GMA Leadership Forum: CPG’s Challenges with Forecasting
While demand forecasts have the power to increase profits for any business, retailers are struggling to generate accurate forecasts that would save them millions of dollars. According to the CPGs leaders in attendance at the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association (GMA) Leadership Forum, this is what’s keeping them up at night. Demand Forecasting Challenges Across all sessions, …
GMA Leadership Forum: Reimagining the Consumer Experience
The proliferation of smartphones and the rise of e-commerce has impacted consumers’ expectations and shopping preferences. As consumers drive when, where and how they shop and interact with their favourite brands, they’re also looking at CPG businesses and retailers to provide the right product, at the right time, through the right channel, and at the …
Kerry Believes The Chief Merchant’s Job Is Changing – Here’s How To Keep Up
Chief Merchandising Officers have one of the hardest jobs in all of retail. Responsible for managing the majority of all cash that goes in and out of the business, chief merchandising officers, or chief merchants, have to make crucial decisions when negotiating with vendors and evaluating new products, as well as about seasonal inventory, pricing …
Kerry Liu believes Long Unsung, Chief Merchants Are Critical in the Age of AI
These days there’s no shortage of additions to the C-suite. Creative job titles abound, and roles that didn’t exist a decade ago like chief experience officer or chief digital officer are becoming more common. The choice to add these positions to the decision-making table reflects the core value of these functions. Companies are realizing that …
STORE2019 Lessons: Bridging the Data Gap Between CPGs and Retailers
It’s no secret that retailers and CPGs have an enormous amount of data at their disposal. The question that is on every executive’s mind, however, is how to properly harness that data, and leverage it to drive informed and valuable business decision making. Knowing that big data is something that retail executives are thinking a lot …
Data, Privacy and Culture: Key Takeaways from Collision 2019
Have you heard of the Collision Conference? If you haven’t and you live in Toronto, and love tech, then you must be hiding under a rock because it’s kinda a big deal. For those of you who haven’t heard of Collision, it was coined the fastest growing tech conference in North America by Forbes, and …
How AI Is Helping Grocers Reduce Food Waste and Landfill Growth
Everyone knows the feeling of guilt that comes from throwing away food from the home refrigerator that just never got eaten for one reason or another. After all, consumer food waste is a major problem in the United States. Piling up to nearly a quarter of all total municipal solid waste, more food reaches our nation’s …
AI for Retail is More Accessible Than You Think
It’s not news that the state of retail is changing. The constraints inhibiting some retailers from keeping up with market disruptors like Amazon and Walmart are creating a tipping point in terms of leveraging AI to automate everything from inventory to promotional marketing. We hear a lot about AI, but it’s not always clear what …
Plastic from Expired Lunch Meats Can Fill 10 Whales Per Year
According to a recent report, 70% of all litter in the sea is plastic. While consumers’ plastic consumption is a clear culprit, grocery stores are also adding to this predicament with inventory overstock and shrink. When unsold grocery stock reaches its sell-by or expiration date, store managers must dispose of the waste. For example, in …
Kerry Liu’s Take on How Technology Can Improve The Grocery Supply Chain
Posted in Company
By Pallavi Singh on March 26, 2019
For many of us, the most appealing factor about online shopping is the convenience. We’ve been able to purchase goods online and have them delivered to our homes for quite some time. As a result, there’s a certain level of experience we’ve come to expect. Now that we’re seeing many grocery retailers offer online ordering …
When Teamwork IS a Matter of Life or Death
Posted in Company
By Lori Morrison on August 29, 2018
Rubikloud HQ transformed into a luxurious event space to host the first event in our new Toronto office on August 16th. Tony van Marken, businessman and adventurer extraordinaire (who also happens to be one of Rubikloud’s investors from OTEAF), joined the Rubikrew, along with a few external partners, to share stories from his adventures climbing …
Amazon Sets the Bar for Retail Revolution
The “retail apocalypse” and “the death of brick and mortar” are common phrases echoed in the industry as pressure mounts for enterprise retailers scrambling to compete with the likes of Amazon. As one of the FANG companies (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google), Amazon has passed the tipping point in its ability to collect trainable proprietary …
We’re Hiring!
