Gartner defines retail workforce management (WFM) applications as solutions that enable retailers to manage the operational deployment and optimization of the in-store retail workforce, thus improving the effectiveness of store managers and associates for unified retail commerce execution. In many cases, WFM can be deployed via mobile, point of sale (POS), tablet and kiosk devices for hourly retail associates, who are full time, part time and contingent workers.
Retail WFM applications support several business outcomes, including increased operational effectiveness, labor optimization and improvements to the overall wellbeing of store associates.

Retail Workforce Management Applications

3D Print Service Bureaus

3D Printing Workflow Software

4G and 5G Private Mobile Network Services

4PLs

5G Enterprise Data Services

5G Network Infrastructure for Communications Service Providers (Transitioning to CSP 5G Core Network Infrastructure Solutions ; CSP 5G RAN Infrastructure Solutions)

A/B Testing Tools

AI Avatars

AI Code Assistants

AI Offerings in CSP Network Operations

AI and Data and Analytics (D&A) Service Providers

AI in CSP Customer and Business Operations

AI-Augmented Software-Testing Tools

AI-Enabled Interview Intelligence

AI-Enabled Translation Services

AIOps Platforms

API Management

API Protection

Absence Management Software

Access Management

Account-Based Marketing Platforms

Account-Planning Tools

Accounting Practice Management Software (APMS)

Accounts Payable (AP) Recovery Audit Services

Accounts Payable Invoice Automation Solutions (Transitioning to Accounts Payable Applications)

Active Metadata Management

Ad Tech Platforms

Ad Verification Tools

Adaptive Project Management and Reporting

Advanced Analytics Service Providers for Marketing

Advanced Contract Analytics

Advanced Distribution Management Systems

Affiliate Marketing Platforms

Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs)

Analytics Query Accelerators

Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms

Analytics and Decision Intelligence Platforms in Supply Chain

Anti Money Laundering (AML) Software

Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) (Transitioning to 'Talent Acquisition (Recruiting) Suites')

Application Composition Platform

Application Crowdtesting Services

Application Delivery Controllers

Application Development Life Cycle Management

Application Integration Platforms

Application Platforms

Application Portfolio Management Tools

Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) Tools

Application Security Testing

Application Testing Services, Worldwide

Artificial Intelligence Applications in IT Service Management

Asset Investment Planning Solutions for Energy and Utilities

Asset Leasing Software

Asset Performance Management Software

Audience Intelligence Platforms

Audit Management Solutions

Augmented Analytics

Augmented Data Quality Solutions

Augmented Reality Development Software

B2B Customer Community Platforms

B2B Gateway Software

B2B Marketing Automation Platforms

B2B Profit Optimization Software

BPM-Platform-Based Case Management Frameworks

Background Check Software

Backup as a Service

Balance Sheet Management Software

Banking Payment Hub Platforms

Bankruptcy Software

Barcode Software

Benchmarking Services for Transportation Rates and Logistics Performance

Benefits Management Software

Blockchain Advertising Platforms

Blockchain Consulting and Proof-of-Concept Development Services

Blockchain Platforms

Blockchain as a Service

Brand Advocacy Services

Brand Compliance Software

Brand Protection Software

Brand Strategy Agencies

Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) Tools

Business Continuity Management Program Solutions

Business Process Automation Tools

Business Process Management Platforms

Business Valuation Software

Business-Outcome-Driven Enterprise Architecture Consulting

CPS Protection Platforms

CRM Customer Engagement Center

CRM and Customer Experience Implementation Services

CRM in Life Sciences

CSP 5G Core Network Infrastructure Solutions

CSP 5G RAN Infrastructure Solutions

CSP Customer Management and Experience Solutions

CSP Revenue Management and Monetization Solutions

CSP Service Design and Orchestration Solutions

CSP Service and Network Assurance Solutions

Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) Software

Capital Investment Management Software

Carbon Accounting and Management Software

Carbon Offset Platforms

Cash Flow Management Software

Agriculture: AI enhances crop health analysis through satellite imagery, forecasts disease outbreaks, and refines irrigation methods.


Energy Storage: AI determines optimal energy storage and release times, boosting the efficiency of major battery systems and storage solutions.


Grid Management: AI aids in real-time load and source balancing, ensuring consistent energy supply and minimizing blackout risks.


