AI, upskilling, and the future of intelligent supply chains — live from NRF Europe.
At NRF Europe, Jill Dvorak sits down with Best Buy’s Executive Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer, Mark Irvin, and Alex Rezvan from The Retail Podcast to explore how artificial intelligence, personalization, and collaborative learning are redefining the global supply chain.
Mark reveals how Best Buy is upskilling teams for the AI era, partnering across industries to innovate faster, and reshaping the customer experience through predictive logistics and real-time personalization. From agent-based shopping to inventory positioning, this conversation uncovers what’s next for retail’s operational backbone.
Best Buy, Mark Irvin, Alex Rezvan, Jill Dvorak, NRF Europe, retail innovation, AI in supply chain, logistics, retail technology, predictive analytics, supply chain transformation, personalization, retail media, customer experience, NRF Big Show
Episode Notes:
Recorded live at NRF Europe 2025
Hosted by Jill Dvorak (NRF) with Alex Rezvan (The Retail Podcast)
Guest: Mark Irvin, EVP & Chief Supply Chain Officer, Best Buy
Topics: Upskilling, AI readiness, personalization, future of fulfillment
#RetailPodcast #NRFEurope #BestBuy #AIinRetail #SupplyChainInnovation #RetailNewsAI #RetailLeadership
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
All right. Well, Alex, I'm so happy to be
with you today. We're here at NRF Europe.
It is our inaugural show here inEurope, and it has been
fantastic. I'm joined today by a good
friend and an incredible leader,Mark Irvin, who's the chief
supply chain officer of Best Buy.
Best Buy is an electronics company headquartered in the US,
(00:30):
$42 billion in sale. And we'd like to talk to Mark a
little bit about what's coming in the future.
What are you thinking? There's a lot of uncertainty.
Can you walk us through some of the, you know, the upcoming
plans? And we're going into holidays,
so. I would say it's interesting.
There's key skills you have to have nowadays and I would tell
you #1 whether it's supply chains or it's professionals
(00:51):
across industries, we're focusedon upskilling our teams.
So you sure aren't they are ready for technology revolution.
As if I already occur. I always go back and I try to
try to associate key milestones that happened that transformed
the workplace. And you think about it sounds
like it's crazy now when the advent of the Internet, it took
maybe five years, 10 years, people really be able to get the
(01:14):
juice out of what just happened.This natural revolution isn't
going to be there for many are predicting.
This is going to move incrediblyfast because it's going to have
AI. It's going to change how people
actually have to learn and unlearn how they did their jobs.
So number one, you got to upscale your people to have this
symbiotic relation technology. I think all of us are on a path.
(01:35):
I told you before, I've got multiple relationships going
across multiple different companies.
Yeah, like supply chain professionals, unless you're a
direct competitor, we don't viewyou that way.
You view you as a source of learning and we share back and
forth. And so if you think #1 you got
to get your teams ready for it. Yep.
So that they don't keep doing fins at the way that they always
did it. Now, why is this critical to the
(01:56):
supply chain? Things got a more ability
fashion. I like to say it this way,
Supply chains have to be more intelligent than they've ever
been before. They have to be faster and more
nimble. Now think about some of the
disruptions we faced in the fastadvantages now will be IT's that
harness technology to not only predict but also prevent the
(02:17):
impact of those things that willhappen in street.
So I think about AI and the use of AI in optimising our
networks. I also think about it in
predicting what is going to happen.
It could be the Suez Canal, it could be the Panama Canal, could
be weather pattern like today. We react to some of those things
in the future. That's not going to be the case
in the future. Just give this, you probably
(02:39):
know this already, people are already talking about shopping
agents. I think about it for your
jacket, you might just take a picture of that and then engage
your agents to go out and find something like that, something
you want to wear with that. Yeah.
Think about that in technology. Yeah.
And then think about the impact that I don't have it ready to
go. You've got an agent shopping for
you and I'm out of stock. Yeah.
(03:00):
You're going to lose that sale. Yep.
The other thing that's going to happen is far more
personalization. I'm going to have to know you.
I'm not to anticipate what you're looking for.
I'm have to also provide you therecommendation.
Back that up. You've got to have a nimble
supply chain. You can integrate data and
technology, not just about a marketplace and by you, that's
the future. You got to get people ready for
(03:21):
it. I love that I I find it
fascinating in terms of the way that you, if we look at the
journey that the customers been on where they wait, where you
have these massive catalogues right off product, yes, and now
that product, sorry, that catalogue is being condensed to
an e-commerce site. And now you, you're talking
about how this future view has to look at not only know this,
(03:44):
all this all seeing, all knowingcatalogue.
