Hello and welcome to Salesforce connections.
I'm Alex when the retail podcast I'm here with Shirley from
PacSun CIO incredibly privileged to be with cherlene in a lot of
the international listeners may not know of PacSun.
But when we get to the area where we unpack, what what has
been going on Paxson the whole gen Z Focus.
The whole bringing Vibrance to a new segment for a 40 year old
company. Is that right out?
I do this back son. Yeah.
He sells some 40, something else, it's not a new company but
all of the Technologies and experiences that you run.
But before all of that, what would be really useful share
any, we could look at, maybe you as a person.
A lot of the times when I'm with great minds and female or lead
us, I think I always asked if she could sort of go back in
time to the early or younger, you, what sort of advice or what
would you do different or what advice would you give Yourself?
Yeah, it's a good question. First of all, thank you for
having me and it's my pleasure to be here.
So sharing going back to my time, my whole life, I'm always
being technology. So it's my passion, I studied
computer science. I my entire career is in the
internet information technology and I've been dedicating my most
of my career to the retail industry.
And so one of the vice is just keep up with the water and
Technology. I mean it's a fantastic Iraq.
It's a faster growing that anybody can imagine so my
devices keeping their own. Yeah.
Did you stop from your technology Trend?
Because obviously being see I am now having all of your different
various parts of Technology. Was that one part that you
started off in. I started as a developer, okay?
Just saw as a developer developer back in the Mainframe
stage and then I experienced all the Technology, different eras,
write it from Mainframe to client the server, and to cloud,
and now to Ai and GPT. So, it's being a fantastic
journey to think I'm jumping around a bit.
Do you think that's why you've been so effective at finding
these Trends in technology and keeping PacSun in line with
that, like social commerce, when I looked at the list of things
you like genuinely Filled from a retail perspective, you're ahead
of Of the curve. Yeah, right.
Andrew pack, verse last year, was a great example, right?
Because because I talk about how e-commerce and metal loss are,
you know, that's what verse was for me.
It's a shop. Did it all in a neat digital
ecosystem? But is that do you feel that
that's what's helped you? The fact that you are a
programmer or a techie at heart? Totally.
But first off are the success of the brand and including
technology and our Nation is typically is really a team
effort to, so he takes the entire tax on exact leadership,
the entire company. You know, everybody work
together. Not only information technology
as well. Everywhere else.
The entire company has to embrace this.
This culture of you knows trying to stay ahead of the curve,
right, to embrace Innovation but myself because I do have this
technology background And being a developer knowing how systems
were developed. Yeah.
How things are put together. Yeah, I really helped me to
really understand how each application works and it helped
me to stay engaged with the best technology providers such as
Salesforce. Yeah.
So that's how I can bring the best technology.
The cutting-edge technology to apply to business and to support
Business initiatives and strategies, because as a
information, technology in the merchants merchandising company.
So we are not like Salesforce or under 10 companies, we are
Merchants, right? So, our mission is to sell our
faster collection of merchandise to the customers.
Yeah, so knowing sort of inside out of Technology, how it works
together. Really helps me to vet out to
the solutions Bring the best fit and the viable solutions to
choose support to the business growth.
Okay, final question on you and then we'll do think if you could
go back again in time and maybe give one piece of advice,
obviously. Being from what I said on the
first question you were talking about being a passionate or an
expert in your field. So technology, know your field
because that's going to help you later in life, what would you
what would you like to what would you do again?
Or are there any things that you wish We had started or not
started anything like yeah. So my whole education was
focused our computer science. I did learn so much about
computer science, how Hardware software, you know, Network
everything work together. Yeah, so if I could go back, one
thing I could have done better. Yeah, wish I wish that if I had
the opportunity I would try to learn other things like Like
supply chain accounting Finance? Yeah.
This is just, you know, expanded the knowledge base.
Yeah. Because I learned those along
the career along my working, so that you definitely have to
spend a lot of time, you know, learning those while you're
doing your technology job. So right now, like my
daughter's, when they go to college, I really encourage
thongs. Doesn't matter what major they
end up choosing with what their dreams and passions are.
But I do encourage them to learn business.
I encourage my daughter to the even HR, you know, and business
administration, it called me. Yeah, sustainability is
environmentalists August, you thought?
Yeah, I know, I'm lucky that I'm the technology base the right,
but it doesn't mean that everybody getting into this
technology report has to be computer science, you know.
So you could have studied any Majors.
I'm Known people like music become whole.
See ya that right any history. Any major but again to stay
interested or anything new. So I think expand you know,
wherever you can learn especially that's wonderful.