Posted in Company, Rubikloud Announcements
By Kerry Liu on February 7, 2018
It’s been an exciting 2018 and it’s only February! Today we announced that Rubikloud is adding 60 jobs in our Toronto office following our successful Series B round secured in early January, raising $37m USD. In our last blog post, I outlined our 3 major goals for the year: 1) Accelerate practical AI adoption for …
With $37m Raised from Series B, We’ll Be Using AI to Disrupt Retail
Posted in Company, Rubikloud Announcements
By Kerry Liu on January 3, 2018
Today we announced that Rubikloud has raised $37m USD in our Series B investment round. We are thrilled to have Intel Capital as the lead investor for this round, alongside investments from iNovia Capital and OTEAF. All three of these new investors, and our existing investors (Horizons Ventures and Access Industries), share in our vision …
Rubikloud at the IEEE International Conference on Data Mining 2017
Posted in Company, Rubikloud Announcements
By Kanchana Padmanabhan on October 23, 2017
We are super excited to be chosen to host a workshop titled Workshop on Big Data & Data Science in Retail at the IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM), a top-tier research conference in data mining. The workshop will bring together academic researchers and industry professionals from all over the world to present and …
Storytelling in Startups: We Can Relate
Posted in Company
By David McMichael on March 17, 2017
Most of us remember childhood bedtime stories or amusing renditions of a night out with friends. These stories have helped shape who we are, and they reinforce our existing relationships. By telling stories of their own, startup businesses can create lasting impressions and personalized experiences to drive an impactful brand experience. In the highly competitive …
Stop Cheapening Our Tech Sector by Quoting Our “Cheap” Engineers
Posted in Company, Rubikloud Announcements
By Kerry Liu on March 15, 2017
An Open Letter to the Ontario Tech Community: I have been torn recently. The Ontario tech community – specifically the Toronto and KW corridor – has been getting a lot of well-deserved global press. See the CBC’s article about building our very own “Silicon Valley North”. The issue is that every time I read an article, …
Cutting through the hype: The real benefits of machine learning
Posted in Company, Retail, Rubikloud Announcements
By Kerry Liu on February 7, 2017
Yesterday we publicly announced our largest retail partnership to date. We are honoured and excited to partner with A.S Watson as their preferred vendor for a global roll out of machine learning applications. Over the past year, we have worked diligently with various leaders in the A.S Watson Group and have been impressed with how …
Putting the Enterprise in the Cloud
We’re used to associating Google with the best. The cutting edge. However, this dominance has yet to assert itself in the race to dominate cloud computing. A race currently being led by Amazon Web Services. In constructing the most valuable company ever, Google has amassed an unparalleled cloud stack, appealing to end users and developers alike. …
The Future of Marketing
Posted in Company
By Dan Theirl on July 25, 2016
As our lives become more reliant on digital platforms, marketing, and advertising necessary to support these “free” platforms becomes an ever increasing nuisance. There is over 198 million ad blocking users globally (https://blog.pagefair.com/2015/ad-blocking-report/). How do marketers and advertisers continue to make their messages relevant and timely without knowing what each individual wants to hear about …
Why big data start-ups cannot ignore Asia
Posted in Company
By Kerry Liu on June 26, 2015
Start-ups often ignore Asia until much later on in their life cycle. I don’t necessarily agree with this strategy. When you are in an industry that is undefined and rapidly changing such as big data, the geography you target matters less than the industry or vertical. This article is our chance to share some real-life …
Pitching to a Chinese Taxi Driver
Posted in Company
By Kerry Liu on April 10, 2014
Preamble: Over the past month, we have been working really hard on our core messaging. Big Data and Analytics is a space with lots of buzzwords and we want to simplify that. Businesses don’t care about buzzwords. This is obviously an iterative process, but we’re getting closer. Post: It’s been a crazy week so far. …