It knows you, it understands you, it fills you.
Where are the first steps towards that?
And, and I'll give you a choice.Do you look at it as, for
example, quick commerce where you know people are going to
want something in 15 minutes? You talked about your already
phenomenal delivery. Yes, but what I'm curious about
(04:05):
is what's going to drive behaviour.
See, I think, you know, it's interesting today when we do
that. Yeah, today we're more market
based. It's good to remember the future
is going to be more personaliseda year.
Yeah. And if you think about it, I
have a lot of information about it you shared a lot with.
So you may have signed up for Best Buy's Total Tech for where
you can get your devices liking about things repaired and
replaced as a part of that TotalTech experience.
(04:27):
So I know some of the things about you.
I know the gadgets that you have.
Yeah, I can actually make recommendations to you.
Yeah. And I think in the future, I'm
not making those recommendations.
You're going to either get your own agent.
Yeah, that will be freelance a little bit and go out and find
something else. Yeah.
And I think the competitive angle for all of us is to take
(04:49):
people we know about should be far more personalised and
actually sell real power pursuit.
I can't help myself, I have to jump in.
So if you've bought all your tech at Best Buy and then you
come to buy very similar tech, wouldn't it be amazing if Best
Buy then said, hey, I see you'rebuying some tech, would you like
to resell, refurbish, recycle this technology?
(05:09):
We'll take care of it. Yeah.
If you think about you, if you walk in our stores, number one,
you've already downloaded our app.
Yeah, You've already bought things on us.
Yeah. Wouldn't you expect me to know,
hey, you bought this from Best Buy and had not thought about
what would really unlock that technology, some additional
things that you could have? Yeah, I think the regeneration
is going to be more old. Yeah, I think this year, Right.
(05:32):
But honestly, there's an open 100%.
They might have felt a sense of,wait a minute, he know too much
about that. Yeah.
But I think people want to move faster.
They want to have greater international technology, and
they want to have answers to problems at a rate that maybe
ever see or fall. Yeah.
We used to experiment with things in the past.
Yeah, today. I don't know what it's right
now. One thing solved.
I want answers. I want to move fast.
(05:53):
My time is so valuable. I've got, I'm going to be
conscious of your tie. I'm a CEO.
We have a limited budget. You like all of my execs are
saying we need to invest in this, right?
I know AI is going to be above it, but what I'm curious of is
actually more of a if there is something that you see that's
worth that investment, how do you bring it to love for the for
(06:14):
the execs? You need to say it this way, and
I love the question because you're right.
If you go back and you look at this just say blockchee, if you
look at the fervour they create that's created by many of these
introductions on new things, I think people actually at times
miss it because they then try tosolve for a wide variety of
problems. And I don't think that's not the
(06:34):
approach we're taking. We're taking an approach that
says, wait a minute, what are the biggest things we're facing
that impact our customers and impact the flow of merchandise?
Why you take those things and you use them as proof points.
Once you can proof point AI in the application divide and drive
real results, then you can create this path and pipeline
for future investments. So the bet we're taking now is
(06:56):
this is the first thing you're going to go after and we're
going to demonstrate to the customers and to the
organisation that it was a valuable intentional benefits in
that backfishing. You've got some important idea
that's super but. I know I see those of us.
I have one more question. Let's go.
Here's the other one. We got this with you.
Remember I always use these partnerships, which means I'm
(07:17):
not going to do it all by myself.
Yeah, of cool. And I'm talking to people across
multiple supply chain teams and I'm asking them what do you do?
I think all of us are after the Holy Grail.
Yeah. The positioning of inventory to
minimise touches, to minimise inventory investment and to
maximise the customers. Customised curtains, if you can
find that and I think AI has an application for it and we're
(07:40):
looking at the the addition way.Yeah.
I mean, my final question was going to actually be about
inventory and how close do you need to be the customer?
Because in the US that's a big, such a like, I don't know, it's
been the battlefield, right? Who's like, I'm only a mile from
the customer. I'm only, you know, my depot is
85. So like we pick in store.
I'm just curious when you look to the future, because right now
(08:02):
there's some trends and I, and Idon't know which rates going to
go up there. And the trend is I, I minimise
my footprints and go more, you know, deeper and wider century,
like have a, like an experiential store, but I may
get rid of some of my out of town stores because I'm going to
invest more in these. And in the UK, it's happening a
(08:24):
lot in Europe, somebody where the footprint decreases a little
bit. But then, you know, you end up
with these sort of flagship stores that are experiential
sensors. I'm just.
