Can AI become a game changer for the store fit-outs industry?
By N Jayalakshmi | January 17, 2025
The role of AI varies across the retail eco-system. From being a smart enabler of data analytics in back-end retail, to being an efficient generative tool for store designers, AI can mean many things. But what does it mean for retail solution providers, particularly those in the store fit-outs industry? Manish Jain, Founder-Director, Shark Shopfits, shares his views in this exclusive interaction with Retail4Growth.
It’s not a question of whether, but of where and how. This may well be applied to the question of AI integration in the retail universe. From data analytics and inventory management, to personalised customer engagement and interactions, AI tools are emerging to be effective business enablers for retailers. But how significant a tool is AI for the eco-system surrounding retail, including retail designers and solution providers - the community that enables the entire store space and experience for a brand? Well, for retail designers, Gen-AI is fast emerging to be a time-saving tool, facilitating more efficient concept visualisation and presentation to clients. But for those in the retail solutions space, can AI make a tangible difference to their business? While it may be early days to really assess and measure the impact that AI can make to these businesses, it has certainly started making inroads in the back-end operations, at least for a few players.
Manish Jain, Founder-Director, Shark Shopfits, throws more light on this in an exclusive interaction with Retail4Growth.
AI’s three pronged role in Retail
Manish begins by first setting the broad context for AI integration in the retail environment as a whole.
“There is a lot that AI is doing in retail today and you can break it down into three parts - What AI is doing for retailers/brands, what it’s doing for consumers, and what it’s doing for service providers like us. AI has three different roles for these three categories. It appears that for retailers, there is a lot of AI application in data analytics, inventory management, supply chain management, brand forecasting, etc. I think many brands are leveraging AI tools and machine learning to improve their overall supply chain management, ensuring they are not overproducing, over-ordering or over-stocking inventory. The other area where AI is being used is in personalization and customer insights,” explains Manish.
As he points out, across both offline and online retail spaces, AI is enabling retailers understand consumer behaviour, demand patterns, and accordingly planning their store navigation and experience.
Manish then comes to the role of AI in facilitating the business of retail solution players. “Coming to service providers like us in the shop fittings and retail fixture industry, the integration of AI in back-end has just begun. We have set up our manufacturing unit in central India, which is a completely automated line. We are also exploring the use of AI tool for optimizing production in terms of better planning, scheduling, inventory management and waste reduction. So I would say AI in our industry has starting playing a role. But the results may not be immediately visible and will possibly take a year or more.”
Shark Shopfits recently announced the start of its new greenfield manufacturing facility ‘The Giga Factory’ which, on completion over the next five years, is set to become the largest manufacturing unit in India's shopfitting industry, spanning an impressive 45 acres. For this kind of production scale, AI would indeed play a critical role.
As Manish explains, “If we look at production as a larger universe, AI is doing a lot to optimise the entire operation, so hopefully it will do the same for us. We are already on stage 1, and we expect to know the results in sometime.”
Beyond production and operations, there is of course the front-end consumer facing part of fixtures where again AI can be a game changer. Manish in fact presents a futuristic scenario here, with many exciting possibilities. “With the way predictive analytics is evolving, there is a lot that can happen with the fixture interface in terms of offering tailored customer experiences and displays, based on AI-based facial recognition. This means complete reconfiguration based on customer data and profile.”
He however clarifies, “We have to realise that AI is still young and learning. In some areas it is already proving itself, but in certain other areas, the whole machine learning process needs a certain amount of time to evolve. But 5-6 years down the line, the kind of things it can do will be phenomenal.”
AI as an ROI enabler
But while AI generates buzz in terms of the possibilities it promises, can it also help industry players achieve tangible ROI and therefore, strengthen their positioning vis-a-vis their clients? Manish says in this context, “In the case of any technology that you invest in, you need to evaluate it from the ROI perspective, and ROI is all about numbers. You need to be able to show that with the use of a certain tool, process or software, you will be able to save a certain amount in a certain amount of time. No business invests in a tool or process, without a guaranteed ROI. So coming to AI, once we implement the integration of AI in our production planning, we will be able to show much more tangible results and outcomes to our client and we will reach there pretty soon.”
These tangible benefits would be in terms of timelines, cost, and delivery quality. As Manish explains,“Once you make any process efficient, which results in better planning and scheduling, it will automatically result in cost reduction and faster deliveries.”
Way ahead: Tech collaborations & AI as a key differentiator
So can one expect tech collaborations as an integral part of the fit-outs industry in the near future? Pat comes the reply from Manish, “Absolutely yes! When you look at any of the most commonly used applications today, they are the backbone of any business function. If we don’t evolve ourselves as businesses and invest in those systems and technologies, we will not be able to match up to our clients’ and customers’ demands and we will not be able to scale our business.”
Well then the question which then follows is: are we getting close to a scenario where clients insist on AI enabled processes and therefore AI integration becomes a crucial differentiator for the retail solutions industry? Manish replies, “Yes, that will happen in the next 4-5 years. AI driven processes will become inevitable.” Well, that says it all, doesn’t it?
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