As retail faces the living wage bill hike, could a robotic workforce become a reality, solving productivity and profit issues?

Some years ago on this very website, I recall the wise owl of retail Simon Burke observing the dangers of misreading the pace of the turning tide of change. It crept in slowly at first, making just our feet wet, but then, just as we were pulling on our wellies, it was over our heads.

Burke was referring to our speed of response to the digital revolution. Now there is another tsunami gathering just out of sight, possibly two.

In his excellent – and scary – book Rise of the Robots, Martin Ford talks about how robots can already recognise products in a mixed pallet and stack them perfectly on a retail shelf – just the way your operations director would want.

“This robot will happily do its work at midnight, with no lighting or heating, and without line management… no holidays, sick days or training days”

Stephen Robertson

Better still, this robot will happily do its work at midnight, with no lighting or heating, and without line management. Oh, and no holidays, sick days or training days. Bliss.

In California (naturally), Momentum Machines has built a robot to replace burger flippers. It can turn out 360 an hour, cooked to the exact requirements of each customer and with the unique toppings and relishes required. It never forgets, never gets the order wrong and never has to slip out for a quick smoke.

Model employees

In 1997, two seemingly unrelated news items appeared in the UK and US: in the UK, the newly-elected Labour government introduced the minimum wage of £3.60; in America, IBM’s ‘Deep Blue’ computer was the first to beat a human, Gary Kasparov, at chess. No big deal perhaps – chess is just a bunch of rules.

But by 2011 IBM’s ‘Watson’ was beating humans at general knowledge, humour and word play in the TV quiz show Jeopardy. Now that is clever.

Just imagine your contact centre using an intelligent agent that not only provides consistently right answers but learns from its errors, never sleeps and speak dozens of languages.

“Imagine your contact centre using an intelligent agent that not only provides consistently right answers but learns from its errors, never sleeps and speak dozens of languages”

Stephen Robertson

A British company has developed ‘Deep Mind’, a robot that now always beat humans at Go – a game said to be exponentially more complex than chess (although probably easier than winning in the high street).

Of course, the retitled national living wage has shifted the focus back to the 10% to 20% of retail P&L that is the cost of people. It has remained at this level for a stubbornly long time.

Disrupting retail economics

The imminent arrival of robotics and artificial intelligence will disrupt retail economics as Web 1.0 did at the turn of the century.

Doubtless, as the Chancellor George Osborne delivers his final budget of this parliament, he will smile at the electorate and announce the £10+ minimum wage. Ouch!

It has been said that you can see the results of the tech age everywhere except in the productivity statistics. So might now be a good time to get close to your local university robotics department?

We are always discussing how to recruit the finest minds into retail. Maybe your next recruit will be made of silicon rather than carbon. (I’m now a visiting professor at the University of West of England and happy to effect an introduction… )

And robots may soon be your P&L’s best friend.

  • Stephen Robertson is a non-executive director of Timpson and Clipper Logistics