21 Nov 2019

Digital & IT

It's no secret that retail has been irreversibly disrupted by technology. Customer expectations are now higher than ever, fuelled by the rise of online shopping, 24/7 customer service, mobile commerce, flexible delivery options, artificial intelligence, and personalisation. Developments that were leading innovations five years ago are now what's expected of any online retailer. Today's innovations are tomorrow's fundamentals.

The home improvement sector is no exception but has been slower to adapt. We've already seen a huge shift to omnichannel shopping amongst our existing customers, in the next decade a huge number of millennials will be buying their first homes, and we have to maintain our relevance to renters. To remain relevant, we must evolve our business or risk losing out. The challenge for us is doing that in a business with legacy IT infrastructure.

Laying the foundations
So how will we bring Kingfisher to the forefront of digital capability? First, we understand that rebuilding technology in a large, international business takes time. Technology may be advancing at a rate of knots, but unless you take time to lay the right foundations, you won't be able to accelerate growth in the future. It's like building with Lego; right now, Kingfisher has bricks of different shapes, sizes and colours. Some of our Lego is quite old. This all makes it very difficult to build with and we have to maintain each set individually. We need tech components that fit together simply.

For us that has meant stripping out legacy systems and replacing them with market-leading technology that will step-change our digital offering, as well as moving all of our markets onto a common digital platform. And this work is mostly complete. Without investing in the core platform, we wouldn't be able to offer the digital experience our customers deserve and expect or set ourselves up for future growth.

Connecting the dots
N
ow we're able to develop new digital tools and services that give customers confidence and support at every stage of their home improvement journey, whenever and wherever they need us. We're building a much-improved customer experience with brilliant content, simple payments, enhanced delivery, and all at super-fast speed on any device. Whether they're at home, on the move, or in store.

This doesn't mean pursuing tech for tech's sake. It's about connecting the dots between technology and customer outcomes. That's why all our innovations aim to make it easier for customers to get inspired and plan their home improvement projects, from calculators to help you work out how many cans of paint you need, to 3D visualisers that help you plan your room, accurate to the last millimetre.

Looking to the future
There is still much more to do. We are putting innovation at the heart of our business, not in a silo or a lab, and we will continue to trial new things. To test and learn. To search out innovation in every part of our business - in the experiences we provide customers, in the way we orient our supply chain, and in how we strip out complexity for shop-floor colleagues so they can spend more time on customer service.

The future is full of possibility. Virtual reality and artificial intelligence could transform the way we engage with customers. Realising this potential will not always be simple in a business that is more than fifty years old and which operates across multiple markets, but we're absolutely committed to bringing Kingfisher to the forefront of digital capability.

Note - B&Q and Castorama France both celebrated their 50th anniversaries in 2019

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Kingfisher plc published this content on 21 June 2021 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 21 June 2021 08:10:01 UTC.