- Welcome to Empowering Innovators,
the series where we talk about
innovation the start-up way.
Today I have with me, Martin Wild,
the Chief Innovation Officer
at MediaMarkt Saturn.
Welcome Martin.
- Hi Patrick, thanks for having me.
(electronic music)
- Let's go to MediaMarkt Saturn now,
where you've been the
Chief Innovation Officer
for one year now.
Before that you were
already with the company
for quite some time.
The retail market and especially those
of consumer electronics has
been changing quite rapidly.
And the consumer demands
are very different.
Direct consumer which you started yourself
but it's a big thing now,
you have the pure players,
the brands themselves
that are maybe looking at
the business consumer.
How do you look at the major changes
that you perceived
yourself in the industry?
- Well apparently, online
was the biggest driver
of change back then when it started.
And people started to buy online
because they could save on price.
This was the first big wave.
And this was also why
my company was growing.
And more or less they
realized that it was a much,
sometimes it's a better convenience
to stay at home and have your chip.
And this online transformation is still
probably not finished yet,
but now everybody knows it's
there, and everybody can adapt
well, most of them,
not all retailers fully
understand, I'm afraid.
But MediaMarkt Saturn was also very late,
so MediaMarkt Saturn had a
lot of internal discussions
and when I joined the company in 2011,
they did not have an
online business, right?
Selling consumer electronics
2011, no online business,
that's the reason apparently
why they brought me in,
because they said,
"Now, we need to do it."
- Right.
- So it was a big internal
discussion apparently.
How do we do it?
What do we do?
Was it right, is it wrong?
And we launched then, our online business
and really built a multi-channel business.
But today, retail I think is
a much bigger transformation,
because there's so many
new concepts coming up.
And I believe, retail in the next 10 years
will change more than
in the last 100 years.
Because, digitalization is
now coming to retail in total,
and it's the customer
experience that will transform,
it will get much more personalized.
The business operations will change,
and apparently that's
constantly a new business model
that grow from the digitalization.
And to stay alive, I think
you need to keep innovating,
and it's not only selling online
which is definitely very, very important,
but it's much more you
can do to stay relevant
for consumer in the future.
- So, one of the big
trends that we're seeing
also coming from the U.S.
The Amazon are testing this
for some time in retail already
is not using any cashiers anymore, right?
How do you look at that?
I heard that you did a pilot in Austria.
Can you share some of your
learnings and insights?
- Yes definitely, we see this
as a very interesting trend
and we think it will prevail in the end.
So, also we worked with a startup here.
So we found a startup called
MishiPay in retail tech hub.
We met them in October 2017.
And we liked their approach and
we decided to launch a pilot
a pop-up store with them together.
So we did a kick-off in November,
and we opened up a
complete cashier-less store
in Innsbrook Austria, in March 2018.
So only three and a half months
during the Christmas period.
Now think about making this happen
in a corporate environment.
- So easy yeah?
- There's a free period
from November until February
for anything right?
So we launched this pilot store
and it was really completely
cashier-less free.
So you went into the store,
you took your mobile phone,
you could download the
app, or use the website,
you scan the product, every
product had an RFID tag,
you paid the product, RFID
tag was marked as being paid
and you could leave the store.
The downside is, if you
don't have a mobile device
or no credit card or PayPal,
you cannot pay, right?
But that's the risk we took.
We said, okay, we wanted experience.
How does the process work?
How does this whole environment
and how this new experience
perceived by the consumers?
The first time I did it
myself, it felt a little funny,
it felt like stealing something.
By the second time I said,
"Why can I not buy everywhere like this?"
and that's the reason why
even it was only a pop-up.
Even after closing this, we
did a second pilot in Munich
with another startup,
which is building security
spiders that helped the consumers
also to buy very expensive products.
Move the spider.
The last thing we just
launched in Hamburg,
that's our biggest store,
it's 18,000 square meters,
it's the biggest consumer
electronic store in the world.
And we launched in December.
So, to in Smart Pay where
the consumer can pay
almost everything in the
store using this mobile device
in an 18,000 square meter store.
So that's a little bigger
than Amazon Go store.
It's apparently different technology,
but we truly believe that
this will be very important
for consumers in the future,
because I think we all agree
that nobody wants to wait in line.
And just one number I wanna share.
I read an analysis that
said that last year
€34 billion in Europe were lost
because people left the store
because they did not want to wait in line.
So I think that's a...
- It's a big pain.
- That's a huge potential.
- I mean, I guess it feels a
little bit in going to an Uber
and just also stepping out right?
- Yes.
- It's a convenience plan basically.
- Are there any other insights
that you draw from those pilots,
from the consumer
experience point of view?
- Well, sometimes especially in Germany,
sometimes you have the
Germans are reluctant
when it comes to innovation.
So sometimes you have to tell
them where the luck could be.
So we, in Hamburg we use promoters.
The cool stuff is if they used it once,
the second time they come
they usually use it again.
