Сhallenges in retail 2022 & key solutions.

AIA Ecosystem USA President and CEO Bill Sussman sharing his thoughts.

AIA Ecosystem USA President and CEO Bill Sussman is the former Executive at Walmart and Nickelodeon. Former CEO of two retail tech startups built by him and sold to PE.

AIA: Please talk about your experience

Bill: Mgmt consulting to retailers and CPG.Head of Intl Marketing at Walmart. Also, two retail tech startups that I built and sold to PE (Triad, Collective Bias)

AIA: CPG retail today and tomorrow

Bill: How to comp the gains experienced during COVID. How to continue to integrate e-commerce with stores in a profitable way. How to deal with labor shortages in the store

AIA: What are the low-hanging fruit to get profitable sales growth?

Bill: Being in stock (especially at peak consumer demand times)

AIA: Do you see faster growth of Online retail share within next 5 years? What is your forecast?

Bill: Yes, online will continue to grow faster than in store and how retailers choose to fulfil those orders has real implications for in stock in store

AIA: What would you recommend to retailer and supplier to use enterprise solutions or start up solutions? What are the benefits and negative side?

Bill: The positive of enterprise solutions is they are end to end but the negative is implementation can cripple your business and is incredibly difficult. Start up solutions are usually not end to end but are much easier to integrate. That is what makes AIA unique. We provide an end to end solution that is easy to implement.

AIA: Why you have decided to lead AIA in US?

Bill: Big market opportunity, out of stock has been a retail problem for years. AIA’s solution is end to end, easy to integrate with existing retailer systems and can really help

AIA: What is your key targets for 2022–23?

We have been established in Europe for over 5 years. We have the right team in place and now we are ready to expand in the US and add value to retailers here