A.S. Watson invests $114.7m more in tech to improve customer experience

Priorities for investment include O+O solutions and in-store technologies.

Health and beauty retailer A.S. Watson has injected an additional $114.7m (HK$900m) in technology in 2022 to accelerate its digital transformation and improve the delivery of its offline plus online (O+O) strategy.

In a statement, The company said it focuses on the top-three consumer-facing technology investments which include O+O solutions for health and beauty shopping, personalisation in customer experience using artificial intelligence, and in-store technologies such as digital payments and smart shelving.

For back-end technology, A.S. Watson will prioritise big data management and visualisation, cyber security, and promotion optimisation.

The company will also focus on upgrading resources in its in-house development agency “eLab” in Hong Kong and Milan, as well as the “TECHLab” which has recently expanded its new technology experience centre in the tech hub in Shenzhen in China, as well as in the Netherlands.

It added that the new technology experience centre features technology such as unmanned stores, smart shelves, unmanned cabinets, interactive games, store entrance with facial recognition and seamless payment.

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“Technology is vital for us to deliver the right offline plus online (O+O) customer experience. We are committed to our customers to lead and shape the new standard of retail for them, and have set our consumer-facing and back-end technology investment priorities accordingly,” said Malina Ngai, Group COO of A.S. Watson Group and CEO of A.S. Watson (Asia and Europe).

“Retail is evolving very quickly. What took a decade to develop in the past would now happen in two years. To stay winning, we are racing against time every day. We, therefore, need to build agility in the organisation, and empower our people with data insights in real-time, cloud-based dashboards are key to fast and smart decision making. O+O continues to be A.S. Watson’s core strategy and technology is the critical engine for future growth,” Ngai added.

$1 = HK$7.85