Portuguese conglomerate Sonae invested €110 million last year in retail innovation, up from the €22 million it invested in 2005.
Around 5,100 workers were involved in innovation initiatives at the group last year, compared to only 137 a decade earlier. Sonae worked with 125 partners from 25 countries, from scientific and technological institutions to start-ups, as well as international retailers.
Hundreds of solutions were developed, from working tools to packaging, products and brands, resulting in increased sales and lower costs, as well as national and international awards.
One of the solutions is Tira-vez, aimed at resolving in-store queues and the mandatory waiting time for key services in hypermarkets. A special app allows the customer to immediately take a service number for different services (charcuterie, butcher, fishmonger, etc.) in order to efficiently manage his or her shopping route. At the same time, customers can also see how many people are ahead of them in each section.
Another is Shopview, a buggy with built-in cameras and a PC for checking whether each product in the hypermarket is placed in the right way, on the right shelf, based on different variables, from demand to agreements with suppliers.
The increased investments will help Sonae to "reach new heights in performance of both food [Sonae MC] and specialised retail [Sonae SR], reducing costs and increasing revenue and efficiency gains", explained Nuno Gama, director of innovation and technologies of the future, in an interview for weekly Expresso.
According to Gama, thanks to the use of Shopview, Sonae achieved a 90% reduction in the time spent monitoring stocks, saving €5 million per year in the process.
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
