Top Global Retail Technology Expert & friend of the #pod Carl Boutet discusses his role as the in-house retail technology expert at the Montreal SAIL show, highlighting his involvement in marshalling the experts in the food and innovation industry together to share wisdom and insights across the sector here in Canada and around the world
Top Global Retail Technology Expert & friend of the #pod Carl Boutet discusses his role as the in-house retail technology expert at the Montreal SAIL show, highlighting his involvement in marshalling the experts in the food and innovation industry together to share wisdom and insights across the sector here in Canada and around the world.
Carl emphasized the importance of food in retail, noting that successful retailers like Walmart and Costco have integrated food offerings as part of their successful business growth model.
Carl also mentioned the challenges of innovation and details McGill's innovation lab, which focuses on frictionless commerce and healthy consumption, as well as its interdisciplinary research. Boutet also touched on the overhyped and underhyped aspects of smart carts and AI in retail and the need for more iterations in format innovation.
About Carl
Business strategist and executive advisor, McGill
Carl is a Montreal-based business strategist, digital marketer and executive advisor with over 25 years of hands-on operational, marketing and retail executive experience. He has worked across a full array of business environments from the very large, such as 10 years with Costco Wholesale to working as commercial applications lead for a global B2B security technology company. In both, managing product portfolios and emerging go-to-market strategies.
As the founder of StudioRx, he advises executives, B2C/B2B solution providers and all types of ecosystem partners on how to tailor their solutions according to customers’ evolving needs and build effective commercial strategies to meet them.
He holds an MBA from Queen’s University as well as professional certificates from Stanford, Harvard and MIT.
He advises several technology startups, industry associations and innovation labs.
He is the principal advisor for the McGill University Retail Innovation Lab in Montreal, Canada. He is also, course instructor at McGill Masters in Retail Innovation (emerging technologies and new business models) and adjunct digital marketing faculty at Asian Institute of Technology MBA School of Management.
Carl is recognized by Rethink Retail among the world’s most influential thought leaders and has keynoted, chaired and/or moderated the largest retail conferences around the world. He remains a regular media contributor with global news networks.
In 2021 he published his first book; The Great Acceleration – on how the Covid-19 pandemic rapidly propelled digital transformations and the business strategies to address the challenges that followed.
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to our summer SIAL special bonus episodes of the Food Professor podcast, presented by Caddle.
Michael LeBlanc 00:13
As the official podcast for the SIAL Food Innovation show this year in Montreal, Sylvain and I had the opportunity to interview the leading thought leaders, brands and makers in the food industry, as the saying goes, “these are their stories”.
Michael LeBlanc 00:27
Top Global retail technology expert and friend of the pod, the one and only Carl Boutet discusses his role as the in-house retail technology expert at the Montreal SIAL show, highlighting his involvement in marshaling the experts in the food industry and innovation industries together to share wisdom and insights across the sector, here in Canada and around the world.
Michael LeBlanc 00:47
Carl emphasized the importance of food in retail, noting that successful retailers like Walmart and Costco have integrated food offerings as part of their successful business growth model. Carl also mentioned the challenges of innovation and details McGill's innovation lab, which focuses on frictionless commerce and healthy consumption, as well as its interdisciplinary research. Boutet also touched on the overhyped and underhyped aspects of smart carts and AI in retail and the need for more iterations in format innovation. Let's listen in now.
Sylvain Charlebois 01:22
Hey Carl, welcome back.
Carl Boutet 01:24
Three for three.
Sylvain Charlebois 01:25
Exactly.
Carl Boutet 01:25
But you weren't here last time you skipped out; you skipped out.
Sylvain Charlebois 01:28
I did. It wasn't on purpose.
Michael LeBlanc 01:30
It's not SIAL, unless we have Carl Boutet here.
Carl Boutet 01:33
That's right, absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc 01:34
I must say you're looking quite natty today. You're looking very sharp today. You're natty like you're presenting super well.
Carl Boutet 01:42
Well for the people on the podcast, that obviously comes through really clearly.
Michael LeBlanc 01:47
I'll say academia.
Sylvain Charlebois 01:49
You're starting to look like an academic.
Michael LeBlanc 01:50
Academia does well for you, really.
Sylvain Charlebois 01:53
You look calm.