Curious when you? Look at inventory.
How are you looking on that? Are you looking at it as a, you
know, yeah. Yeah, I think about that too.
That's great. A great question #1 there's what
(08:44):
are you trying to do as a customer?
Yeah, so there's the customer that's a distressed customer
that needs something right now. And there's also this out
somewhere that's doing remodelled.
It doesn't need something like now they actually need to know
that is my remodelling or my refurbishing of my kitchen is
completed. I get to pick what I want and
it's going to be in there when it's time.
So you've got two different customers.
(09:06):
That customer has different approaches.
So number one thing about vendordirect fulfilment, can I have
such partnerships with my vendors upstream that I can
deliver that remodel experience in a timely way?
I guess what that does that brings down the majority of guys
speak to you about. It also gives me more
capabilities to buy the wire variety of part merchandise.
(09:29):
So I think we've tried to build our supply tease.
We upstream DC's, we got in market DC's and you've got cross
docks. And So what we're finding is
that the customer actually wantsa lot of health.
You know, picking an appliance is not easy.
I don't know if you've ever donethis before.
I've done it where you do the measurements.
Yeah, Yeah. You don't calculate the doors.
You didn't get it right. Yeah, well.
(09:50):
Around swing open, right? Now somebody's delivered
something to your home, they unboxed it and won't fit.
Yeah. And so how do you use technology
to help you with that? How do you scan that with your
phone? How do you make sure that the
first time you make a decision is the right width and wide
enough? Yeah, this is where AI can play
a part. This is where our Geek Squad
(10:11):
agents can be incredibly healthyin space.
Oh, I see your geeks goes to that.
Level at all they will go to that level, no doubt you're
sitting down with the geeks. What we will say take a picture
of that area. We can lose the technology to
take measures and help you do that installation.
OK. That's where all of those things
are a part of this process. That's fantastic.
So I don't think it's just minimising any too brief.
Yeah, I the key thing is positioning inventory the right
(10:34):
places based on the history of market demand and what are you
trying to do? And I distressed what kind of of
appliance would I want to purchase?
Yeah. Am I much more unique than that?
And that's well, if you ever been in back in the Best Buy or
I love Bobby Best Buy, the rangeof what you would get
absolutely, whether it's a Thermidor, a Viking or it's even
(10:56):
our own brand of a Siggy. All of those ranges of
possibilities in new position and based on history and domain
would you might be. I love that.
So it's. Amazing, isn't it?
Thank you so much for giving up.That's.
What I know and I love this technology, it's the best See
the head move. I didn't see it move you've.
Not been moving. That much during?
(11:18):
I think he bought it at. Best Buy 10 but we in New York.
He's old, states there. He sure will be, but I'm always
there, OK? He's always there.
I know we'll get him back. We got honoured a couple years
ago for all of his work.
All right. Well, Alex, I'm so happy to be
with you today. We're here at NRF Europe.
It is our inaugural show here inEurope, and it has been
fantastic. I'm joined today by a good
friend and an incredible leader,Mark Irvin, who's the chief
supply chain officer of Best Buy.
Best Buy is an electronics company headquartered in the US,
(00:30):
$42 billion in sale. And we'd like to talk to Mark a
little bit about what's coming in the future.
What are you thinking? There's a lot of uncertainty.
Can you walk us through some of the, you know, the upcoming
plans? And we're going into holidays,
so. I would say it's interesting.
There's key skills you have to have nowadays and I would tell
you #1 whether it's supply chains or it's professionals
(00:51):
across industries, we're focusedon upskilling our teams.
So you sure aren't they are ready for technology revolution.
As if I already occur. I always go back and I try to
try to associate key milestones that happened that transformed
the workplace. And you think about it sounds
like it's crazy now when the advent of the Internet, it took
maybe five years, 10 years, people really be able to get the
(01:14):
juice out of what just happened.This natural revolution isn't
going to be there for many are predicting.
This is going to move incrediblyfast because it's going to have
AI. It's going to change how people
actually have to learn and unlearn how they did their jobs.
So number one, you got to upscale your people to have this
symbiotic relation technology. I think all of us are on a path.
(01:35):
I told you before, I've got multiple relationships going
across multiple different companies.
Yeah, like supply chain professionals, unless you're a
direct competitor, we don't viewyou that way.
You view you as a source of learning and we share back and
forth. And so if you think #1 you got
to get your teams ready for it. Yep.
