How KRYS GROUP Uses its Data to Get a Better Understanding of its Customers

As France's leading optical company, KRYS GROUP has a clear ambition: to leverage data to optimize sales, personalize the customer experience, and ultimately be able to take advantage of highly advanced personalized AI. “And we are convinced that to use AI effectively, it is essential to have a solid data platform to feed the models. Today, the company's primary asset is the data we process, wherever we create, modify and aggregate it. Starting with invoices, sales, estimates and everything else concerning our factory, it is a huge field", explained Serge Lengagne, Chief Information Officer at KRYS GROUP.

This awareness of the importance of data is part of a multi-year digital transformation plan, piloted by this new CIO from the retail and luxury sectors.

To support this transformation plan, KRYS GROUP called on Inetum.

Data: The Foundation of AI Strategy

“Without a data platform, there can be no AI,” noted Serge Lengagne. The challenge goes beyond simple data collection - the aim is to create: “a storage capacity that no longer restricts us, coupled with a computing capacity that is never limiting, enabling us to calculate aggregates, gather data from elsewhere, and store it without limit. This data platform will form the technological foundation on which future developments in artificial intelligence will be based, notably for ultra-targeted marketing campaigns, but the use cases will also extend into our manufacturing plant for greater performance or precision.”     

“We position Inetum as a complete digital transformation partner,” explained Yannick Waller, Managing Director of Inetum Solutions France. “But support goes beyond simple technology selection - cybersecurity, online digital redesign, a new CRM, and preparation for future ERPs.”

“Things are changing so fast these days that we often don't have the time to deploy the solution to process the new data,” noted Serge Lengagne of KRYS GROUP. “Hence the choice of Inetum, chosen for its dual skills: technical analysis capacity and ability to provide qualified, tailor-made customer feedback. They know what's right, what's wrong, and what will fit or not fit in our case. For this opticians' cooperative, the stakes go beyond performance: what is needed is a clearly explained and substantiated choice, not a choice based on intuition.

AI Applied to the Retail Sector

The first experiments in this data-driven strategy are already underway. KRYS GROUP is experimenting with XXII, a company specializing in artificial intelligence applied to computer vision. In four pilot stores, their solution is analyzing customer behavior in real time using existing cameras, in compliance with GDPR privacy regulations. "In a similar way as ‘Google Analytics’ being capable of integration into a physical store," explained William Eldin, CEO of XXII. The initial findings are still being analyzed, but one element stands out: humans remain at the heart of the matter. "The number-one indicator in the customer journey is the time spent interacting with sales staff. So we encourage you to go to the customer and support them as much as possible, right up to the point of sale," explained William Eldin.

This hybrid approach, combining automated behavioral analysis and the enhancement of human contact, illustrates KRYS GROUP's vision: using AI not to replace, but to optimize the customer experience and sales performance. A strategy that could well redefine the codes of optical retailing.