Categories
CX Podcast Retail leadership

From Cinnabon to Carvel: How GoTo Foods is Driving Global Growth

Dave Mikita is the President of International and Retail Channels at GoTo Foods (formerly Focus Brands). He joins Natalie on the podcast to discuss how GoTo Foods has grown to become the world’s #2 food & beverage licensor and what the company has in store for the future. They explore:

  • Beyond buying power, what are the benefits for franchise partners? Dave discusses how GoTo Foods provides support on consumer insights, site selection, supply chain, new product development, menu innovation and more.
  • How the GoTo Foods franchise model differentiates overseas.
  • Bricks and mortar reinvention – how GoTo Foods is repurposing its QSR and fast-casual places.
  • The symbiotic relationship between bricks & mortar locations and licensed retail products on grocery shelves.
  • How to drive global growth while remaining locally relevant (from offering rolls with less sugar in Cinnabon Japan to cream cheese-filled pretzel sticks at Auntie Anne’s in Hong Kong!)

GoTo Foods is the owner of seven iconic brands: Auntie Anne’s, Carvel, Cinnabon, Jamba, McAlister’s Deli, Moe’s Southwest Grill, and Schlotzsky’s. For more, visit: www.gotofoods.com

Bio

Dave Mikita is the President of International and Retail Channels at GoTo Foods (formerly Focus Brands). In his role, Dave leads both the Company’s Retail Channels business as well as its International Franchise business unit. The company’s Retail Channels business, currently ranked as the #2 Food & Beverage Licensor in the world, drives over $1.5 billion in retail revenue globally, and the International Franchise business includes over 2,000 franchised locations operating in 60+ countries.

Prior to this role, Dave served as the President of Retail Channels, bringing over 20 years of operations, marketing and business development experience in both Retail and Foodservice Industries. Dave has been at GoTo Foods (previously Focus Brands) since 2012, assuming increasing levels of responsibility within the Retails Channels team, and in 2017, he assumed complete responsibility for all functions of the business unit while leading the group to double-digit growth.

Before GoTo Foods, Dave held leadership roles at The Coca-Cola Company, The Home Depot, and several early-stage, high growth businesses. Dave received his undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University and his Master’s in Business Administration from The University of Virginia. He resides in Atlanta with his wife and three children.

Connect with Dave on LinkedIn.

Find out more about the Retail Disrupted Podcast by visiting retaildisrupted.com

Categories
AI CX Retail trends Technology Unified Commerce

Gen AI’s Impact on Customer Service

Paid partnership with Manhattan Associates


Last week, I travelled to the beautiful city of Barcelona to attend Manhattan Exchange. This is Manhattan Associates’ annual European conference and always a great opportunity to hear directly from some of the region’s biggest retailers and brands. So what stood out for me this year?

There were a few distinct themes that permeated throughout the event – unification of physical and digital commerce, store employee empowerment, and the need for both retailers and technology companies to continue to “shatter the status quo”, in CEO Eddie Capel’s words.

But what really sparked my interest was learning more about generative AI’s impact on customer service. Real-time responsiveness is very much a trend to watch for 2025. Here are my top takeaways:

  • Retailers are increasingly comfortable experimenting with gen AI but most of the use cases that we talk about today are centred on e-commerce operations – writing marketing copy, coding, creating images, etc. So, it was interesting to hear how European retailers are now encouraging staff to use gen AI in-store. Using voice, rather than text, this enables store associates to quickly identify solutions and better serve the customer. Expect a whole lot more of this in the coming months.
  • There was a clear consensus that AI chatbots in their current form (ie. not the gen AI kind) are an abominable experience for the customer. They often spit out generic or irrelevant information, or redirect the user elsewhere, all of which lead to customer frustration and potentially lasting brand damage.
  • Gen AI chatbots, meanwhile, are going to be a gamechanger. This next iteration of the chatbot, like Manhattan Active Maven, can resolve more complex issues. For example, instead of just asking “Where’s my order?”, customers can ask things like: “What size was that polo shirt I ordered last year?” or “Remind me how much tax I paid on that purchase.”
  • One of the top reasons customers get in touch with a contact centre is because they forgot to add a discount code at the checkout. This can be quickly resolved by a gen AI chatbot. Similarly, if a customer changes their mind after making a purchase – for example, they want to modify or cancel the order or alter their fulfilment method – this is another easy task for gen AI that benefits the retailer, customer, and planet.  
  • Traditional chatbots can handle between 20-30% of inbound customer queries without any human intervention. With gen AI chatbots, this rises to more than 50%, freeing up staff time to focus on more valuable tasks like upselling or dealing with more complex customer issues.
  • Gen AI chatbots will drive efficiencies and improve the customer experience, but they won’t replace humans. For example, gen AI will draft an email for a contact centre employee to send to the customer following an interaction, but the employee can tweak this and must sign it off before sending. Similarly, the tool will generate post-interaction notes, saving employees another 45-50 seconds each time. 

