Dated: January 22, 2025

Welcome to the first The Dirty Martini Digest of 2025! This newsletter is built for our technology friends to keep you informed of the latest industry data and enable you to do your job more effectively.
It's a new year and with it comes a sense of renewal and the optimistic overtones of a fresh start. We hope our industry friends had a successful holiday and some time to relax. Why? The NRF Big Show came a week early this year and all of us had to hit the ground running right after the New Year.
This issue will take a slightly different turn from our typical Dirty Martini Digest. In addition to sharing some of our Insights from our research, we’ll also provide some key takeaways from NRF that we found interesting.
Enjoy this issue of the Dirty Martini Digest.
The Dirty Details
The experts and prognosticators always like to try to capture the overall ‘vibe’ of each year’s NRF Big Show. 2023 was the re-awakening and eagerness of retailers to understand the post-Covid consumer. 2024 was an AI hype-machine with little substance and retailers trying to figure out what value AI will bring. The vibe of 2025, in our view, was that while the AI-hype was still there, use-cases and applications are much better defined and they are being used vs. just explored. In addition, it felt like retailers are in the ‘roll your sleeves up and get to work’ mode.
The energy was palpable and the mood was upbeat. While a positive NRF Big Show is rarely a harbinger for the remainder of the year, we do believe that it is a very exciting time for Retail. Check out some of the key takeaways from the show:
- Agentic AI and Physics AI were the buzzwords of the show. Agentic AI has the ability to better tackle labor challenges in service-heavy segments and can optimize operations through auto replenishment and inventory management. Although Physics AI just appears to be a more advanced version of Digital Twin technology, we see that when this becomes more readily available, the use cases in the warehouse, DC and store will be a boon for operations.
- Edge computing and computer vision will have its day in 2025. In store solutions can be more efficient operating at the Edge and with the number of use cases for in-store, count on big growth here. Our favorite came from Toshiba - which addresses the horrible experience of locked merchandise. Dubbed ‘TSA pre-check for the store’, the application leverages computer vision and Edge to verify customers and automatically unlock coolers and merchandise to optimize the experience.
- The future of the store is bright. We saw a renewed vigor around in-store solutions that offer customers a better experience, store teams more efficient labor, and provide corporate teams a more profitable store channel. We saw more vendors in the electronic shelf label (ESL) space than there is likely a market for, but applications for ESLs have expanded. They now enable improved store picking and marketing tie-ins with Digital Signage in addition to the dynamic pricing capabilities we’ve seen.
- While AI is being used across many parts of the business, it’s still piecemeal. Once retailers are able to integrate AI across multiple functions, real value will be delivered.
- We know the customer journey begins in the digital realm. The ability of retailers to build a consistent experience across the journey and meet the customer where they are will become table stakes in ‘25.
Dive deeper into our cross-industry research and content:
Last month we released the Bridging The Innovation Gap: State of Transformation in Retail and CPG study with AWS. At NRF, we released our fourth annual State of the Industry: Store Innovation report with Toshiba. Innovation has been on the minds of the industry as a new era of technology is upon us. The report highlights how leading retailers are leveraging personalization, rapid experimentation, operational excellence, and sustainability to build adaptable store ecosystems. Key takeaways include:
- While stores now capture vast amounts of data through IoT (Internet of Things) sensors, cameras, and customer interactions, most organizations struggle to transform this raw information into meaningful experiences. 53% of retailers cite integrating diverse data sources as their top challenge.
- 73% of retailers expect a modern store technology stack to help reduce time-to-market for new store innovations but 47% of retailers state that Difficulty integrating new tech at the store level is a major impediment to innovation.
- The modular approach to eCommerce systems has been well adopted in the industry. However, at the store level, it is well behind. The future of store innovation depends on modularity in both hardware and software systems. Close to 50% of retailers intend to explore modular point-of-sale systems over the next 12 months.
- A new operational architecture is emerging, with mobile technology serving as the bridge between legacy stability and modern flexibility. 53% of retailers plan to explore mobile-enabled associate tools over the next 12 months to enhance store operations agility.
- Retailers are beginning to view sustainability through a broader operational lens - one that encompasses energy efficiency, market agility, and brand value. However, 54% of retailers cite lowering operational costs as the top business objective for making store technology more sustainable.
Straight from the Shaker
Get practical insights and best practices straight from our industry experts as we shake up and serve up our knowledge to help you improve your go-to-market strategies. We share tips each month to help you stay ahead of the game.
This month we will hear from longtime client and ‘friend of Incisiv’, Kevin Reese. Kevin has led sales and marketing organizations throughout his career at major tech companies. He spent most of NRF week with the Incisiv crew and offered to share his insights on why software providers need to think differently in offering solutions to retailers.
Getting Mindshare From Retailers….
Retailers are seeking solutions that solve their most pressing challenges quickly vs. monolith systems that take years to implement. Several retailers shared that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to navigate the sea of offerings and are seeking ways to simplify and optimize their transformational initiatives.