Carl Boutet 01:56
Maybe that's the medication. I just got to tell you Sylvain, though, because, you know, he has another husband, that you're not his only husband.
Sylvain Charlebois 02:02
That's right.
Carl Boutet 02:03
And the last time I was with-, on the show with his other husband, it was in a cabana on the poolside. So, you're gonna have to, like, have a conversation with you two, because apparently he takes the other husband to nicer places.
Michael LeBlanc 02:13
But to be fair, this is a far better podcast studio than the cabana in-, this is beautiful here. We're here at SIAL.
Carl Boutet 02:20
There's a lot more food, and the food's a lot better. I'll give it that.
Sylvain Charlebois 02:22
Look at this. Look at our aquarium.
Sylvain Charlebois 02:24
[inaudible] aquarium.
Michael LeBlanc 02:25
It's a fishbowl.
Carl Boutet 02:26
I just had some amazing Peruvian food, like three, three steps over that way. I mean, come on.
Sylvain Charlebois 02:31
Are you enjoying yourself so far at SIAL this year?
Carl Boutet 02:33
Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 02:34
Because you've been to SIAL many times.
Carl Boutet 02:36
Well, many, it's starting to yeah. I feel, I mean, it's funny, I was sort of late to this show when I discovered it. It was, you know, maybe six, seven years ago and-, and it was like a whole new world. Yeah. So I've been enjoying it more and more and progressively getting more and more immersed and this year I had this opportunity that came, you know, where they-, Tony reached out and said, Could we, you know, maybe involve you some more, where we have this sort of expert thing and I said, can I go as food professor, they said, no, that's already taken.
Sylvain Charlebois 03:03
Copyright.
Carl Boutet 03:04
I was like, damn, okay, what else could I come up with, so, yeah, so I'm the retail technology expert here at the show, and there's a whole to go section that I've been involved with, and I just got off doing three sort of back to back panel presentation things here. So yeah, it's been great. I haven't walked the floor a whole lot, but it's always, I mean.
Michael LeBlanc 03:22
It's hopping, it's hopping.
Carl Boutet 03:23
It's always hopping and it's-, it's-, it's the core of consumption, right? That's what I'm that's what I'm curious about and I probably haven't paid enough attention to this sector until SIAL came along, it was more-, like a lot of people in retail, focused on fashion and some of the stuff they would see-, they we see as quote, unquote sexier, but listen, this is where the core of consumption happens. So, we-, it's important that we pay attention.
Sylvain Charlebois 03:25
You're pretty prolific. I mean, you cover a lot. How much is food in your life right now as a professional academic?
Carl Boutet 03:42
Well, first of all, I'm not an academic. Don't get me in trouble, Charlebois.
Sylvain Charlebois 03:55
To me, you are, I'm more inclusive, I'm more inclusive than some of my colleagues.
Carl Boutet 04:00
It means a lot to me. Especially coming from.
Sylvain Charlebois 04:01
You don’t, you don't need a PhD, you know,
Carl Boutet 04:03
Or a tenure track.
Sylvain Charlebois 04:04
You have a relationship with students, you're an educator, and that's good enough-*
Carl Boutet 04:10
I definitely like the word educator, that's-, that's definitely something in my wheelhouse. It's-, it. I teach. I'm actually teaching right now. I'm in the midst of teaching a one month intensive, which is rough on students, on emerging technologies and new business models and there's a lot of interest around food, especially around the-, on the delivery side, the whole-, this whole to-go thing and I've-, you know, I think my interest came from in this sector was it's-, because of the velocity and volume of the consumption in the sector. It's sort of everything else gets pulled along with it more and more so, if we look at the most successful retailers right now, are the ones that have really over index on their, on their-, their food offer, the Walmarts, the Costcos, you know, they recognize that this is sort of, I'll use another, another professor, Galloway's. This is, you know, the food is sort of the channel of consumption that everything else clicks on to.
Sylvain Charlebois 04:59
Yeah.
Carl Boutet 05:00
Right. So, the conduit.
Sylvain Charlebois 05:01
They, they create habits, habits.
Carl Boutet 05:02
And, yeah, because it needs to sort of bolt everything else on. My concern, I've had concerns around that, but, I mean, it's-, it's just, if you start with this, then everything else sort of goes from there or at the other opposite end, as you go from, like the luxury, sort of high margin fashion, and everything sort of flows back towards this. So, it's one or the other. It's interesting but there's-, they seem to be sort of the two worlds, and they're coming together. Interestingly enough.
