Blogs & Media

Left-right-left, here are the robots. At the moment, distribution and fulfilment centers of department stores, web stores and parcel delivery companies are the main areas where robots work. They need no help zipping between stacks, sourcing the correct items and...

Machines operated by computers can produce unique items of every conceivable shape by using 3D printing. A laser beam builds the object out of a liquid or powder (plastic, metal or organic). This technology has turned whole industries upside down. Manufacturers have...

In the future, we will ultimately carry around our favorite stores in our pockets, thanks to VR, AR, MR and holograms. Just imagine sitting at home with a blend of visual recognition and an e-catalogue of furniture helping you project a virtual presentation onto a...

Imagine it, billions of machines connecting and sharing chunks of data with each other and with people. Could the Internet of Things (IoT) be the very exemplification of the smart economy? This is one of the top technologies of the future. The driving forces behind it...

Smart technology is making city life better than ever: healthier, cleaner and safer. Gartner estimates that the number of connected devices in smart cities will increase from 2.7 billion in 2017 to an immense 9.7 billion by 2020. In the cities of the future, everyone...

New technology has always been the catalyst of social and economic transitions. New energy sources, technologies and means of communication brought true revolution to society, the economy and individuals, during the first two industrial revolutions. The present day is...

We can do it all, say retailers Amazon, Alibaba and their peers have assumed all sorts of roles within the value chain, by offering fulfilment services, including storage, order picking and packaging goods – even for other retailers. In the process, they provide...

Everyone is selling to everyone else Retailers have shifted their focus from ‘just the consumer’, to include selling to businesses. Similarly, businesses that for the longest time were happy in the B2B zone, have begun to dabble in consumer markets, too. Large brands...

Catch businesses off guard Diversification is sometimes called ‘Aldification’, after the German budget grocer Aldi. Supermarkets sell non-food items, such as clothes and sports equipment. Or they might offer consumers access to online music services, or start their...

Experiment and experience For onlife consumers, experience is the key word in shopping. Retailers should take note of this, when they want to experiment with new retail concepts. Some fashionable online brands have made successful transitions into physical stores....

Change is coming to retail We can expect the next decade to be an important one for retail. Boundaries that have begun to blur will disappear altogether, offline and online will become one. With a term borrowed from philosopher Luciano Floridi, I call this onlife. The...

In The Onlife Manifesto (2015), Luciado Floridi stated that the distinction between online and life is fading, and in time will even disappear.[1] The digital, online world flows into the analogue, offline world, culminating in an ‘onlife’ experience. The start of...