Retail Innovation

The Lotte Group tries to bring innovation in its all business areas to become a world-class retail company by adopting cloud-based IBM Watson solutions.
The Lotte Group tries to bring innovation in its all business areas to become a world-class retail company by adopting cloud-based IBM Watson solutions.

 

The Lotte Group decided on December 21 to adopt cloud-based IBM Watson solutions to bring innovation in its all business areas and become a world-class retail company.

As one of S, Korea’s top five business groups, Lotte represents the country’s largest retailer in a highly competitive retail market, providing products and services to its customers through online channels, mobile services and offline department stores, marts, convenience stores and duty-free shops.

Lotte Group will use Watson technologies to maximize insights from the huge amount of structured and unstructured customer data collected through its various channels, including the Lotte Members program, and derived from valuable learnings about customer preferences and product feedback. A deeper understanding of its data, will enable Lotte to offer more personalized services to customers, consistent product information and expert advice tailored to individual customer needs. "With the cognitive technology, Lotte will deliver new value and innovation to our customers for the future.” Lotte Group CEO Hwang Gak-gyu said.

This agreement prioritizes two "Artificial Intelligence Innovation Themes" to apply Watson. Lotte and IBM will team to create an “Intelligent Shopping Advisor” for customers and an internal employee ‘Cognitive Business Decision Advisor’ for the Group’s retail affiliates.

The “Intelligent Shopping Adviser” will be first introduced to Lotte’s department stores. Customers will have their own virtual personal assistant offering help from product recommendations, shop location guidance, to support for online pickup service. Customers will benefit from greater convenience and an enhanced customer experience as they interact, in natural language, with a service that understands the questions asked, in the context of the individual shopper’s needs.

In combination with the Intelligent Shopping Advisor, Lotte will adopt a “Cognitive Business Decision Advisor” that employees can leverage for new product development across the organization. Using Watson technologies, Lotte will gain new insights for better decision making with the analysis of huge amounts of data from various sources like social media, blogs, news articles and customer data from point of sale terminals.

Within the next five years, Lotte plans to build and upgrade its artificial intelligence-based application for business innovation to support personalized services throughout the customer lifecycle. These initiatives are part of Lotte Group’s technology roadmap to expand the introduction of IBM Watson to all affiliates from retail to food, chemical, tourism and finance.

 

 

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