So that's very important but as I've said,
sometimes in Europe we
are especially in Germany
we are a little bit late.
But the payment topic for
Germany is very special
because as you know,
Germans love to pay cash
and apparently, we cannot use our cash
and you cannot put your
cash into a mobile device
otherwise probably they
would, they would use this.
- Right, and do you also see
a higher conversion rates then
of number of people that go into the store
and actually buy something
through their mobile phone
compared to a regular...
- No, what we see is an higher
basket value interestingly.
And a higher basket size.
That's interesting but
conversion is probably similar.
- Okay.
And how do you build an organization
that is running its business
and needs to create revenues every month
and at the same time, look
at the consumer needs,
how they're changing so rapidly
and adapt to these consumer needs?
How do you organize that?
- Yeah, I think it's not easy.
We are just again, in
a big transformation,
we are building product teams.
And those product teams are more or less
self-dependent and can decide on their own
how they develop their products.
So a product team for the
online shop, for mobile,
for the store experience.
Really trying to always
stay close to the market
and at the same time,
apparently it's always
the day to day business.
And that's the reason why, I think,
if you really take innovation seriously,
you need your own innovation unit,
like we have.
We have a unit called
MediaMarkt Saturn Next
where we focus on working with startups
and really trying to bring innovation
that is a little further away
and sometimes thinking out of the box
because otherwise you
are sometimes limited
to the things you know and to the roadmap
that you're already predefined
maybe a long time ago.
So I think it's important,
for a mix of teams
that are able to transform
an agile developed,
existing process that has sometimes
have somebody who's bringing
something completely new
and makes them rethink
what they are doing.
- And if you look at the
three horizons that we have
in innovation, an
incremental business model
and potentially disruptive,
where's the major focus
of MediaMarkt Saturn Next,
is there still an incremental
or you're looking also at
different business models
or even disruptive?
- Well, we've started with incremental
because when we started Next we realized
there's so much that will
happen in the offline space,
we have more than 1,000 stores
and offline is very analog still,
it's not really transformed
and there's so much potential
to bring the consumer better experiences
and to apparently also
save costs on operations.
So we do a lot of stuff there.
We started to go into new business models,
also together with startups,
for example we have now a startup
that's called Deutche de Techniq (mumbles)
which we also found in
our startup accelerator
where we come to the
home of the consumers,
so people come and fix something at home,
that's a new business model.
Even it's analog, but it's a new model.
- So you go into services basically.
You go beyond selling
consumer electronics,
you look at the needs of
the consumers basically.
- MediaMarkt Saturn is strongly going
into solution deliveries,
so we don't want to just
sell the box, we want to help
you from first inspiration
until really setting it
up and making it work.
That's a little bit already
going into new business,
we are disruptive business models.
First big disruption was online business.
We have this now, it's
part of our channel.
We are right now evaluating,
but right now I don't see this...
We started early with virtual reality,
but a little too early.
Voice is now coming up,
but I think it will also
be just another channel,
so I don't see this big
disruption for retail right now.
I see many, many different
trends that could change it
and you need to adapt,
but I don't see this
big disruption coming,
at least not right now.
- So voice is an interesting topic,
because I have my Alexa
at home so I say to Alexa,
find me a new iPhone or
find me a new MacBook
- Yes.
- Where will it take me?
Will it take me to Amazon,
to MediaMarkt Saturn,
now you can advertise right?
So how are you going to deal with that?
- We started to build on Google Assistant,
because it's a little bit more open.
If you ask this question to Alexa
it will take you to Amazon.
(laughs)
- I guess.
You would need to ask, find me
a new iPhone from MediaMarkt
and I personally believe
that voice commerce
will not be the biggest
used case in the beginning.
It's another important touch point,
so we started with a commerce function,
you can buy a daily deal,
we have a quiz now,
we have a market finder
where you can say where's the next store.
We built a better service application,
so I think you will have
many different used cases.
Shopping, I think,
apparently groceries is good,
put milk on my shopping list, very easy.
An iPhone is a little bit more difficult
to buy by voice only.
The new assistance now have also a display
and then they can show you something.
More and more people pick it up,
but I think it's important to use it
as an interacting channel.
It will not only be about commerce,
but it's a very interesting (mumbles)
and it's growing very fast.
- So Martin, we already
came to the last part
of our conversation, which is
the Rapid Fire Side questions,
so I'm going to fire
some questions at you,
you answer me very quickly.
What is your favorite book?
- The 4-Hour Work Week.
- What is your favorite innovator?
- Elon Musk.
- What inspires you?
- Technology.
- What makes a great leader?
- Openness and ready to change his mind.
- What drives you?
- Innovation.
- What should everybody know about you?
- I love change.
- What do you value more,
certificates or experience?
- Experience.
- Greatest achievement so far?
- Launch of my own company.
- Biggest learning in your life?
- Always keep adapting.
- Define happiness.
(upbeat music)
- Right mix between work
and sports and family.
- Three things, great.
Thank you very much.
- Thanks very much.
(upbeat music)
