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September 19, 2023 27 mins

A world where customers can buy everything they want, whenever and wherever they want isn’t 100% there—but it’s pretty close. And perhaps no company has been up for that challenge as much as Lowe’s.

 

In this episode of The Restless Ones, I had the chance to sit down with Seemantini Godbole, EVP and CIO of Lowe’s Companies, Inc., whose early start as an engineer has fueled problem-solving throughout her career. From helping customers prepare for projects via virtual appointments and designs, to making sure their local stores have the physical products needed to complete them, Seemantini is arming Lowe’s teams with the technology solutions to infuse more joy into home improvement without the usual friction.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, everyone, Welcome to the Restless Ones. I'm Jonathan Strickland.
As always, my focus is on exploring the intersection of
technology and business by having conversations with the most forward
thinking leaders. Throughout my career, I've covered everything from massive
parallel processing to advanced robotics, but what truly inspires me

(00:24):
are the stories of innovation and transformation. Today, I have
the pleasure of speaking with Simontany Goadbolet, the chief Digital
and Information Officer at Low's. Simontani's background is in mathematics
and engineering, and we hit it off right away. I
quickly learned about both her perspective on technological innovation and

(00:46):
on business leadership. When presented with a challenge, Simontani begins
exploring solutions through collaboration and thinking outside the box, all
while maintaining an enthusiasm around her work. And Simontany has
played a pivotal role in guiding decisions and strategies at
Low's as the company has embraced digitalization to improve the

(01:07):
experiences of customers, partners, and associates alike. But before we
dive into all the work she's doing at Low's, I
wanted to take a little time to learn more about
Samontany herself. Simontani, thank you so much for joining us
on the Restless Ones. I'm extremely excited to have this conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
With you today, Jonathan.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
Great to be here. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Before we jump into all the amazing work done over
at Low's. I always like to get to know my
guests a little bit better. I'm very curious how you
first got interested in engineering and technology.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
You know, I think, Jonathan, I grew up in India
and did my undergrad in India, and then I came
here to do my graduate school. And from the very beginning,
I feel like I was interested in math and science,
and I wish I could come up with a much
smart reason. But I figured out that math problems, if
you just solve them on a consistent basis, you didn't

(02:07):
have to study too much just before the exams. If
you do a bunch of mathematical problems, then you're always
ready for a test and you don't have to do
anything special. On a more serious note, I think scientific
experiments hands on learning. I just feel like it interested
me much more. What I would say is the more
you do it, the better you get. At it and

(02:29):
then it becomes a bit of a virtuous cycle. And
that's what happened to me, Jonathan. And by the time
then I have completed my high school, I was very
clear that I wanted to pursue engineering. My dad was
an engineer, so I'm sure that had a tremendous influence.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
That's great. It resonates with me because I often saw
math as sort of like a series of puzzles, and
solving puzzles with something I always love to do. And
certain types of math, like trigonometry just sang to me,
and physics sang to me. And it's because it may
made sense, and once you grasped it, everything starts to
kind of fall into line, and I get a little

(03:05):
hint of what it must be like to be an engineer.
Not that I would ever suggest I am as lofty
as an engineer, but Samantani, you've of course had lots
of experience as both a technical lead and an engineer.
I'm curious how those experiences in those roles shaped your
approach to leadership.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yeah, and I think the biggest thing that happened to
me was, even to this day, I truly appreciate what
engineers do for us, and not just engineers, but ux designers,
data scientist, infrastructure engineers. I mean, we could go on
and on, but maybe because I did that work myself,
I have a huge appreciation for how much dedication it needs,

(03:48):
how much you have to keep yourself up with new technology,
keep learning. Jonathan, you said something which so resonated with me,
which is solving a puzzle. Right, So, if you're after
an engineer and you're writing cops and gops of code
on an everyday basis, you're solving puzzles continuously, and then
there are many evenings you go home and you haven't

(04:09):
quite solved something and it's bothering you, and you come
in the next morning, and then suddenly you have a
breakthrough and things change overnight, like something that seemed completely
unsolvable yesterday suddenly today you have had a breakthrough. So
I just feel like living that life gave me tremendous
appreciation for what our teams do, And to this day,

(04:32):
when we are having a whiteboard discussions, those that are actually,
by the way, my best hours, I tremendously enjoy working
with the teams that way.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Anytime you get a chance to share ideas with people
who might be looking at things from a slightly different
perspective and perhaps see something that you missed. To me,
that's one of the great joys. I don't get frustrated
that I missed it. I take joy that someone else
saw something that just because the angle I was looking
at I could not see.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Jonathan.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
One of the big things is every day I realized
that how much my team knows and how good they
are at what they do, and it's humbling. It's just
really awesome to be surrounded by such smart people.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
That's fantastic. What actually brought you to Low's?