So that they don't keep doing fins at the way that they always
did it. Now, why is this critical to the
(01:56):
supply chain? Things got a more ability
fashion. I like to say it this way,
Supply chains have to be more intelligent than they've ever
been before. They have to be faster and more
nimble. Now think about some of the
disruptions we faced in the fastadvantages now will be IT's that
harness technology to not only predict but also prevent the
(02:17):
impact of those things that willhappen in street.
So I think about AI and the use of AI in optimising our
networks. I also think about it in
predicting what is going to happen.
It could be the Suez Canal, it could be the Panama Canal, could
be weather pattern like today. We react to some of those things
in the future. That's not going to be the case
in the future. Just give this, you probably
(02:39):
know this already, people are already talking about shopping
agents. I think about it for your
jacket, you might just take a picture of that and then engage
your agents to go out and find something like that, something
you want to wear with that. Yeah.
Think about that in technology. Yeah.
And then think about the impact that I don't have it ready to
go. You've got an agent shopping for
you and I'm out of stock. Yeah.
(03:00):
You're going to lose that sale. Yep.
The other thing that's going to happen is far more
personalization. I'm going to have to know you.
I'm not to anticipate what you're looking for.
I'm have to also provide you therecommendation.
Back that up. You've got to have a nimble
supply chain. You can integrate data and
technology, not just about a marketplace and by you, that's
the future. You got to get people ready for
(03:21):
it. I love that I I find it
fascinating in terms of the way that you, if we look at the
journey that the customers been on where they wait, where you
have these massive catalogues right off product, yes, and now
that product, sorry, that catalogue is being condensed to
an e-commerce site. And now you, you're talking
about how this future view has to look at not only know this,
(03:44):
all this all seeing, all knowingcatalogue.
It knows you, it understands you, it fills you.
Where are the first steps towards that?
And, and I'll give you a choice.Do you look at it as, for
example, quick commerce where you know people are going to
want something in 15 minutes? You talked about your already
phenomenal delivery. Yes, but what I'm curious about
(04:05):
is what's going to drive behaviour.
See, I think, you know, it's interesting today when we do
that. Yeah, today we're more market
based. It's good to remember the future
is going to be more personaliseda year.
Yeah. And if you think about it, I
have a lot of information about it you shared a lot with.
So you may have signed up for Best Buy's Total Tech for where
you can get your devices liking about things repaired and
replaced as a part of that TotalTech experience.
(04:27):
So I know some of the things about you.
I know the gadgets that you have.
Yeah, I can actually make recommendations to you.
Yeah. And I think in the future, I'm
not making those recommendations.
You're going to either get your own agent.
Yeah, that will be freelance a little bit and go out and find
something else. Yeah.
And I think the competitive angle for all of us is to take
(04:49):
people we know about should be far more personalised and
actually sell real power pursuit.
I can't help myself, I have to jump in.
So if you've bought all your tech at Best Buy and then you
come to buy very similar tech, wouldn't it be amazing if Best
Buy then said, hey, I see you'rebuying some tech, would you like
to resell, refurbish, recycle this technology?
(05:09):
We'll take care of it. Yeah.
If you think about you, if you walk in our stores, number one,
you've already downloaded our app.
Yeah, You've already bought things on us.
Yeah. Wouldn't you expect me to know,
hey, you bought this from Best Buy and had not thought about
what would really unlock that technology, some additional
things that you could have? Yeah, I think the regeneration
is going to be more old. Yeah, I think this year, Right.
(05:32):
But honestly, there's an open 100%.
They might have felt a sense of,wait a minute, he know too much
about that. Yeah.
But I think people want to move faster.
They want to have greater international technology, and
they want to have answers to problems at a rate that maybe
ever see or fall. Yeah.
We used to experiment with things in the past.
Yeah, today. I don't know what it's right
now. One thing solved.
I want answers. I want to move fast.
(05:53):
My time is so valuable. I've got, I'm going to be
conscious of your tie. I'm a CEO.
We have a limited budget. You like all of my execs are
saying we need to invest in this, right?
I know AI is going to be above it, but what I'm curious of is
actually more of a if there is something that you see that's
worth that investment, how do you bring it to love for the for
(06:14):
the execs? You need to say it this way, and
I love the question because you're right.
If you go back and you look at this just say blockchee, if you
look at the fervour they create that's created by many of these
introductions on new things, I think people actually at times
miss it because they then try tosolve for a wide variety of
problems. And I don't think that's not the
(06:34):
approach we're taking. We're taking an approach that
says, wait a minute, what are the biggest things we're facing
that impact our customers and impact the flow of merchandise?