  • However, sometimes no AI is needed at all, and customers just want a human – albeit one that is still very much tech-enabled. We heard how a major European retailer allocates a QR code to each store employee, allowing shoppers to scan the code and continue the conversation with that member of staff after leaving the store. Now, as Green Retail World editor Ben Sillitoe pointed out on my podcast recently, we might not be rushing to scan the QR code of staff at our supermarket checkout, but for those more considered, bigger-ticket discretionary purchases (think fashion, beauty, luxury, home, electronics) this is exactly the kind of innovation retailers should be pursuing.

For more on Manhattan Associates, visit www.manh.com

Categories
AI CX E-commerce ESG Podcast Retail trends Store of the future Technology Unified Commerce

Gen AI Chatbots, Empowering Staff and Sustainability

Live from Barcelona, Green Retail World’s Editor Ben Sillitoe joins Natalie on the podcast to share what they learned at Manhattan Exchange this week. They explore how generative AI chatbots are going to revolutionize customer service, why the days of frontline staff being told to “sell, not think” are over and what sustainability looks like for retailers in 2025.

If you missed the episode with Manhattan Associates’ Pieter Van den Broecke, you can catch up here.

Links:

Manhattan Associates
Green Retail World

Find out more about the Retail Disrupted Podcast by visiting retaildisrupted.com

Categories
AI Consumer CX Podcast Technology Unified Commerce

Embrace Technology With Heart and Mind

Live from Barcelona, Pieter Van den Broecke, EMEA Leader, Supply Chain Commerce Strategies at Manhattan Associates joins Natalie to discuss:

  • Europe’s retail CIOs – what’s keeping them up at night?
  • Generative AI – what are the opportunities and challenges?
  • Customer experience – how to service your customers in real-time and learning to trust AI to be the first port of call.
  • Why giving shoppers greater control post-purchase is a win for retailers, customers and the planet.
  • Unified commerce – what does this look like in practice and where are the opportunities going forward?
  • Why Pieter believes the digitization of physical retail isn’t over.

More on Manhattan Exchange.

Find out more about the Retail Disrupted Podcast by visiting retaildisrupted.com

Categories
E-commerce Podcast Retail leadership Technology

Faire Game: How Indies Can Level the Playing Field

Faire is the largest global b2b marketplace for independent retailers. In this episode, Faire’s UK General Manager Charlotte Broadbent joins Natalie to discuss:

  • How Faire is disrupting the wholesale sector and benefits for SMEs
  • Opportunities and challenges facing independent retailers today
  • How indies can up their game with AI
  • Values-based shopping and why ‘Not on Amazon’ is Faire’s most popular filter
  • Black Friday – should indies take part or is it a race to the bottom?
  • Women in tech – breaking down barriers and advice for the next generation of female leaders

Charlotte’s bio:

Charlotte joined the Faire team as UK General Manager in 2022, at an exciting and unique time when the US-founded b2b marketplace was pivoting to focus on international expansion. During her time at Faire she has led major category expansion, go-to-market strategy and partnership projects.

Prior to this, she served as the COO of an international fine jewellery brand and retailer, Tamara Comolli. Here, she worked closely with the founder to solve the daily challenges in business, running a retail business through a pandemic and the wholesale aspects to retail.

Charlotte started her career in private equity at Terra Firma Capital partners where she assessed and delivered new investments but also grew the value of those businesses through operational levers, focused on the retail and consumer sectors. It was during this time that Charlotte came to the realisation that she wanted to roll up her sleeves to be more involved in the operational side of leading a business, particularly through digital transformation. This passion led to her role at Faire today.