Although retailers want quicker solutions, they do have longer-term thinking around solutions, journeys and collaboration. Vicki Cantrell’s VIP Awards illustrated the desire that most retailers have in building more meaningful relationships with their technology and services partners. How do they do that? Some quick thoughts:
- Vendors need to develop more prescriptive messaging and turn-key offerings to win mindshare. Using an example of solution offerings across search, content and commerce, one CDO I spoke with at NRF asked why vendors aren’t doing more to enable an integrated and optimized offering. There seems to be an obvious opportunity for software vendors (especially defined partners) to align better together to provide a clear mult-tier value proposition to the retailers they are targeting. It’s the 1+1 = 3 approach - which reminds me of the 5 lions coming together to form Voltron (if you get that reference, please join me in my ‘nerds of retail’ group forming soon!).
- Solution integrators play an increasingly important role in helping retailers achieve their business case outcomes by aligning process optimization with technology and human capital. And, what we’ve seen is that success (on-time and on-budget) drives success in subsequent projects and rollouts. Yet, there is little effort put forth in the SI/ISV partnership programs to build a unifying story that drives better pipeline performance - It typically stops at the ‘leads’ stage with no joint efforts.
- In my experience, many partnerships are made in haste with the thought that more partners provide more opportunities. The retailers I’ve worked with focus on a handful of strategic partners to deliver the majority of the value in their IT organization with a few point solution providers to fill gaps. I’d recommend software companies take the same approach. Focus on strategic partnerships and work with them to build the connective tissue across the brands and align on messaging and content assets. I’m not saying it’s easy - but nothing worth it usually is.
On the House
Sip on our team's latest research, speaking sessions, and industry news with a quick scan of our recently published and upcoming work and key takeaways.
- Immersion Workshop: From Complexity to Clarity: Synchronizing Supply Chain Execution - Incisiv and Blue Yonder will be hosting a unique closed-door deep dive discussion exploring how manufacturers can deliver reliability and drive value across every link in the chain by orchestrating, coordinating, and synchronizing action across logistics processes.
- SAP Market Snapshot Series: Incisiv produced a series of market snapshots with SAP and key partners. As they go to market with a more modular offering for the mid-market, it was important to offer a perspective on key issues facing multiple segments. You can find them here: Breakthrough Retail: The Agility Advantage, Grocery’s New Imperatives: The Last (Mile) Wake-up Call, Rewiring Fashion Retail: The New Operating Model, and Specialty Retail’s New Reality: The Expertise Imperative.
- Shoptalk 2025 Session: Store Operations that Blend Engagement & Efficiency. Incisiv’s Giri Agarwal will be joined by Tractor Supply and another retailer for a session leveraging our own Benchmark Research to discuss how they are optimizing operations to make stores easy to navigate, frustration-free, and full of delight for those savvy customers.
Second Round
This month, let’s look back at the great times the Incisiv team had at NRF:
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We're here to help you navigate through your biggest challenges and win in this highly competitive market. Anytime you want to talk, book a meeting.
Newsletter Dated: Feb 14, 2023

Does Innovation Still Matter in Retail?
State of the Industry - Innovation in Retail - Key Takeaways.
- Innovation Leaders Far Outperform Their Peers in Revenue Growth
Retailers who are leaders in innovation have a 3-year revenue CAGR of 6.2%, whereas non-leaders have a 3-year revenue CAGR of 0.7%. - Importance of Innovation Recognized but Not Always Practiced:
Despite the majority of retailers recognizing the critical importance of innovation for future growth, only 22% actively encouraged and rewarded risk-taking and experimentation within their organizations. - Innovation Priorities are Focused around Operations:
Retailers' operations-focused innovation priorities are centered around foundational capabilities such as inventory visibility, with 76% of retailers either scaling or exploring innovation initiatives in this area. - Leading Retailers Also Focus on Leveraging Innovation to Drive Customer Experience:
Leading retailers are focusing on utilizing the intelligence gained from inventory data to create better customer experiences. For instance, 65% are scaling or exploring initiatives to help them provide narrower and more accurate delivery estimates to shoppers. - Unifying Customer Experience Across Channels is Top Priority:
Unifying the customer experience across digital and physical channels is retailers' top customer experience-focused innovation priority. The brick and mortar store plays a crucial role in this aspect, as it offers customers the ability to physically interact with products and engage with the brand in person. - Adoption Maturity of Key Innovation Technologies Categorized:
The study includes categorization of key technologies such as artificial intelligence, process automation, robotics, and Internet of Things across an adoption maturity spectrum, helping retailers understand where they fall among peers in these areas. AI stands as the most mature in terms of active adoption or pilots - A Significant Opportunity for Retailers to Improve their Innovation Capabilities:
The study highlights a significant opportunity for retailers to improve their innovation capabilities and drive better business performance. By focusing on unifying the customer experience across channels and utilizing the intelligence gained from inventory data, retailers can enhance their innovation capabilities and stay ahead of the curve in a highly competitive industry. - Conclusion:
The study is an important reminder that retailers need to find new ways to solve the critical challenge of unification across digital and physical channels in order to drive growth. Retailers who invest in innovation will be better positioned to meet the changing needs of customers and remain competitive in the market. To know more about this study click here.