We're currently reviewing #2 (Ev2Scale) &amp; #3 (Technology Innovation) within our organization's research domain.

Seamless integration and automation are anticipated to be one of the dominant areas impacted by AI. This covers a broad spectrum, from automating business processes and refining management practices to enhancing service customization. AI can also be crucial in process reengineering and product optimization in manufacturing.

AI is poised to disrupt various industries in several ways. Here are some additional points to add to your list:

5. Customer Service: AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can handle routine customer inquiries and support, improving efficiency and reducing costs.

6. Healthcare: AI can assist in diagnosing diseases, analyzing medical data, and even performing surgery with precision.

7. Financial Services: AI-driven algorithms can enhance fraud detection, automate financial analysis, and provide personalized investment recommendations.

8. Manufacturing: AI-driven automation and robotics can optimize production processes, quality control, and predictive maintenance.

9. Transportation: Self-driving vehicles and AI-based route optimization can revolutionize the logistics and transportation sectors.

10. Education: AI can provide personalized learning experiences, automate administrative tasks, and offer virtual tutoring.

11. Retail: AI-driven recommendation systems and cashier-less stores can enhance customer experiences and streamline operations.

12. Energy: AI can optimize energy consumption, improve grid management, and enhance renewable energy production.

13. Legal Services: AI-powered legal research tools can assist lawyers in document review and case analysis.

14. Agriculture: AI can improve crop management, automate harvesting, and monitor soil conditions.

15. Human Resources: AI can streamline recruitment, employee onboarding, and performance evaluations.

AI's disruptive potential extends to many more industries, transforming how businesses operate, make decisions, and serve their customers.

Logistics Optimization
Demand Forecasting
Customer Service Automation
Dynamic Pricing
Enhanced Targeting and Personalization
Design and Creativity Assistance
Social Media Management
Data Analytics and Insights

These are some of the key areas where AI is expected to bring significant disruption and transformation to businesses in various industries, including logistics and promotional sectors.

For me being a sales leader, the AI dream use case would serve from Top of funnel to ongoing customer management. 

AI scoring accounts we are looking to target, crafting message and automatically sharing message on platform of choice. Listening to the 1st call and recording notes within CRM, sending crafted followup message to prospect, helping to craft the impact case, help during negotiations by scoring asks and guidance based on past signed deals, scheduling kickoff calls and keeping track of usage patterns, etc.

The biggest thing to keep in mind is AI in my opinion won’t replace people but take away the tactical work that most don’t like doing anyways.

AI's impact on various industries is multifaceted and continues to evolve. Here are additional ways AI could disrupt business across industries:

Customer Service and Support: AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can handle routine customer queries, provide support, and streamline communication, enhancing customer experience while reducing operational costs.

Predictive Analytics and Forecasting: AI can significantly improve predictive analytics, helping businesses forecast trends, consumer behavior, and market shifts more accurately. This can influence inventory management, financial planning, and risk assessment.

Personalized Marketing: AI enables the analysis of vast amounts of data to personalize marketing efforts, delivering more targeted and effective campaigns based on individual preferences and behaviors.

5. Efficient and effective workflows 6. Productivity elsewhere by human workforce 6. Cybersecurity issues 7. Financial predictability 8. Cultural instability and culture change

We have seen the revolution that AI can bring to the industries and individual alike. The following are just some of the possibilities. 


However, we should be careful and use it with caution. It is also a confusing time for us all to combat the misinformation. AI still cannot detect what is true or fake information out there. It treats every data as a real information. 




1. Automated repetitive tasks: Increased productivity through automated virtual assistant, note taking, writing, email, calendar management, intelligent search and instant information retrieval at your fingertips.


2. Enhanced Decision Making with more real-time intelligent information and educated guess.


3. Smarter ChatBot for Customer service and experience.


4. AI algorithm to boost customized and targeted marketing campaign.


5. AI based intelligent defense system to equip and combat new era of Cybersecurity.


6. AI based Smarter Supply Chain Optimization: instant and intelligent demand Forecast and predictive analysis to optimize inventory, route planning and speed.


7. AI based healthcare diagnostic and treatment.


8. AI based risk management to detect and prevent disasters, fraud, including legal &amp; law compliance, financial investment and trading.