Why you take those things and you use them as proof points.
Once you can proof point AI in the application divide and drive
real results, then you can create this path and pipeline
for future investments. So the bet we're taking now is
(06:56):
this is the first thing you're going to go after and we're
going to demonstrate to the customers and to the
organisation that it was a valuable intentional benefits in
that backfishing. You've got some important idea
that's super but. I know I see those of us.
I have one more question. Let's go.
Here's the other one. We got this with you.
Remember I always use these partnerships, which means I'm
(07:17):
not going to do it all by myself.
Yeah, of cool. And I'm talking to people across
multiple supply chain teams and I'm asking them what do you do?
I think all of us are after the Holy Grail.
Yeah. The positioning of inventory to
minimise touches, to minimise inventory investment and to
maximise the customers. Customised curtains, if you can
find that and I think AI has an application for it and we're
(07:40):
looking at the the addition way.Yeah.
I mean, my final question was going to actually be about
inventory and how close do you need to be the customer?
Because in the US that's a big, such a like, I don't know, it's
been the battlefield, right? Who's like, I'm only a mile from
the customer. I'm only, you know, my depot is
85. So like we pick in store.
I'm just curious when you look to the future, because right now
(08:02):
there's some trends and I, and Idon't know which rates going to
go up there. And the trend is I, I minimise
my footprints and go more, you know, deeper and wider century,
like have a, like an experiential store, but I may
get rid of some of my out of town stores because I'm going to
invest more in these. And in the UK, it's happening a
(08:24):
lot in Europe, somebody where the footprint decreases a little
bit. But then, you know, you end up
with these sort of flagship stores that are experiential
sensors. I'm just.
Curious when you? Look at inventory.
How are you looking on that? Are you looking at it as a, you
know, yeah. Yeah, I think about that too.
That's great. A great question #1 there's what
(08:44):
are you trying to do as a customer?
Yeah, so there's the customer that's a distressed customer
that needs something right now. And there's also this out
somewhere that's doing remodelled.
It doesn't need something like now they actually need to know
that is my remodelling or my refurbishing of my kitchen is
completed. I get to pick what I want and
it's going to be in there when it's time.
So you've got two different customers.
(09:06):
That customer has different approaches.
So number one thing about vendordirect fulfilment, can I have
such partnerships with my vendors upstream that I can
deliver that remodel experience in a timely way?
I guess what that does that brings down the majority of guys
speak to you about. It also gives me more
capabilities to buy the wire variety of part merchandise.
(09:29):
So I think we've tried to build our supply tease.
We upstream DC's, we got in market DC's and you've got cross
docks. And So what we're finding is
that the customer actually wantsa lot of health.
You know, picking an appliance is not easy.
I don't know if you've ever donethis before.
I've done it where you do the measurements.
Yeah, Yeah. You don't calculate the doors.
You didn't get it right. Yeah, well.
(09:50):
Around swing open, right? Now somebody's delivered
something to your home, they unboxed it and won't fit.
Yeah. And so how do you use technology
to help you with that? How do you scan that with your
phone? How do you make sure that the
first time you make a decision is the right width and wide
enough? Yeah, this is where AI can play
a part. This is where our Geek Squad
(10:11):
agents can be incredibly healthyin space.
Oh, I see your geeks goes to that.
Level at all they will go to that level, no doubt you're
sitting down with the geeks. What we will say take a picture
of that area. We can lose the technology to
take measures and help you do that installation.
OK. That's where all of those things
are a part of this process. That's fantastic.
So I don't think it's just minimising any too brief.
Yeah, I the key thing is positioning inventory the right
(10:34):
places based on the history of market demand and what are you
trying to do? And I distressed what kind of of
appliance would I want to purchase?
Yeah. Am I much more unique than that?
And that's well, if you ever been in back in the Best Buy or
I love Bobby Best Buy, the rangeof what you would get
absolutely, whether it's a Thermidor, a Viking or it's even
(10:56):
our own brand of a Siggy. All of those ranges of
possibilities in new position and based on history and domain
would you might be. I love that.
So it's. Amazing, isn't it?
Thank you so much for giving up.That's.
What I know and I love this technology, it's the best See
the head move. I didn't see it move you've.
Not been moving. That much during?
(11:18):
I think he bought it at. Best Buy 10 but we in New York.
He's old, states there. He sure will be, but I'm always
there, OK? He's always there.
I know we'll get him back. We got honoured a couple years
ago for all of his work.
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