DATATRAC: Retail and Foodservice Technology – August 2018

The Retail & Foodservice Technology DataTrac is a monthly feature designed to keep you informed of tech developments across a host of industries. All applicable developments are reflected in CSG products.

Foodservice

• Jack in the Box will drop $45 million over three years to improve its drive-thru lanes with new digital menu boards and tablet-holding order-takers.
• McDonald’s and its franchisees are investing $6 billion in remodeling 5,000+ stores in 16 states and DC by the end of 2020. The plan calls for an interior and exterior refresh that includes new drive-thru and instore digital menus and changes to parking to accommodate mobile pickup.
• Wendy’s announced the CIO David Trimm will retire early next year and be replaced by Chief Concept and Marketing Officer Kurt Kane who will head up a new “Digital Experience Organization” within the company. Also in the digital revamp mix are CFO Gunther Plosch who will add enterprise technology to his remit and COO Bob Wright, who will take point on in-store technology while handing over international oversight to Chief Development Officer and new Head of International, Abigail Pringle.
• Wingstop is working on natural voice-recognition technology for phone orders so that they can be digitized and converted into online orders.

Retail

• Barneys New York named Katherine Monasebian as Chief Digital and Technology Officer.
• Joann will adopt the ShopperTrack in-store traffic analytics platform (Tyco Retail Solutions) for its stores.
• Nordstrom named Edmond Mesrobian as Chief Technology Officer.
• Tailored Brands announced the appointment of Samantha Lee as Senior VP, Chief Digital Officer.
• Walmart reported last week that Q2 ecommerce sales jumped by 40%.

Grocery/Convenience

• H-E-B appointed Mike Georgoff as its new Chief Product Officer, H-E-B Digital. Georgoff will lead the company’s digital-product strategy, design and development and report to Chief Digital Officer Jag Bath.
• Hy-Vee announced plans to implement next-generation store systems from GK Software, including OmniPOS for omnichannel POS, Mobile Customer Assistant (MCA) for mobile app self-scanning, and the TransAction+ payment solution.
• Kroger entered into a new partnership with Nuro to pilot an on-road, fully autonomous grocery delivery experience. Consumers will place same-day delivery orders using Kroger’s ClickList ordering system, as well as Nuro’s app. The orders will be delivered by Nuro’s fleet of autonomous vehicles.

Drug/Health/Beauty

• Best Buy will acquire connected health services provider GreatCall Inc. The transaction is expected to close by the end of Best Buy’s fiscal 2019 third quarter.
• CVS Health announced that its retail medical clinic MinuteClinic has developed a new digital healthcare platform allowing patients to access healthcare services via a mobile device, known as MinuteClinic Video Visits. So far, the service is available in nine states. Nationwide expansion is anticipated by the end of the year.
• L’Occitane is the latest beauty retailer to enter the instore virtual reality fray. It’s newly opened Manhattan store is testing the brand’s first virtual reality experience.
• Raley’s has recently launched its mobile pharmacy app. The RxRefills On-The-Go app allows customers to order prescription refills through their smartphone and receive text notifications when a script is ready and if a refill is scheduled.
• Rituals Hand & Body Cosmetics worked with Jamf to completely migrate from PCs to Mac devices across all of its stores worldwide.

Hardware & Home Improvement

• Tractor Supply promoted Rob Mills to Exec VP, Chief Technology, Digital Commerce and Strategy Officer.

Just because we don’t mention it here doesn’t mean it didn’t happen – or we didn’t capture it. In the past four weeks, we’ve updated more than 590 companies in the Database of Foodservice Technology and Database of Retail Technology, with many of those companies’ records updated at multiple points.