9. Simplified complex learning and training in various fields (medicine, engineering, science, data analysis, consulting, legal &amp; law, mental health, circular economy business model and the birth of supportive elements, etc) using AI technology based (virtual reality) in adaptive learning and training platform.


10. AI technology based to customized the characteristics and qualified candidates in HR and recruiting industry.


11. AI based art and digital art creations.



And, the list goes on.

5. Customer Service Automation: AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants revolutionize customer service, providing instant support, handling inquiries, and improving customer satisfaction.


6. Supply Chain Optimization: AI algorithms optimize supply chain management by forecasting demand, identifying inefficiencies, and automating inventory management, leading to cost savings and improved logistics.


7. Personalized Marketing: AI analyzes consumer data to deliver personalized marketing campaigns, targeting specific demographics, preferences, and behaviors for increased engagement and conversion rates.


8. Healthcare Diagnostics: AI-enabled diagnostic tools assist healthcare professionals in interpreting medical images, analyzing patient data, and detecting diseases earlier, leading to more accurate diagnoses and improved patient outcomes.


9. Financial Fraud Detection: AI algorithms detect fraudulent activities in real time by analyzing transaction data, patterns, and anomalies, enhancing security and minimizing financial risks for businesses and consumers.


10. Predictive Maintenance: AI predicts equipment failures and maintenance needs by analyzing sensor data and performance metrics, reducing downtime, and optimizing asset utilization in industries like manufacturing and transportation.


11. Language Translation and Interpretation: AI-powered translation tools break down language barriers, enabling seamless communication across global teams and facilitating international business transactions.


12. Virtual Collaboration and Remote Work: AI-driven collaboration platforms revolutionize remote work by continuing to provide virtual meeting spaces, project management tools, and productivity enhancements. GenAI agents will become commonplace to invite an AI Agent to all meetings to record the points and the action items to ensure humans can focus fire on hot topic value items. 

13. Autonomous Agents: These GenAI-driven and governed agents, will track action items and ensure standard practices but also oversee work deliverables. By performing simple tasks, AI agents enhance efficiency and accountability across distributed teams, allowing human resources to focus on higher-level responsibilities. This potential seamless integration fosters teamwork, innovation, and consistency in work processes regardless of geographical location.

AI's impact on the job market is a significant area of interest. As AI becomes more advanced, it will likely lead to job substitution in some areas. This shift will prompt businesses to adapt their workforce strategies to leverage AI's capabilities while ensuring employees have the skills needed for emerging roles. As AI continues to evolve, understanding its potential to reshape job functions and industries will be crucial for businesses to stay competitive and thrive in the future.

Focusing on healthcare delivery, AI has the potential to enhance patient outcomes, improve efficiency, and transform healthcare delivery. However, it’s crucial to strike a balance between technological advancements and maintaining the human touch in all areas of service.  I believe we will see it being used to deliver more personalized care plans, as well as in population health management to population data to identify health trends, predict disease outbreaks, and allocate resources effectively.

Corporate training and education in general will be impacted by AI. Previously it was very resource intensive to teach a person at their own pace, one on one, but with AI is feasible to customize training at a very granular level. In tech, the staff is only as productive as their skillset therefore more efficient training can allow organizations to be more productive and nimbler.

Additionally, if there is a “safe” way to use AI evaluate aptitude for different types of work then staff can be deployed in accordance with their aptitudes. Possibly even selecting management vs individual contributor paths based upon continuous scientific evaluation of their work - as opposed to who brings donuts and laughs at Executive jokes.  Managerial selection is largely subjective and although some decisions should be made based upon a feeling, there could be exceptional candidates wasting their talents.

 The reason I emphasized “safe” is because choosing tasks for people or shifting career paths based upon scientific analysis could be fertile ground for employment lawsuits.

AI will permeate every field, acting like a magic wand with applications in education, medicine, and even remote sensing. As a broad term, AI encompasses machine learning, neural networks, computer vision, LLMs, NLP, and more, often combining these technologies for various uses.
However note we will still need Magician to use the magic wand :-)

As pervasive innovation more than apps or platforms it will impact on processes and workflows leading a change management.