Speaker 3 (05:15):
So I was working for another retailer, I was working
for Target. When I got a call from the team
at Low's. It was going to be a bigger job. So,
just to be really frank, I felt like I could
have more impact. I felt like I was ready. And
when I came and met with everybody at Low's, my
future peers, and of course I met with Marvin Ellison
and our CEO. What was very impressive is, first of all,

(05:39):
I felt like Low's had a tremendous scale. Also, as
I was listening from everyone about the home improvement business,
I felt like that field was ripe for omni channel retail,
lots of innovation, but here's the most important thing. I
felt like Marvin was truly interested in transformation led by technology,

(06:01):
and I felt like this happens very very rarely, where
the company of scale who wants to transform, a CEO
who's empathetic and really invested in transformation, and then a
domain that is so problem rich. All these things don't
come together often enough. And I was really excited after

(06:23):
listening to everybody, and I didn't want to pass up
that chance. So I'm really lucky I got this job
and I love it every day.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
It sounds like the perfect convergence. It does sound like
the engineer's dream come true of we're going to give
you the support you need to be the change that
we need in order to move into the next era
of our organization's history. Out of curiosity, when you first
meet someone, how do you actually describe what your job
is to them?

Speaker 3 (06:50):
Absolutely, and Jonathan, that's a really good question. All of
us want to describe our jobs in a way that
everybody understands. And here is what I do really on
an everyday basis. My job is to make sure that
our customers are able to buy everything they want. However,
whenever wherever they want to buy. So whether they want
to go to lows dot com, they want to call

(07:11):
our contact center, they want to come into our stores,
they should get a really connected and a seamless experience.
On the other side of a coin, what we are
doing is for our associates, whether you're working in a
store behind a register, or you're receiving a truck in
our receiving doc or you're a supply chain associate moving
the product through our warehouse, or you're sitting in our

(07:34):
what we call it as store support center, which is
basically a headquarter where you're sitting here doing some financial analysis.
I really want to make sure that our associates are
able to have the best experience so that they can
serve our customers. So it really is about all the
experiences and technology we design for our customers and associates.

(07:55):
This is how I describe my job, and we are
on a journey to become the most customer centric omni
channel retailer, and I feel like technology plays a really
important role in that.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
I like that description. Being able to do this to
provide this experience both to the customers, for Low's Lows
as partners as well as the associates who work at Lows.
It requires a bedrock that we love to talk about
on this show, which is, of course connectivity. It is
my firm belief that connectivity is the technology that enables

(08:29):
so much more innovation. And while we can focus on
the innovation and we will talk about it, it never
escapes me that that connectivity piece is what makes it
all possible, so that we don't just have silos of
data that do no good because they're all independent, little
islands that never have any connection with anything else. So

(08:50):
can you tell me a bit about what it means
to build a connected workforce at Low's.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
Absolutely, And Jonathan, when we said home improvement is a
problem rich space, that this field is right for omni
channel experiences, I'll tell you what we mean, and that
goes back to the connectivity you just brought up. So,
for example, you want to change floors in your house,
what you generally would do is and there are some
decisions which are almost like family decisions, because these are

(09:19):
big decisions you're making not just for yourself, but you're
making it for the entire family. This is the floor
you're going to live in every day. This is something
you're going to wake up every morning and take a look.
You want to be proud of it, you want to
feel happy about it. When you invite people over, you
want them to feel really good about what you've done.
So there is a lot of pride in this project.

