{"id":4330,"date":"2019-10-09T15:38:59","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T10:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligencenode.com\/blog\/?p=4330"},"modified":"2026-03-09T12:13:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T06:43:49","slug":"4-critical-factors-behind-retails-ai-acquisition-spree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligencenode.com\/blog\/4-critical-factors-behind-retails-ai-acquisition-spree\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Critical Factors Behind Retail\u2019s AI Acquisition Spree"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was first published on Forbes<\/a> on Apr 3, 2018, and is authored by Intelligence Node<\/a> CEO Sanjeev Sularia in his capacity as a member of the Forbes Tech Council.<\/em><\/p>\n

The AI talent gap is one of the biggest challenges faced by businesses today and retail is starting to feel the pinch. Traditional players like Home Depot, Walmart, and Nordstrom have been busy shopping for top tech talent and going by a spree of acquisitions in 2018, these mega-retailers appear to be looking at expertise in AI applications beyond customer engagement. <\/span><\/p>\n

Think: Machine learning, merchandising, <\/span>supply chain experience, data science, cloud experts, <\/span>and micro apps.<\/span><\/p>\n

Acqui-hires are not a new concept in Silicon Valley. What\u2019s interesting is how the average retail business is now starting to think like a Bay Area company when it comes to growth strategies. They are arguably the quickest route to gaining new domain expertise in, for example in the case of Walmart, a skill-set in AI & data analytics good enough to take on Amazon in the near future. This is particularly noteworthy because not many in retail have coveted data as a competitive arsenal on a scale like this before.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

An interesting <\/span>report<\/span><\/a> by Indeed.com confirmed that Walmart has been hiring more tech talent than Google & Facebook. Something significant is happening in retail. This dramatic shift in skill demand is an indicator of another underlying change- one in the attitude towards retailing. No longer can the traditional winners sit back and blame market slowdown for poor performance and store shut-downs. They will need to reinvent, starting by attracting break-through tech talent under their wings.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s analyze their moves one at a time:<\/span><\/p>\n

Why are retailers beginning to hire more tech talent than Google & Facebook?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Business assets are increasingly leaning towards tech proprietorship. An engineering scene has exploded in retail, brought on by the eCommerce wave. Retail is now one of the major industries competing for tech talent to transform data assets into business weapons. In the race to catch up with Amazon, retailers are doubling up on recruiting and acqui-hiring for promising talent not just from Silicon Valley but from far and wide across Europe and India.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Software Developer\u2019 moved from the eighth position in 2013 to an impressive third in 2017 in the <\/span>list<\/span><\/a> of most popular job titles in retail, making it the fastest growing job as well. Retailers like Krogers and Home Depot are opening up very specialized positions like Data Scientists and Director of Client Analytics to spruce up their big data crunching capabilities. There\u2019s no surprise then that the weight of these ambitions will be borne by a fresh batch of tech talent envied by the likes of Google & Facebook.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With the right set of acqui-hires, retail chains stand to achieve the twin goals of a future-proof retail business:<\/span><\/p>\n