Shekar Raman Of Birdzi On 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective C-Level Leader Of A Retail Tech Company
An Interview With Kieran Powell
Being clear about your objectives makes it easy to rally your team in the same direction. At Birdzi, communicating our vision has allowed us to focus on building high-impact and high-quality products that truly change the customer experience.
The retail industry is undergoing a seismic shift, largely driven by technology. From e-commerce to AI-driven customer experiences, technology is redefining how consumers interact with retail brands. This rapid transformation presents unique challenges and opportunities for C-level leaders in the retail tech space. Effective leadership is more critical than ever to navigate these changes, drive innovation, and maintain a competitive edge. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Shekar Raman.
Shekar Raman is CEO and co-founder of Birdzi, a grocery retail AI solutions company. With its Customer Intelligence Platform, Birdzi helps supermarkets deliver one-to-one automated marketing and personalization. Shekar is passionate about building data-driven technologies that leverage AI and machine learning to help retailers and brands elevate the customer experience.
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I got my undergrad degree in Electronics and Communications from Osmania University, which is in Hyderabad India, and I went to Graduate School at Villanova University, where I obtained a MS in Electrical Engineering with a focus on Digital Signal Processing and Pattern Recognition.
After graduation, I tried out a few different roles before landing my current position as co-founder and CEO of Birdzi. I worked on the Human Genome Project for protein modeling, and I dabbled in speech recognition, systems engineering and more.
What ended up bringing me to the retail space was my daughter’s school project of all things. She was having difficulty finding items in the supermarket, which gave me the initial idea to create Birdzi, a product location and in-store traffic analytics platform.
Once we realized supermarkets were not maximizing the potential of their data, we pivoted toward the idea of personalization and introduced a sophisticated data platform that now serves as the foundation for a highly scalable, hyper-personalized campaign delivery system.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
In the early days of Birdzi, we built a solution that would track shoppers in the grocery store and provide insights into traffic. We had the expectation that retailers would be able to use the data to optimize their store and create promotions that would drive traffic into less traveled areas. While it seemed like a really cool idea, little did we realize that we were a solution looking for a problem to solve. The technology was very sophisticated and visually very engaging, but we weren’t solving a real problem.
The lesson here: find a problem that the retailer really cares about and solve it. We spent a couple of years building a solution, only to realize the retailer hardly needed it. Today, Birdzi offers solutions that address real pain points for grocers, creating a better, more profitable shopping experience.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
Birdzi has a couple of exciting initiatives in the works. We’re looking to help retailers automate the entire customer journey, giving the retailer a bird’s eye (pun intended) view of customer behavior.
With the four pillars of retail — location, selection, service and price — we’re hoping our insights highlight to retailers where it makes the most sense to spend their funds, while still keeping the customer at the center. It will be easier than ever for a shopper to find what they need at the moment they need it!
Thank you for that. Let’s now shift to the central focus of our discussion. The retail industry has seen a significant shift towards digital and e-commerce solutions. How have you adapted your business strategy to this digital transformation, and what challenges did you face in this transition?
What retailers communicate to shoppers digitally directly translates to the shoppers’ in-store experiences.
Birdzi’s goal is to make it easier for retailers to take full advantage of digital elements such as loyalty programs, email promotions, store mapping and more, regardless of where they currently are in their digital transformation.
We use AI to digest data from shoppers, both in-store and online, and communicate those digital deals to shoppers.
Retail technology is heavily focused on enhancing customer experience. Can you share a particular innovation your company has implemented to improve customer engagement and satisfaction? How did this innovation impact your business?
Birdzi’s VISPER platform utilizes a capability we call the KIC score. It is a score that is updated monthly and measures shoppers’ quality of interactions with the retailer, such as how often they shop, basket size and other key factors. KIC scores help determine overall loyalty and identify the unique customer segments where each individual shopper fits, and then help provide recommendations accordingly.
With KIC scores in place, we can automatically put the most relevant offers in front of customers on the timeline that makes the most sense for them individually. For example, a customer might receive discounts on items they buy every week. Another may be sent a buy one get one free offer for a gluten-free item if they recently logged as a dietary preference. We have seen that these highly relevant, digital offers breed open rates of greater than 50%.
Leading a retail tech company often means keeping up with rapid technological changes and market trends. How do you stay ahead of these trends, and what practices do you follow to ensure your team remains agile and innovative?