(09:39):
So what you do generally is what we have seen
with our customers. You start your journey online and you
may order samples, you may look at different floors. Now
we have introduced lots of features where you take a
picture of your home, upload it. Then you try out
different floors online from our catalog and you may narrow
down your choices and you may see, these are the
three or four things I like. But then generally what

(10:01):
we have seen is customers then go to the store,
or they'll go with their contractor we have this huge
advantage of just really experienced associates, and so when you
go to the stores, you get tremendous amount of additional information.
And then what we have seen is generally then people
sort of complete their transaction. They either complete their right

(10:23):
there in the stores or they come back and do
that back online. So that's why it needs to be
very connected because if it was disconnected, like if you
zero in on three floors online, but you go to
the store and then nobody knows what you're talking about,
it won't work. So there is just a tremendous amount
of information and connectedness that needs to go back and

(10:45):
forth between the different channels. For our appliances. For example,
we started a two way communication where we keep you
completely updated that Hey, reminding you, Jonathan, your deliveries tomorrow,
are you still ready for it? Because plans change, And
then even throughout the day.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
We would keep you updated.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
So I feel like Jonathan, our customers are demanding it
more and more that it doesn't matter how they buy something,
but they want it all connected. They want similar and
consistent experience, and they want it to be really a
hassle free, fun type of experience when they are doing
something so exciting in their life.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, I've personally had very many of the experiences that
you've just mentioned, and I think that the connectivity that
we've seen over the last several years, which enables this
where you have this real time inventory management system that
can be reflected on the customer facing side, that's transformative.
It removes so many pain points and frustrations as someone

(11:46):
who's actually tackling a DIY project, which can, as I'm
sure you're aware, Samontane, it can sometimes be a little stressful.
So to me, those are those connective points that are
absolutely critical to having a good experience, and it's the
one that keeps bringing you back to a specific business
when that sort of representation of making use of data

(12:09):
in a constructive way has a huge impact on the customer.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
And the other thing we have also seen is our
customers and even associates want our experiences to be very
context aware.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
So exactly like you said, what is available.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
In the store near you, what is right for you
if you're living in Miami as opposed to let's say Denver, Right,
the climate and the requirement of these places are very different.
If you're living in a very tight urban location, no
point in showing you an elaborate, big patio set. Maybe
you're looking for a bistrow table with a couple of chairs,

(12:47):
and maybe that's what we should show you, whether you
come online or whether you're coming inside a store. And
these are the context rich experiences.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
Well, one of the other things we love to talk
about on this show specifically would be the use of
wireless technologies like five G and Wi Fi six. So
I'm very curious, Samontoni, do you see places where the
retail sector in particular can really leverage these connectivity solutions,
ones that have the high throughput and the low latency

(13:26):
that we're seeing developed through these new wireless technologies.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
Of course, we are tremendous consumers of cloud, and we
do have our own data centers just given the complexity
and the reach of LOWS. But then what we have
done is across our more than seventeen hundred stores, we
have really created mini are a micro data center in
each of the stores, so that way we are closest

(13:52):
to the customer wherever the customer is. So if you
are online, you're connecting to the cloud. If you walk
into the store, you're connecting to a cert which is
in the store itself. And then if you are sitting
at one of our store support centers, which is like
a headquarter, and you're let's say a merchandising analyst, you're
connecting to our data center. So we are trying to

(14:13):
connect you to the closest location, and then everything you
mentioned comes into picture in a big way. For example,
if you're in a store and you are an associate
or a customer, you're connected to the Wi Fi, you're
connected to the server which is very close. And what
we are doing is with our caching strategy and APIs,
we are making sure that the data is staged closest

(14:33):
to where you are, and we are trying to reduce
communication across sites. So, for example, if you are in
the store, you're trying to keep your communication within the
stores as much as we can.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
Now there are.

Speaker 3 (14:44):
Times when you are leaving the store, your bits and
bytes are leaving the stores, going someplace else, collecting answers
and coming back, and you're absolutely right in those times.
What we do is use technologies such as five G.
If you're a customer and there are some calls yours
which are going outside of the store, or you're an
associate and you're using a Zebra device, which is basically

(15:06):
a smartphone device that we issue to all our associates
to whether find induventor relocations, place an order, get something replenished,
and so we are making use of wireless technology. Sometimes
we are using connectivity for tethered servers, but we are
making sure that the data and the answers are placed

(15:30):
closest to where the customer is well.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
I imagine that also plays a huge part in logistics
and things like supply chain as well when you're looking
at it from the back end. And we've had a
lot of conversations on this show about supply chain because
obviously during the pandemic that was first and foremost in
everyone's minds as we saw all the choke points, and
people suddenly realized what engineers had known for ages, that