Connect with Charlotte on LinkedIn.

Find out more about the Retail Disrupted Podcast by visiting retaildisrupted.com

Categories
CX Electricals M&A Non-food retail Podcast Retail leadership Retail trends

Malls, Makeup and Meme Stocks with Gary Kusin

GameStop and Laura Mercier Cosmetics co-founder Gary Kusin joins Natalie to discuss everything from malls and makeup to meme stocks. They explore the origins of GameStop – what inspired Gary and James McCurry to launch the world’s first video game store in the early 80s?

They also explore:
♦ The pivot to makeup: Gary discusses how a conversation with former Macy’s Chairman Terry Lundgren sparked the idea for Laura Mercier.
♦ Continuous improvement versus continuous change.
♦ Customer centricity: why so many brands today fail to get this right.
♦ Kinko’s: Gary shares how, as Kinko’s CEO, he turned the loss-making business into to a highly profitable enterprise that was later acquired by FedEx.
♦ Meme stocks: Gary shares his views on the GameStop stock market frenzy.

Retail Disrupted Podcast

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Categories
AI Amazon CX E-commerce Retail trends Technology

Amazon Must Disrupt Itself

From the rise of Temu and Shein to immersive digital commerce – and not to mention the resurgence of good old-fashioned bricks & mortar retail – Amazon certainly isn’t short of competitive threats.

Miya Knights joins Natalie on Retail Disrupted to explore what comes next for the online retailing giant and whether it has what it takes to stay relevant in the future.

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They discuss:

📦 How Amazon became the most influential retailer of the 21st century.

3️⃣ 0️⃣ Whether Jeff Bezos’ belief that most large companies only last around 30+ years still rings true.

🤖 How AI and technology more generally is enabling retailers to level the playing field and future-proof their store estate.

🇨🇳 Temu – how it differentiates from Amazon, whether they can co-exist and our views on Amazon’s plans to launch a Temu-style storefront.

🤳 The future of digital commerce – we don’t browse on Amazon! How the rise of TikTok, Roblox and other immersive platforms will require action by Amazon to avoid being perceived as too transactional and one-dimensional.

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Categories
Non-food retail Podcast Retail leadership Retail trends Technology

Leaders Leap: Transforming Your Company at the Speed of Disruption

Steve Dennis is a strategic advisor, keynote speaker, podcast host, and bestselling author of Remarkable Retail. He joins Natalie to discuss the findings of his new book, LEADERS LEAP: Transforming Your Company at the Speed of Disruption.

The explore the cost of misunderstanding risk and why playing it safe is the riskiest strategy of all; why a complete metamorphosis of the leadership mindset is essential to thrive in the face of accelerating change; why some brands get stuck in the “unremarkable middle” and how to overcome internal complacency. Steve also shares the rationale behind his belief that many US department stores have no chance of turning themselves around, and whether the Dallas drone wars are a glimpse into the future of home delivery.

Natalie also shares a few thoughts on Amazon’s 30th anniversary.

 

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Categories
High Streets Podcast Retail leadership Retail trends Store of the future

Pop-Up Retail and Keeping Dept Stores Relevant

David Blakeney, former Store Development Director at House of Fraser and Sook, joins Natalie to discuss:

  • Why physical retail is on the cusp of a new dawn.
  • Repurposing physical space in a digital era.
  • Innovation in department stores – are retailers doing enough
  • Pop-up retail – which verticals are best suited (you’ll be surprised) and lessons from Sook.

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Categories
AI CX E-commerce Fashion Fast fashion Podcast Retail trends Technology

Ikea Roblox, Walmart Drones & AI Update, Pretty Little Thing Charging for Returns

The interview from this episode originally aired on The Globalist from Monocle Radio. Natalie discusses the latest global retail stories with Georgina Godwin:

  • Ikea’s Roblox venture: the launch of a virtual store and how Ikea has become the first brand to offer paid work on the gaming platform.
  • Walmart’s tech update: innovation in delivery – drones and at-home delivery – and the beta launch of a generative AI-powered shopping assistant.
  • Pretty Little Thing becomes the latest UK retailer to start charging for returns.

You can listen to the original episode of The Globalist Episode 3352.

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