The Tea Leaves

Written by: Shekar Raman, Co-Founder, and CEO of Birdzi

Tea leaves

A few centuries ago, the most common method of predicting the future was to hire a seer, an astrologer, or, better yet, an Oracle. The knowledge of the future lay in the hands of a few gifted individuals who held sway over kings and emperors. History is replete with such examples. These people had a connection to a higher state of consciousness that allowed them to see into the future. You could argue that the number of such gifted people has only increased over time. Check out YouTube if you have any doubt. There is no end to the videos starring palm readers, tarot card readers, and even tea leaf readers!

I am no authority on whether these gifts have any basis in science, but maybe these individuals are at the endpoint of some glorious universal intelligence that delivers the answers.

So what has this to do with grocery and supermarkets? Well, everything!

There is an abundance of data in grocery and just not enough soothsayers when it comes to predicting shopper behavior. Most of the data is used primarily to create reports and endless analysis of what already happened. There is minimal emphasis on reading the ‘tea leaves.’

At Birdzi, Inc., we focus on precisely this; reading the ‘tea leaves.’ The ‘tea leaves’ are the data, and Birdzi is the soothsayer. Over the past couple of years, the team has taken an intense interest in helping retailers understand and predict shopper behavior. We have focused on teaching machines how to pour over mountains of data to draw conclusions and provide predictions. The reading from the ‘tea leaves’ then powers up a whole host of services. Our insights serve as an early warning system, as well as an early intervention system that identifies trends early and seizes the opportunity to act.

Imagine being able to improve the retention of new shoppers and reduce the churn of existing loyal shoppers by a few percentage points. What does that do to your bottom line and market position?

What does the future hold?

In the coming months, Birdzi will focus on allowing retailers easy access to the platform with simplified onboarding. In other words, a free trial of the platform so that you can see the results before you commit. Imagine going from ZERO to AI in a week, with little to no overhead.

We don’t claim to have the silver bullet to end all the retailer’s woes, but we do bring capabilities to the retailer that would typically have taken months. We do all this at a cost that is an order of magnitude lower when one considers the investment the retailer has to make in infrastructure and expertise.

Look out for the announcements. It will be here before you know it. Birdzi offers a new perspective on reading tea leaves!