(15:53):
the supply chain is a delicate system, and that realization,
paired with our new capacity to collect and analyze information,
means that the generation of leaders are far more aware
of the power of data and how you can use
that information to have as little interruption in business as possible.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
Absolutely, and Jonathan, I mean some of these things came
to surface during COVID, when suddenly the demand for everything outstripped.
Supply data, to your point, is really powerful and one
of the biggest things the customers wanted to know is
what is available near me in my store. So we
had by that time actually modernized some of our technology

(16:34):
around inventory and inventory positioning, so we were able to
expose that even before COVID hit us, So that was good,
but we unleashed a lot of different experiences and what
we did was we literally, you know, curbside experience through
our app. We rolled that out within six weeks. Inventory
we started making it more prominent as to what is

(16:56):
available next to you. But throughout COVID, and even before COVID,
we continued our transformation and we actually doubled down. It
was great for our customers because they were relying on
lows to find the things they needed to keep their
homes working. And I think it truly showed that our
team was super resilient in really difficult times.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
And this segue is really well into our next section
where we were going to talk specifically about e commerce.
I mean, obviously e commerce became the dominant form of
the way that customers interacted with businesses, particularly during the
times of lockdown. What can leaders in the retail sector
do to sort of anticipate enormous shifts as what we've

(17:40):
seen with e commerce. What lessons have you learned that
I think are valuable to your peers.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
I have always looked at e commerce as a really
important part of total retail equation, and everybody at Loosed
US so I don't think that was a big surprise.
I think what Covid did was it just accelerated trend
which was already in motion, which is, you know, lots
of people who had never done online grocery shopping started

(18:07):
doing that, Lots of people who had never thought they
could get something delivered, you know, restaurant orders. Overall, digitization
just reached epic proportions. And I think some of those
changes are permanent. And what I mean by that is
just your level of comfort. And what we did was
we looked at it and we said what does it

(18:28):
mean to our customers and what would be most helpful. So,
for example, we observed that virtual appointments people are getting
really comfortable just this new way of conversing with each
other through cameras and through this new technology. People are
really good with that. And so what we did was
for some of our categories like kitchen design, you know,

(18:51):
countertops and cabinets, what we do is we have a
centralized selling team and you could go ahead and book
an appointment virtually and start talking to them.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
You'll still have people from lows.

Speaker 3 (19:05):
Come to your house and take some measurements, but because
of their virtual appointment. That is happening even before people
at Low's come into your house, you have done a
lot of homework. We can actually do our own homework
before we come to your house, and then that way
we can get everything done in one appointment, and we're
giving you all the information and we can always answer

(19:26):
your questions later through a follow up virtual appointment. So
these are some of the things we are noticing. People
are much more comfortable. So what we have done is
actually we have taken advantage of these accelerating trends and
brought even more innovative experiences to our customers and associates.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
Well, next up, I've got an interesting question because I
think of Lows as a truly enormous company, and often
we can have a prejudice on enormous companies and think
of them as being unable to be nimble or dexterous
when conditions change. So what do you think is the
secret to leaders to being ready to respond to the

(20:06):
next big thing?

Speaker 3 (20:08):
Jonathan? I think, first of all, irrespective of your size,
we all need to operate as if we are startup
and at loads in technology and otherwise, we are always
thinking about ourselves as a small company really and not
as this mega corporation that we are, And I think
that fosters a sense of entrepreneurship and creativity and scrappiness

(20:35):
that's really needed to solve even the biggest problems. And
we totally believe in what we call it as MVP
minimum viable products. We believe in iterative approach. So we
would kind of publish something in the market Watch, how
it goes, keep iterating and perfecting it till it comes
to a stage where it is ready for prime time

(20:55):
and a national launch. And all these are signs of
creatively thinking in small teams and taking risks and giving
license for people do not get it perfectly right the
first time. I think that's really a key Jonathan, excellent.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
I'm also curious are there any emerging technologies that you
are particularly interested in exploring. I mean, obviously, right now
the technology that's all a buzz across multiple sectors is
artificial intelligence, though I often find that people reduce that
to specific applications of AI as opposed to artificial intelligence
as a whole. But are there any that you're particularly

(21:33):
excited about?

Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yes, absolutely, and we are looking at couple of different
technologies and We'll absolutely talk about AI before we go
in there. We are looking at a combination of can
we use RFID for anti theft? So for example, underston,
until you pay for your tool, it's not going to work.
We call it Project Unlock. We are exploring that with
lots of our vendor partners. We feel that that technology

(21:57):
and Loso was the first one to come up with
that is really promising. We are looking at a lot
of these connected technologies. Is what happens in the stores
and online and how do we connect it. Lastly, I'll
also talk about AI. Jonathan, you know before that data
remains extremely important to us and how can we unlock
more and more insights for our associates and our customers

(22:20):
in order to make sure that their shopping experience is
really enjoyable. The goal is to put all the fun
in the home improvement in and take all the friction
out and that has been really important guiding principle for us.
And then lastly AI. We are absolutely looking at AI
for example when it comes to predicting demand at a
chain level and store level, but then also predicting demand

(22:42):
for how many salespeople are we going to need on
the floor in certain hours on certain days. We are
doing all these predictions with AI by looking at store
by store sales on an hour by our basis and
kind of predicting us to when are the electricians needing
most help, pro plumbers coming into the stores asking for help.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
When is the right time to deploy all.

Speaker 3 (23:05):
These associates so that we can give the best customer
service to our customers. I think all this buzz about
AI recently which has started is all because of chat,
GPT and generative AI. And we are looking at generative AI,
and we want to make sure that we come up
with a use case that is really helpful either for

(23:27):
associate and customers. And we have some ideas about how
to upload items really quickly. Can we help in a
way so that some of the manual work that is
very repetitious and very tedious can be taken out? So
I think we are again applying the same principles. How
do we make sure there is a benefit for associates

(23:47):
and customers and how do we make sure we keep
the fun in the home improvement in and take all
the friction out.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
Before we could let her go, I had to ask
smontany one more thing, What does being a restless one
mean to you.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
You know, it is funny you ask, and when we
are talking about this podcast, I was really curious because
I love the name, and I tell you what.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
We practice this at lows every day.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
It seems like because we are on this tech transformation journey.
Like I said, we are on this journey to become
the most customer centric omni channel retailer. And Jonathan, sometimes
you feel like this is a tall mountain you're climbing,
and when you reach the summit, you're going to feel
this just tremendous happiness. But then we see another mountain

(24:41):
and we feel like, well, I wonder what is it
and what's there in that mountain? And we start walking again,
and then we reach another place and we are like, okay,
but I can see something else from here, And it
just feels like a continuous journey as opposed to one
glorious day when we feel tremendously all done and all
buttoned up, and frankly, I haven't had that day. And

(25:05):
I'm quite happy that I haven't had that day, because
the journey continues, and I think restlessness is a really
good thing in my mind. You want to feel like
there is more to learn, more to do. Leadership itself
is a restless journey. You're never going to come to
work and say I know everything there is to leadership.
I think I got it. In fact, every day there

(25:26):
is a little bit of like, well I know some things,
but there are so many more things I don't know,
and hence I feel the name of your podcast is
really how business is and how technology is, and that
is how everybody at LOWS feel.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
So the name resonates with us totally.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
Well, Samontani, I could not ask for a better answer
to that question. Thank you so much for joining our
show and sharing your perspective. It has been a delightful conversation.

Speaker 3 (25:55):
Thank you so much, Jonathan, and it was great to
talk to you.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
Thanks again to Somontany Goldbolet for joining us on the
Restless Ones. I greatly enjoyed our conversation and getting to
know Smontani's approach to leadership. The fact that she maintains
her appreciation for each team at the company really shines through,
and using that paired with a dedication to exceeding customer expectations,
clearly guides her leadership style. And once again we see

(26:27):
through connectivity that businesses can achieve real results, whether it
is to better anticipate and meet customer needs, keep an
eye on the ever changing conditions and supply chains, or
to streamline workplace operations for associates, connectivity is the glue
that holds it all together, and I can't wait to
see how Lows incorporates innovative technologies in the not too

(26:48):
distant future. Thank you for listening to this episode of
The Restless Ones. Be sure to return to hear more
conversations with pioneers who are at the intersection of technology
and business, and check out our past episodes for some
incredible interviews with leaders across the spectrum of business, from

(27:08):
startups to Fortune five hundred companies. Until next time, I'm
Jonathan Strickland.
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