Adam Silverman, a former Principal Analyst at Forrester, has joined enterprise wearable technology platform Theatro as SVP of Marketing. Silverman joined the Theatro executive team in August 2016.
In an exclusive interview with Retail TouchPoints, Silverman revealed that his position at Theatro will focus on three specific areas, as the company seeks to improve associate-to-associate and associate-to-consumer interactions in the store:
- Brand awareness/growth;
- Retail store partnerships; and
- Product development.
“The retail store of the future will thrive on a dynamic ecosystem of partners,” Silverman said. “There’s not currently a monolithic company that does everything that a store should do. For example, you have individual retail companies doing mPOS or task management, or they’re facilitating omnichannel fulfillment, and you see associates with multiple devices walking around. We aim to build all that out under one platform, and foster partnerships to create an ecosystem of technology for the retail store.”
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This is the second time in recent weeks that a former Principal Analyst from Forrester has accepted a position at another retail company: Sucharita Mulpuru joined e-Commerce event Shoptalk in September 2016 as its new Chief Retail Strategist.
At Forrester, Silverman focused heavily on the emergence of the digital store, where commerce and engagement technology converge to help transform the physical shopping space. In his new role at Theatro, Silverman will continue his focus on improving the future state of the store, ensuring associates have the proper context necessary to improve the experience for consumers.
“For me personally, joining Theatro is a great fit, not only because I can apply previous research around these technologies in the store, but I have 15 years of working in e-Commerce and I believe transformation at the retail store starts with being data-driven,” Silverman noted. “Even when you think about real-time task management or skills-based routing, those things will come to the retail store, and will improve to the point where customers will be in the aisle and associates will come by at the right time with the right information and improve conversion in the store.”
For nearly two decades, Silverman has held e-Commerce and marketing leadership positions for top-tier retailers such as Target, Musician’s Friend and Wet Seal. During that time, he led digital transformation projects including selection and integration of enterprise commerce applications and creation of digital shopping experiences and brand strategies.
“Today, consumers will start a shopping experience online, and then when they go to the store, they have to start all over again,” Silverman said. “The store is basically antiquated in that it’s not connected in the right ways to provide the most value to the customers. The associate is a massive asset that the retailer has invested in, and these associates, for the most part, are not effective at meeting the growing needs of customers today. And it’s not their fault; it’s just they have no access to the information that the customer has. That’s why it’s so important to connect the associate to the enterprise so they can access the customer’s browser or basket, or the kind of service the customer has requested.”