Sylvain Charlebois 05:23
That's great. And in terms of the food, so this year, you're the tech guy for SIAL.
Carl Boutet 05:30
Yes.
Sylvain Charlebois 05:31
What are your expectations coming into SIAL this year, compared to other years? Are you-, because, I mean, a lot of people are talking about AI right now, a lot of conferences about AI, our first guest was about AI.
Michael LeBlanc 05:45
And I'll layer on another, another thing. I'm doing a session tomorrow on innovation, the challenges and opportunities and last year's innovation winner was out of business in six months, and she had ticked all the boxes, super smart, innovative idea, award winning, good for the planet, good for her, good for people. Innovation is hard, right?
Carl Boutet 06:09
Yeah, and it enters ebbs and flows, right, so you're familiar with my sort of mantra of the acceleration and the great acceleration, and how the pandemic sort of pushed a lot of things forward, too much so in some cases where now there's been, like, a retrenchment. So, innovation was a lot easier, like two three years ago, because everybody's bandwidth and attention was there to try new ways of doing things and there was a lot more curiosity. Reality caught up, gravity caught up, and now, you know, there's this right sizing, this retrenchment. We've saw Loblaws, you know, with significant downsizing in their digital department, or-
Michael LeBlanc 06:44
We're-, we're seeing in Walmart right now, they're closing their innovation centers and consolidating back to Arkansas, right?
Carl Boutet 06:50
Yeah, they just announced that and-
Michael LeBlanc 06:51
But that to me, I mean, I'm very interested in your perspective on that, because that, to me, isn't stepping back from innovation, but it's just a different innovation model of discovering and executing it, right?
Carl Boutet 07:03
So, it's all about cycles, right, it's these ideas, as I said ebbs and flows earlier. It's this idea that we're trying different ways, and we're learning from each one and these, all these organizations at Walmart is one, you know, great example, who I think is one of the best innovators in our-, in-, especially at scale. They're hard to beat and-, and the fact that they recognize that some things work and some things don't, and they just quickly move, move past that and we-, we've had that, you know, we do with Circle K or Couche-Tard in our lab at McGill, where, you know, they've also basically restructured their whole innovation group, as well.
Sylvain Charlebois 07:35
I've heard now that this particular lab is being revamped as we speak-
Carl Boutet 07:40
It's already out now-
Sylvain Charlebois 07:41
Tell us more about that.
Carl Boutet 07:42
Yeah, it's exciting and that's one of the things we're here talking about, actually and I think it speaks to the innovation agenda and how it evolves and we're fortunate with Circle K or Couche-Tard that, you know, the longevity already we've had with them, which is rare in this space, and that probably comes more from our academic side, where we need longer time to get, you know, to get them meaningful data, we need to do the or they need to do the research they do. But we're already on to the third. It's really-, I think we have one of the best experiments in the world, honestly, around frictionless commerce and what the technologies are, and how those are evolving, and what's working, what's not working. So, it's-, to have already three or almost four iterations, in some ways, of that technology, of that path to purchase in a living lab. You know, it's not a, yeah, it's not a closed lab. It's, for all intents and purposes, a regular-
Michael LeBlanc 08:29
Customer.
Michael LeBlanc 08:30
I was there. I was there in February with some folks from New Zealand.
Sylvain Charlebois 08:32
Tell our listeners where, where the lab is located physically.
Carl Boutet 08:36
Yeah, and we call it a lab, but if you didn't see the writing on the window, you would probably just think it's just another corner, yeah, it's a regular corner store, right, or the convenience store. So, it's, it's on Sherbrooke street downtown Montreal, corner of McTavish, which is actually our business school, the Bronfman building, so it's right there facing office towers, condos, obviously, a lot, a lot of students, which is the primary customer base, especially while we're in semester. So-, so it's really, it's a living lab, in the sense that it's a regular operating store with its own true operational constraints and we're, you know, trying to layer technology and new ways of doing things. Some things, again, have worked really well, and others have-, have not nearly as well. So, it's just what we're seeing, and we're able to do all sorts of research around that too, which is fascinating. That's great.
Sylvain Charlebois 09:26
Now I'm going to put my academic hat on. Are you guys producing any peer review articles out of the lab?