Thank you. I think again some to the areas
that I'd like to focus on Innovation especially now with
AI and how a i is everywhere. And how because I'm generally
for there's a secret to what you your success.
What do you feel or how? How have you created that
culture of innovation with impacts on?
And how does that link to the other areas of the business, you
know, like merchandising or marketing, how have you been
able to bring them on the journey in Innovation?
Yeah, it's interesting actually. So I yesterday, I was, I sitting
in the keynote and it was so fascinating.
Seeing how Salesforce, I, you know, took such a early reaction
that you have this generative. AI Application ready in business
case already. So it was really, really
exciting. Yeah but then it I my mind went
back to when I was in post. Read my roommate actually.
She studied artificial intelligence.
Wow, I was like more than 20 years.
Yeah. And at that time was she I
remember I saw her have like a model that draw the lines and
then try to create the artificial intelligence program.
So Could then compared to now. Yeah, with predictive AI.
Now, the Vesta to generative AI. It's a totally different game.
Yeah, and then just with the recent genitive generative AIG
PT, I think technology has a different meaning for business.
So, for Pakistan again, it is the entire leadership.
So we have the culture to embrace the new technology on,
try to always Ways because our customers are gen Z.
Yeah. Gen C.
Customers are very technology Savvy.
They always adopted the newest technology for us, right?
So the sooner or later, you all where your customers are we are,
well, would like, if it's social commerce, you are on Tick-Tock
or exactly exact cause our customers aren't he'd call we
quickly. Grow more than 2 million
followers on I noticed. Yeah, right.
So and week in a coma sales as well, right?
Do during 2020 or something went up.
Yeah it's unbelievable. So so we try to Dedicated devote
a lot of our efforts toward the social media because that's
where our customers are. Yeah.
Right so we try to really present any.
We started accepting the digital currency?
Yeah. Back in 2021.
So we were one of I think we were the first retail.
Quite did you accept? We use a third party.
D. OK, and then that's their party.
Accepts more than 30, digital currency expanding the
integration was easy. So, that's another thing that I
try to share with everyone. Yeah.
That it, you don't have to start from scratch.
Yeah. We'll have to create your
digital wallet. Yeah.
Take the Financial Risk. Let's say, you know that, oh my
gosh. The digital currency journey
goes. Yeah, I hate up and down and
your CFO won't feel comfortable if you ask an expert.
But so, what we actually chose is that, we engaged your third
part. Yeah.
The parts. Our party has everything
connected. And I didn't know until we
started that it needs approval validation, through the
government. So they have done everything.
So for me, it's a quick connection and in a mood
immediately so that we don't take any risks, we don't have to
prepare like for six months. So those kind of things really
Really really Empower us to get to this connection with the
customer. So we want to show our customers
that we know wherever we see their desired, increasing desire
of approaching to digital currency.
And here we are. We offer you.
We truly listened to love and then we offered, is outside 1/4
or sometimes, like, I mean, the whole sales force being customer
obsessed, right? It feels like I have to say
this. You're one of the few technology
people that it's customer up. S and being able to bring that
to Market. Yes.
And I think that's the main like, especially with AI.
How did you bring a? I mean, a lot of people say ml
or predictive and they try and dress that up as AI, but just
focusing in on your customers, your gen Z customers.
How are you serving them? How are you, what's the data
points that using how, how do you know what they want?
Yeah, that's a good question. So I think the recent years so
Salesforce have this data Cloud. So we also put together Er, a
customer data Cloud that you Aggregate and orchestrate, all
the customer Centric data. So there you really understand
your customers better, their behavior, their shopping
Behavior, their reaction, and all the marketing Outreach
etcetera. So you can truly tailor your
messages that when you try to engage with your customers.
So all those kind of analytics, Rai Powered.
So it has the predictive capability, but, you know, now
we have just leapfrogged it to the next level of AI, which is
generated, right. So the generative AI helps you
to engage with the customers. And so I was really excited that
while I was looking for AI Solutions, such as to automate,
the item description attribution based on the the the The
merchandise photo because we design and we have things on
your website we cannot yet. Okay.
I'm waiting for our cell phones. Yeah I was causing some startup
companies who specialize in that area.
Yeah. So you have the merchandise
photos on the model, you know, on the display and then the AI
can also determine based on material the style and generate
the description and attribution. So I was talking to The one,
just a month ago. Yeah.
But all of a sudden today and I was looking for.
Okay so somebody started that that AI initiative got and I was
wondering what about generated now.
It's a totally different game. What are you doing?
So today huge surprise it that to Keynote was tailored to
answer my questions. Yeah here you go.
So sales words are already put that in place so that we saw
that 8U the AI generated and Yuri.
Review and approve it. Yeah.
That the the important piece is that