Business Technology Roundtable

If your AI investments are still in pilot mode, you're falling behind. The latest research data shows 42 percent of retailers have moved AI into production, revenue leaders report 20+ percent lifts, and 97 percent are increasing budgets next year. The question is no longer whether to scale AI, but whether you can scale it fast enough to maintain a competitive position. As an advisor to the C-suite, I see retailers and CPG firms shifting from experimentation to scaled deployment, with AI moving from the innovation lab into core P&L ownership. This latest "State of AI in Retail and CPG" study from NVIDIA reveals a critical inflection point: AI is now a broad-based transformation lever, driving revenue, compressing costs, and reshaping how retailers compete across digital, store, and supply chain operations. The Adoption Reality Check Nine in ten companies are either actively using AI or assessing it through pilots, that's up from 82 percent in 2023. But the spread t...

We’ve apparently reached an inflection point with the development and execution of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) corporate policies. The role of business leadership in sustainability issues around climate change has received increasing attention from companies and their key stakeholders. But over the past year, something changed for CEOs worldwide, and sustainability talk turned into action. Continued disruption -- including upheaval and disruptions from the global COVID-19 pandemic -- has society at large calling for a new approach to economic advancement and business priorities. According to a recent survey by Oxford Economics, when it comes to optimizing opportunities and delivering business value, some CEOs have discovered an additional step. These savvy CEOs report deliberately integrating their Sustainability and Digital Transformation efforts. Digital Transformation and ESG Drive Growth For organizations with a clearly defined sustainability strategy and the right ...