The knowledge management potential is enormous. 
AI can help distributed teams coordinate across the organization reducing the coordination burden off the 'manager' layer of organizations.   
AI can enable more real time learning which reduces the value of experience.

Every industry and business has the opportunity to be disrupted. It's up to the organizational leadership to identify the right opportunity that aligns with their motivations and be disrupted. 

Product quality, design, development in a manufacturing industry are low hanging opportunities. 
Competitive intelligence, growth strategies, sales enablement, account management to call out a few in addition to your examples.

5. Collaboration and negotiation with trading partners (suppliers and customers).
6. Help desk support
7. Supplier and customer on-boarding
8. Third-party risk management
9. Learning/training/search
10. Consulting/expert advisory services
11. Speed of Innovation  
12. Sourcing
13. Business development (gead gen & nurturing)
14. Reporting
15. Incident management & resolution

to name a few.

- Education paths - becoming a doctor is not going to be the top choice to a student, as AI can guide students based on their performance and ways of learning. &#34;the distribution of careers is going to shift which can cause a major disruption in the work-force&#34;.
- Children&#39;s way of thinking - AI will make basic tasks like reading and writing and drawing obsolete, these are essential parts of the child&#39;s growth need to develop specific parts of the brain.
- Teaching methods - Teachers play a role in a student&#39;s life, as unconventional teaching methods come to view, teachers will have to adopt them to support the new generation resulting in a shortage of qualified personnel. 
- IOT analysis - AI can go to the bits and bites of these devices, with the right processing power, AI can and will provide a one time set up deal for all new IOT&#39;s removing the need to have a human.

How do you think AI will disrupt business across industries? Add to my list: 1. Content creation 2. Photos and video production 3. Basic coding and debugging 4. Strategic analysis to be highly complimented 

I was recently involved in a discussion with manufacturers and supply chain partners, and someone raised a question on the impact of emerging and exponential technologies on the workforce. They told us about their client who wants to become a completely lights-out factory with automation only, within a matter of eight months. We had a client that did it over the period of two years and went from 900 staff down to 71. Those staff were supervisors hired only as needed by contract; they let all of the union workers go and got rid of the idea of three shifts. But after a period of time they found that they had to bring some of the more seasoned workers back to the line, because they were missing the body of knowledge required to keep up the level of efficiency. No matter how much process automation or robotics they had put in, they were still having problems in certain areas.

Retail and supply chain most apparently. With the implementation of iot smart stores are becoming more common in major cities. Precise indoor localization via rfid is augmenting warehouse pick and place infrastructure.

Automation and robotics in service turns out to deliver different benefits that the deployment of these technologies in manufacturing, logistics and engineering. To date most of the automation and RPA projects I have been involved with have used the productivity increase they enabled in reducing turnaround time and improving customer responsiveness. But that increased capacity also creates opportunities to have the same number of staff do additional or better things. In call centres, for example, increased automation seldom leads to staff redundancies - instead the wait time for someone to answer is reduced. We see the same with mortgage and loans applications, insurance claims processing and other - previously manual - processes.

The question is quite broad. Automation, Robotics, AI and other technology just elevates the industry. Yes, some staff jobs are eliminated but some new jobs are also created. We see areas like book-keeping become more financial management. We see cashiering/order taking move more to supply/demand management. And etc.

I was recently involved in a discussion with manufacturers and supply chain partners, and someone raised a question on the impact of emerging and exponential technologies on the workforce. They told us about their client who wants to become a completely lights-out factory with automation only, within a matter of eight months. We had a client that did it over the period of two years and went from 900 staff down to 71. Those staff were supervisors hired only as needed by contract; they let all of the union workers go and got rid of the idea of three shifts. But after a period of time they found that they had to bring some of the more seasoned workers back to the line, because they were missing the body of knowledge required to keep up the level of efficiency. No matter how much process automation or robotics they had put in, they were still having problems in certain areas.

Where are you seeing automation or robotics decrease the need for staff?

Best Retail Workforce Management Applications Reviews 2024 | Gartner Peer Insights

Incredibly versatile software that is adapted purely by customizing - no programming required. Consultancy at eye level and with very good understanding.

Retail Workforce Management Applications Reviews and Ratings

What are Retail Workforce Management Applications?

Products In Retail Workforce Management Applications Market

Plano Workforce Management

Plano Workforce Management

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