Jiwei Network News On December 14, 2021, the 2021 Intel Smart Retail Pilot Creator Share Conference was held in Shenzhen. At this conference, Intel Corporation and many of its partners gave wonderful speeches and views on the opportunities and challenges facing China's retail industry in the process of digital transformation from their respective perspectives.
Not only that, Intel and a number of partners in the upstream and downstream of the supply chain also jointly launched the "Excellent POS Product Certification Program Initiative" at this meeting.
For this initiative, Peng Jianzhen, secretary general of the China Chain Store and Franchise Association, said that all walks of life in China have undergone great changes in recent years, whether it is supermarket formats or consumer goods, from the early situation of foreign enterprises leading to the rise of domestic products, the same in the POS industry. Of course, in this context, we have to go further, in addition to the cost-effective advantage, domestic companies in the product quality and ability to help customers solve problems to a higher level, Intel this plan can help everyone very well.
"In the past, although everyone was a competitor, in this ecology we sat together to discuss how to better serve customers, not just how to fight a price war, which is very meaningful." Now that the retail side is changing so fast, if we say that the POS side is still just working the price war, it will certainly not be able to adapt to the current demand. I have always said that we must meet the needs of customers from the supply side, not just passively follow the needs of customers, Intel uses its excellent technology and resources to empower domestic enterprises, I believe that our POS manufacturers as a whole can go to a higher level. ”
The pandemic has accelerated the digitalization of the retail industry
The sudden outbreak of the epidemic has undoubtedly brought great changes to many industries around the world, and the retail industry is no exception. In the post-epidemic era, people's habits in work, study and life have changed due to epidemic prevention; as a result, the needs of retail clients have also changed.
Liu Meixun, chairman of Zhongke Yingtai, said that although the digital transformation of retail stores has begun to start before the epidemic, there have indeed been more specific changes after the epidemic. For example, in order to strengthen the contactless service of epidemic prevention, the demand for self-service has been stimulated.
"After the outbreak of the epidemic, service positions such as tally clerks, weighers, and cashiers are more risky, resulting in difficulties in recruiting workers for these positions; at this time, the demand for AI self-service cashiers, AI weighing identification, and AI applications combined with some loss prevention has increased significantly." Therefore, I think that the epidemic has actually accelerated the landing of AI technology."
Xue Zhili, chairman of EasyJet, also said: "After the epidemic, the first thing we felt was the demand for contactless cashiers. March and April 2020 are the most severe moments of the epidemic, so we are also working intensively to deploy such equipment solutions to customers. The second is to spawn the rapid popularization of AI. The third is that the smart store solution has begun to be applied one after another, especially to solve the problem of no one at night, and we have good landing cases in some large supermarkets in Zhejiang and Beijing. ”
Also as a first-line manufacturer in the domestic POS industry, Su Yutao, general manager of Hisense Intelligent Commercial, believes that although the epidemic has spawned a lot of new demand, it has also brought more pressure. "I think we've got to run, or we won't be able to keep up with the demand." On the one hand, we need to temper our ability, on the other hand, it is difficult to afford to raise prices in the context of rising costs, and the pressure on our profitability is also very large; based on the above two points, we do a lot of optimization, iteration, and upgrading of innovative solutions to try to solve these problems, if we solve them well, it will bring us greater opportunities. ”
As mentioned above, the impact of the epidemic on the global economic environment cannot be ignored, and it can be said that the retail industry is currently in a situation of "crisis" and "opportunity".
"The current difficulties will always pass, and after the difficulties have passed, there are often a number of high-quality enterprises emerging and occupying a favorable position in the market." From Intel's point of view, whether it is holding a ChuangXiang club with customers or launching a POS certification initiative, it is actually hoped to help everyone make new things in difficult times, and see a large number of domestic companies stand out after the difficulties have passed. Dr. Wei Guo, General Manager of Sales for Intel's Internet of Things Division in China, said.
Technology helps ecology, ecological service retail
With the establishment of the retail ecosystem, Intel and ecological partners in the process of continuous exploration of the industry, but also more in-depth touch on the market demand, Dr. Guo Wei also shared the pos industry in the development trend of the POS industry in the technology from his own perspective in the interview after the meeting.
Previously, many companies in the initial stage of digital transformation will focus more on cost considerations, and this trend will begin to shift as enterprise transformation enters a new stage.
Dr. Guo Wei pointed out that the industry may not be a single trend. First of all, it will have more and more equipment, and there will be higher and higher requirements for comprehensive performance, more interfaces need to be provided, and more and more cost-effective will be pursued.
"As the entire industry in China develops, we will see more and more customers putting forward higher requirements for CPU processing performance, whether it is computing performance or graphics performance; and it needs to carry more loads on it and have richer interfaces." The market shows such a trend, but let us have more confidence, I believe that in the future with the development of Intel as a whole, we can better serve China's POS industry. ”
For Intel, in terms of workload consolidation, virtualization, etc., it is not only to provide a chip, but also to provide the underlying software together with partners. For example, a virtualized AI software that enables Intel's partners to better develop applications based on this.
Dr. Guo Wei said: "So in our opinion, the current technology trends in the industry are two. One is the demand for the underlying hardware, and the other is the demand for some of the above underlying development tools (AI, virtualization, load integration, etc.), based on these two aspects Intel will strive to do, hoping to better support and help domestic partners. ”
Finally, for the core ideas and directions of Intel's layout in the retail industry, Xie Qingshan, industry sales director of Intel's Internet of Things Sales marketing department in China, summarized three aspects: first, to respond to the unprecedented changes in a century with a positive attitude; second, to use "technology + digitalization" to help enterprises transform and upgrade; and finally, to use the power of "brand + service" to help Chinese enterprises go global. (Proofreading/lee)