VIDEO | 84.51° Chief Data and Technology Officer: We Use Data To Make People's Lives Easier

(US and Canada) Todd James, Chief Data and Technology Officer at 84.51°, speaks with Steve Kleinmann, Industry Practice Lead for Master Data Solutions at Moody’s Analytics, in a video interview about his role and background, and using retail data to drive insights.

James begins by explaining that 84.51° is a retail data science insights and media company and a wholly owned subsidiary of the Kroger company. He is responsible for product management, engineering, data science, consumer research, and shared service capabilities at 84.51°. Additionally, he is also responsible for Kroger BI and data product organizations.

Speaking on the application of retail data to drive insights for Kroger, James says that the main goal is to help the Kroger company consumer packaged goods, companies, agencies, publishers, and other affiliated partners to create more personalized and valuable experiences for shoppers across their path to purchase.

He reveals that the company leverages first-party data from nearly 60 million U.S. households and about 2 billion transactions to fuel. This has led to Kroger having the top shopper loyalty program, being the leader in grocery retail e-commerce data, and having the largest grocery data set in the U.S. The company uses data to make people's lives easier, James adds.

As an example of how his company helps stores, he says that data is used to simplify the process of determining what goes on shelves and ensure that what is on shelves is relevant to customers and their geographies.

Concluding, James says that the end goal at 84.51° and Kroger is to use data to help people make better decisions. The decision-maker can be a shopper, a category manager inside Kroger, or a consumer goods partner. The aim is also to leverage data to help activate the decisions and simplify the experience.

CDO Magazine thanks Todd James for sharing his insights and data success stories with our global community.