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The Retail Perch

The Retail Perch

By: Shekar Raman Gary Hawkins
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Summary

The Retail Perch podcast is hosted by the powerful duo Shekar Raman, CEO of Birdzi and Gary Hawkins, CEO of Center for Advancing Retail & Technology (CART). We are happy to report that we have made the "Top 15 Grocery Industry Podcasts to Follow in 2021" by Feedspot. The list can be found here: https://blog.feedspot.com/grocery_industry_podcasts/


This podcast aims to provide a fresh perspective and framework for how you view your everyday grocery trips. Whether you're a retailer, entrepreneur, or a curious mind tuning in, there is something in store for everyone. Each Monday, your hosts will share supermarket analysis, personal stories about the industry, along with their views to provide you with further insight into everything retail grocery and AI.


Don't forget to tune in!

Lean more about Birdzi at Birdzi.com

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Episodes
  • 131. AskKea in Action with Birdzi’s Client Success Team
    May 7 2026

    In this episode of Retail Perch, Birdzi’s Client Success team showcases AskKea, Birdzi’s new AI-powered platform that helps retailers turn questions that once took days to answer into insights in seconds.

    The team steps into different retail roles, including marketer, analyst, merchandiser, and CEO, and shares examples of the types of questions each role can ask to uncover insights, reduce operational lift, power stronger offers, and make faster, data-driven decisions. Listeners will also get to know the Client Success team, a crucial part of what makes Birdzi so special.

    Video is recommended for this episode, as the team walks through the platform and shows AskKea in action.

    Available on Youtube

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    39 mins
  • 130. What Does Retail 5.0 Really Mean?
    Apr 16 2026

    In this episode of Retail Perch, Gary and Shekar reunite to discuss Gary’s new paper, Retail 5.0: The Age of Bionic Orchestration. They explore how AI and retail innovation mirror human anatomy, the shift from making decisions to designing decision systems, and the difference between human-speed and machine-speed retail. The conversation looks at how orchestrating both human and machine intelligence can create smarter, faster, and more adaptive retail experiences.

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    24 mins
  • 129. Tackling Operational Inefficiency in Retail
    Apr 2 2026

    In this episode of The Retail Perch, Courtney Adams, VP of Marketing, and Kate McCormick, Director of Solution Engineering at Birdzi, discuss why retail operations need to move beyond “that’s how we’ve always done it.” As shopper behavior shifts quickly, processes that take weeks can lose relevance just as fast, making it even more important for retailers to reduce operational time, lower stress, and work more efficiently. They also discuss Birdzi’s newest capabilities and how they help tackle operational inefficiencies at scale.

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    27 mins
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