Carl Boutet 09:35
Absolutely.
Sylvain Charlebois 09:35
You are.
Carl Boutet 09:36
Yeah. So, we're doing this tour right now across Quebec. This is actually something I helped instigate with Charles de Brabant, which I think both-
Sylvain Charlebois 09:36
Yeah, I've met him.
Carl Boutet 09:39
The executive director of the school. So, we're going around the province right now, taking some of that, you know, academic research, and making it accessible and meaningful to small businesses. So, we did, we have this on our on the Bensadoun school website. We have a white paper that you can download that is sort of the key learnings of those that research, because there's quite a bit of it. Actually, there's a lot of research happening.
Sylvain Charlebois 10:07
I suspect so.
Carl Boutet 10:09
What's interesting too is most of that research is interdisciplinary. So, it's not just business school research. You know, we have a lot of computer science research around computer vision and these things we have from our engineering school, even our medical school. You know something, food deserts is something I'm sure very, you're very so that was actually the first project that came our way, pre pandemic, obviously, when the medical school was one of the first to show interest in this, in this space, saying, hey, we have a lot of research.
Sylvain Charlebois 10:34
The medical school?
Carl Boutet 10:35
Yeah, yeah, because they were doing a lot of research. The head of research at the school, excuse me, was very interested in the impact of food deserts and on quality of life and, you know, I just, like, a couple weeks ago, I saw we had a sign in the window there saying, if you're diabetic, here's a QR code. We'd like to do some research tied to your consumption and things like that. You know them we so
Sylvain Charlebois 10:57
Brilliant.
Carl Boutet 10:58
Yeah, yeah. So, and that was actually one of the first things at this point, I was just sort of passively supporting the schools at the very beginning and when I sat in on that meeting, had the head of research for the medical school, a neuro statistician, which I didn't even know was a thing, sitting at the table, and they were talking about sort of research projects they're working on, how they could use this space. I was like, wow, okay, this is a whole other level, because I was at that point actually shopping.
Sylvain Charlebois 11:23
It's a dream. I mean, all the data comes to you. I mean, it's all there.
Carl Boutet 11:27
Yes, exactly and I was looking at standing up an innovation project at that point. It was sort of mixing private and public and when the McGill thing came along, it was like, wow, this is perfect and when I heard these people around that table, I was like, yeah, it can't be anywhere else for, for this intention and it's really, it keeps on evolving. It's fascinating. Some of the stuff is really, you know, digital twins, very, very technical in other ways like, how do we do nudging towards healthy consumption, you know, how do we incentivize healthier food choices, so, and so those so they the abstracts of the research is in that white paper you can download, anybody can read and understand. You don't need to have a PhD in neurostatistics, very accessible, but if you want to geek out and you want to go hardcore as an academic, right and you want to find the research, when you find-
Sylvain Charlebois 12:13
Conceptualize-
Carl Boutet 12:14
Then you can get-, you'll get the link to the actual public you know, research, full research paper.
Sylvain Charlebois 12:18
That's the best research, best research, you can do both, absolutely.
Carl Boutet 12:22
And that's what's been interesting about our sector, is we have so much data on retail, you know, it's that's what we-, that's what people-, that's what researchers love,
Sylvain Charlebois 12:29
And the fact that results are so public. Do you think that it's actually helping business in general, like outside I know, I know Couche-Tard is a big partner of yours, but what about business? Do you think they're paying attention to what's going on?
Carl Boutet 12:41
Well, that's part of, actually this tour we're doing. We're trying to sort of bring that because there's often this perception that academic and business realities are two very separate things, and then one doesn't necessarily apply to the other. We're really working at that intersection, and that comes from the beginning of, sort of the [inaudible] diet of the school. You know, when Mr. Bensadoun started, he said, you know, this, our industry is one that's in rapid change. The skill sets we need are more and more diverse. Hence the multidisciplinary side of the school. I don't just need accounts and marketers anymore.
Sylvain Charlebois 13:12
And just so you know, Michael, sorry to interrupt you, Carl, but retail in academia is poo-pooed on all the time, because it's never been seen as sophisticated enough for research, for academia, so this particular announcement of McGill was-, was kind of groundbreaking. He brought money, he brought some attention to what I thought was a huge void to academia. I think, because retail is not sexy, it's not-, it should be colleges. Colleges should take care of retail and when, when it was brought to McGill, I thought, bingo, perfect.
