Kings of innovation Wesley Rhodes and Dan Whitacre home in on the technology and values that set the Kroger customer experience apart
KROGER
Kings of innovation Wesley Rhodes and Dan Whitacre home in on the technology and values that set the Kroger customer experience apart
It ’ s easy to see why Kroger is leading the grocery retail space – and it all centres around a laser focus on the customer . Innovation has been core to the grocer ’ s identity from its founding , when Barney Kroger created the nation ’ s first supermarket .
Kroger Labs , the company ’ s research and development ( R & D ) arm , plays an active role in its efforts to change the way America eats .
Wesley Rhodes , Vice President of Technology Transformation and R & D for Kroger , spent his career working with companies that are making their next big technological leaps . Today , he brings that expertise to Kroger and leads the team who are uncovering what ’ s next in the grocery retail space .
Rhodes and his team find ways Kroger can make changes – big and small – to introduce that next level of customer service , and these innovations are coming at an increasingly faster pace .
“ In the past , innovations were big bets with potentially big rewards created during long development periods ,” says Rhodes . “ Today , we incrementally deliver meaningful innovations much more rapidly by limiting their scope .”
To ensure the lab team is focused in the right areas , customer feedback is constantly incorporated into practice and , if necessary , courses can be changed or corrected in response .
4 kroger . com