies like Siam Piwat Group embraces with the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI).

In a fireside chat with Retail Asia, Siam Piwat Group Chief Digital Officer Axel Winter explained why brands should turn to AI for retail analytics and personalisation and adopt a mindset of continuous experimentation and learning.

He highlighted the corporate decision to adapt amidst the transformative impact of technological advancements and use them through its innovation spin-off, Xponential.

Winter noted that whilst AI-driven personalisation has been in existence since the early 2000s, its potential has only recently begun to unfold due to the emergence of generative AI.

This shift underscores the ongoing digital transformation in retail, emphasising the need for agility and experimentation in AI adoption.

Customer value

The group’s digital chief cited the need for retailers to prioritise customer value and brand trust whilst navigating privacy concerns associated with AI-driven personalisation.

He cited how the new technology allows retailers to make educated guesses in low-data environments, opening avenues for enhanced personalisation strategies.

Restructuring is also an imperative for corporations and start-ups alike, said Winter. For effective corporate reinvention, he advocated for nimbleness to innovate products and services continuously.

Winter also outlined the broader implications of AI in retail, foreseeing a future where AI-driven voice and chat functionalities could render traditional contact centres obsolete.

His predictions are anchored on AI’s central role in revolutionising marketing strategies, which includes dynamic pricing and personalised promotions. All this wraps around a foreseeable uplift in personalisation and targeting, said the expert.

Restructuring and innovation

“So the real change we are seeing now is it’s not to add on one or two more features, but it’s really to say, “How do we restructure the corporate?”; “How do we restart even start-ups and make them so nimble that they can create new products and services every other day?” Winter said.

On retail services, he sees tech-aided customer assistance evolving by leaps and bounds. AI-driven voice and chat functionalities will have become more sophisticated in the future that contact centres may be rendered obsolete.

This early, Winter is preparing Siam Piwat Group for AI’s transformative impact on marketing strategies, figuring out how GenAI can optimise dynamic pricing and personalised promotions.

“I foresee significant enhancements in personalisation and targeting driven by next-generation AI,” he said.

For smaller retailers with limited resources, Winter recommended exploring accessible end-user AI tools such as Google’s upcoming video editing tool to streamline marketing efforts and automate processes.