I am always reading, speaking and learning more about the retail industry. In fact, I co-host a podcast called The Retail Perch with an industry friend, Gary Hawkins. On our podcast, we speak with leaders about the goings-on of grocery retail and AI. As expected, every weekend there are new innovations and breaking news to cover. The podcast is a great way for me to keep a finger on the market’s pulse and participate in key conversations around the latest technology.
In an industry increasingly dominated by technology, how do you balance the use of tech solutions with the need for a human touch in customer service and team management?
Many of our clients are regional grocers who take pride in their relationships with their local customers. Contrary to what you might think, personalization technology does not minimize or distance those relationships — instead, it enhances them.
For example, if a shopper always buys peanut butter and jelly at the same time but only has peanut butter on their in-app shopping list, the app can recommend adding jelly to their cart.
Recommendations such as these ensure the customer feels like more than a data point. As a result, local grocers can establish mutually beneficial relationships with their customers and foster ongoing loyalty, while maintaining the human touch.
Based on your experience and success, what are the “5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective C-Level Leader Of A Retail Tech Company?” How have these 5 things impacted your work or your career?
1 . Clarity of vision
Being clear about your objectives makes it easy to rally your team in the same direction. At Birdzi, communicating our vision has allowed us to focus on building high-impact and high-quality products that truly change the customer experience.
2 . Consistency of communication
Consistent messaging helps drive a culture of trust in the leadership and company vision. We strive to communicate our values and objectives consistently so that the team builds a culture of trust around our direction and quality.
3 . Measure what matters
It is imperative that you know the metrics of your business. For us, customer satisfaction, ROI and roadmap progress are some of the key metrics we track, apart from the standard business metrics that a SaaS company tracks.
4 . Give your team the freedom to fail
No one knows all the right answers, and the freedom to explore and experiment is key to innovation. At Birdzi, we are constantly pushing the boundaries and exploring new ideas. Many of them don’t see the light of day, but the ones that do make all the difference.
5 . Recognize people for their work
Ultimately, our true treasure is our people. We value them above all else. We believe in respecting them and providing an environment where they can achieve their potential and find satisfaction in their work. Recognition is key to making this happen.
Looking ahead, what do you believe are the key trends that will shape the future of the retail tech industry? How are you preparing your company to adapt to these trends, and what role do you see your leadership playing in this adaptation?
You’re likely hearing it everywhere, but artificial intelligence (AI) is taking over just about every industry in 2024. With grocery specifically, for a long time, the industry only utilized basic technology. The term “AI’’ was scary. Now, early adopters are demystifying the technology, and the industry is following suit, especially with regional grocers, who we are now seeing embrace it.
For example, Strack & Van Til, an Indiana-based grocer, adopted our Customer Intelligence Platform. Our AI-powered solutions help the grocer gain insights and run targeted campaigns, growing its shopper value on an individualized basis.
We also partnered with LOC Software to enhance digital coupon redemption and rewards capabilities for Strack & Van Til. Since then, the grocer has reported email open rates of 37%, which is much higher than the industry standard.
Birdzi is constantly on a mission to innovate and expand our horizons, knowing AI will never stand still. It would not be possible to move forward and tackle that goal without visionaries in our leadership that ask “what else?” and “why not?”
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I have an idea around building a platform that would allow every person to donate 25 cents every day. The money donated would then be made available for people around the world to bid on projects, and the community would vote on the projects to select which would be funded. This would allow anyone, anywhere to dream, accomplish and do good in society.
The project would be rated to ensure proper use of funds and that the system is self-regulating. If 100 million people participated every day, that’s $9 billion a year available for funding. If one billion people participated, that’s $90 billion in one year and $1 trillion in 11 years. Imagine what that could mean!
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Check out my LinkedIn and Birdzi’s new website, and give our podcast, The Retail Perch, a listen!
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
About The Interviewer: Kieran Powell is the EVP of Channel V Media a New York City Public Relations agency with a global network of agency partners in over 30 countries. Kieran has advised more than 150 companies in the Technology, B2B, Retail and Financial sectors. Prior to taking over business operations at Channel V Media, Kieran held roles at Merrill Lynch, PwC and Ernst & Young. Get in touch with Kieran to discuss how marketing and public relations can be leveraged to achieve concrete business goals.