Michael LeBlanc 13:50
Interesting.
Carl Boutet 13:51
There was different places they were looking and Mr. B could have put his money in you-, in any one of those places, but it landed there for hopefully those, those right reasons and it's, yeah, it's yeah, it's just been fascinating to see it expand and what I'm really interested in is, really, how can we relate it back to the standard, you know, the-, the broader business community, including the small businesses. You know, that's what we're doing with this tour. We're up to 14. You know, we blame places like Saint-Jerome, Sainte Augustine, you know, we got into these secondary markets, and just last week we were in Joliette, you know, we had, we had 70 people. It was sold out. You know that, partnering, because innovation is more and more top of mind as well, and they-, so I think our timing was good with this project where, you know, the business community is like, yes, you know, bring it on.
Michael LeBlanc 14:36
All right. Last Rapid-Fire series of questions for it, overhyped, under hyped. You choose which. Smart carts in grocery stores.
Carl Boutet 14:47
I guess overhyped, although they're not that hyped. But I think it's sort of a transition technology.
Michael LeBlanc 14:52
Just walk out technology.
Carl Boutet 14:53
I think short term overhyped, long term under hyped. I think it's-, we're just catching up with Moore's law.
Michael LeBlanc 15:00
Digital twin, Metaverse versions of stores for allocations
Carl Boutet 15:04
At a purely merchandising, sort of very simplistic good, right hyped. Otherwise, I think we're already past the hype.
Michael LeBlanc 15:12
Okay. AI in general, in for-, let's, let's narrow that down to, like, forecasting in grocery retailer.
Carl Boutet 15:20
I don't know. It's hard for me. If it's-, it can't be overhyped.
Michael LeBlanc 15:25
Can't be overhyped.
Carl Boutet 15:26
No.
Michael LeBlanc 15:27
All right. Last question for you, format innovation. So, we see lots of retailers trying format innovation. Are they-, are they succeeding, in your mind and where-, what role does the technology piece play in that, like self-checkouts and, you know, for a while we saw these digital displays. You could scan the QR code and find out, you know, the name of the cow that you were about to consume.
Carl Boutet 15:51
Poor Betsy.
Michael LeBlanc 15:52
Poor Betsy. but you knew Betsy had a good life and one bad day, right, so, what do you think?
Carl Boutet 15:58
I'm-, listen, I think it's really interesting. We have a partner here named Leave, and they're doing something called Lib and if you've heard of this in lower Saint Lawrence, we’re these-, in these we're talking about food deserts. These are communities that cannot justify having their own grocery or even a convenience store anymore. So, these sort of self-serving small, we've seen them in other parts of the world. You know, these autonomous little sort of pods that you can drop. I think that's fascinating. I don't think there's enough. I don't see enough, you know, sort of iterations. I think we need more of that. I think we need to find more sort of, we're seeing it in other retail formats and grocery I think still has a lot of work to do to try to rethink the size of the store and the role of the store.
Michael LeBlanc 16:40
Well, said. So great to see you here in Montreal. Such a treat. Thank you for coming back on the podcast, Carl Boutet and-
Carl Boutet 16:47
I'm waiting for my prize, three for three.
Michael LeBlanc 16:49
I have something for you.
Sylvain Charlebois 16:51
Is there like a friggin flier?
Carl Boutet 16:53
An award, an award.
Michael LeBlanc 16:55
I have-, I have for you your very own copy of Leaders Leap. Steve Dennis.
Carl Boutet 17:02
Your other-, your other husband. Okay.
Michael LeBlanc 17:04
Anyway, listen, thanks for being on the pod and safe travels.
Sylvain Charlebois 17:07
Take care. Thanks for tuning into our summer SIAL bonus interview series, Michael and I will be back live on the microphone together in late August. I'm the Food Professor, Sylvain Charlebois.
Carl Boutet 17:07
Thank you.
Michael LeBlanc 17:22
And I'm Michael LeBlanc, media entrepreneur, consumer growth consultant and keynote speaker. Safe travels, everyone. See you back in August.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
food, innovation, school, retail, McGill, overhyped, carl, consumption, research, lab, food deserts, technology, Sylvain, academia, hyped, retrenchment, academic, store, business, year