Qatar's Digital Push Is Significant Gain For Nation's Retail Sector, Says Lulu Group Executive

(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Qatar's strategic investments in digital transformation and partnerships with global tech giants are expected to significantly benefit stakeholders and key players in the country's retail industry.
According to LuLu Group Director of Global Operations Dr Mohamed Althaf, rapid technological advancements, the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), and the predictive maintenance of the Internet of Things (IoT) have been reshaping the global retail sector's operational landscape.
Dr Althaf highlighted that LuLu Group's digital transformation reflects Qatar's broader vision for technological progress, merging traditional retail expertise with innovative digital solutions to address changing market demands and consumer expectations.
Speaking to Gulf Times recently, Dr Althaf elaborated on the extensive integration of technology in modern retail operations, particularly in supermarket and hypermarket businesses, and how Qatar's digital transformation strategy will offer huge gains for the industry.
He explained that nothing may appear to have changed“in the past 25 years” when consumers enter a story, but little do people know that many retail establishments have been utilising different technologies that offer various solutions to their operations.
“The store look and feel will remain the same because this is the nature of our business. But in our backend, what is happening is that we are heavy users of technology. I don't know about the region, but if you take the US as an example, perhaps the second biggest data users after NASA are their retail supermarkets, so we are very knowledge-based; we are very much a data-driven business,” Dr Althaf emphasised.
Aside from LuLu Hypermarket's significant digital transformation in its backend operations, the implementation of cloud-based systems for cold chain management ensures food safety through comprehensive tracking and tracing capabilities. Similarly, the integration of IoT technology significantly helped optimise energy usage to meet the company's sustainability goals, Dr Althaf noted.
“AI and digital transformation are already transforming the processes that we are in. For example, our call chain management makes sure that the food is safe. All that is data-driven and stored on the cloud; we track and trace all our call chains for management. In terms of energy usage, most of our systems are benefitting from IoT – it is already helping us reduce energy bills and meet sustainability goals through digital transformation.
“The other area where we are using it heavily is in terms of training our people on data.
The company believes that we will be able to make our staff employed in much more productive and knowledge-demanding jobs. A lot of other tasks are already there, so in terms of our projections and predictive analytics, as well as forecasting of our order, all those are already digitalised,” Dr Althaf pointed out.
On the storefront, particularly on the hardware side, Dr Althaf said LuLu boasts of autonomous stores and stores that are certified as carbon neutral. At the same time, the company has implemented different automation in its payment gateway, as well, he also noted.
Looking ahead, Dr Althaf announced LuLu's plans to launch an upgraded e-commerce platform featuring new AI tools. He also noted that his perspective on AI has changed from initial concern to viewing it as“an efficiency enhancer,” citing global CEOs who called for a pause in research and development of Large Language Models (LLMs) in 2024.
“Looking back, we're very pleased to say that nothing has changed much – human beings are still in command. It is still emerging, and I think AI is emerging as an efficiency enhancer, so I am looking at the positive outcome. I am looking forward to AI getting more mature.
“There will be a lot of other business opportunities. For example, how do we use AI for agriculture and security? What do we do to increase the efficiency of new drug discovery processes?” Dr Althaf stressed.
He also underscored the importance of keeping the people in Qatar well-informed and educated in innovation and advancements in AI.“Perhaps, AI can expand the reach of education to a lot of people around the world, and also at some point maybe it could start as a real-life problem solver. These are some of the things that I will be looking at very closely this coming year,” he added.

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