My Book: "The Next Wave of Retail: Anticipating and Preparing for the Future of Shopping" Book and Thank You

The Next Wave of Retail: Anticipating and Preparing for the Future of Shopping  provides a glimpse into the retail world that may exist
in the near future, but this book is not just about the future but also about
the now and how you can stay relevant in a changed and transformed world. This
is a book about options, an illustration of what is happening today and what
may change in the future. It is about the consumer and their interactions with
retail. I have spent the last 25 years of working with governments, global retail and
financial institutions, and organizations building the digital foundation of
tomorrow. However, the path to the future for me started in 2013, when I was in
the office of the late Tom Kaldec, Head of Technology at Tesco, the world's 2nd
largest retailer at the time, who later became a great friend and SVP of
Technology at Target, an industry-leading retailer in the US. Tom said to me,
"Ali, I want you to build the store of the future, but please do not focus
on the technology but on our colleagues, customers, and values, create a vision
that is exciting but value-based and doesn’t come back to me asking for more
budget." At the time, I was working for Verizon, a US-based telecom
company that only cared about the technology's functions and features and not
the outcomes. However, I was lucky enough to be part of a great team whose
data-driven vision of the future allowed me to tackle the biggest challenges in
retail. Later in my career, I would meet Chris Luxford from the Aspire Group, a
dear friend and mentor who helped me understand that this was the only way to
approach transformation.
Six months
later, a group of Silicon Valley's hottest start-ups and I were QR-code
checking in our CEO and Tesco's then-legendary CIO, Mike McNamara (who went on
to transform Target's approach and culture to technology) into a
60,000-square-foot store just outside of London.
What I did
not know then but know now, is that we had just built the world's first
frictionless, touchless, cloud-based shopping experience. You could pick up a
micro-located product scan and pay via a custom-built app. The digital identity
solution would form part of Verizon's federated digital identity ecosystem that
supported the UK government's Verify solution. The BOPIS (Buy Online Pick Up
Instore) solution's Click & Collect would evolve into Qudini, and a slew of
other technologies would become commonplace for retailers during the 2020 COVID
pandemic.
The
COVID-19 pandemic sped up transformation across all digital channels, highlighting
supply chain weaknesses worldwide. Unfortunately, the current inflationary
environment, as well as the upcoming currency, global interest rate, capital,
and cost of living crises, will push most consumers to the verge of financial
collapse, along with the institutions that serve them. Capital and liquidity
will evaporate. 
Even before
the pandemic, it was hard for many brick-and-mortar stores to stay open and
keep customers interested in their products and spaces. But will shopping and
retailing return to normal as the financial crisis expands?
Retailers
must reshape their organizations to generate value and leverage technology to
enable tomorrow's "smart consumers." 
The current
period is one of exponential structural and financial change, in which events
are occurring rapidly. As a result, businesses must be nimble enough to pivot
physically and digitally swiftly and successfully. 
Retailers
and business leaders need to predict what customers want, what is likely to happen,
and what is plausible. Then, put their retail businesses and brands to the test
against all possible assumptions while driving innovation and delight into
customer journeys and the path to purchase. 
The
coronavirus shuttered many street stores and malls, and consumers flocked to
online shopping. H