Hi, everybody. Thanks for being here. We'll have to do a little bit of a manual follow along for the presentation, but I hope it's gonna work out just fine. So, Mika, can you move to the intros? First slide, the intros. One more. There you go. Hi, everybody, I am Nico Ávila. I'm CTO for North America with Globant, and-
Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon, everyone. Okay, there you go. Technical difficulties. That's engineering, okay? Good afternoon. Welcome. I hope you guys are having a good time. I'm Shobhit Gupta, Vice President of Engineering for Stanley Black & Decker.
So maybe going to the next slide, for anybody that doesn't know Globant, Globant is a technology services company. We focus mostly on innovation. We focus on companies that are trying to change the way that they operate, the way that they engage with their consumers and their employees through technology. We're about 30,000 folks around the world, and we have a very strong focus in the North America market. We are very known for our work at Disney, but we also have a lot of other verticals. We work with airlines, we work with retail, we work with banks. We have a big presence in life sciences and games as well. So very diversified. Everywhere where technology is trying to push the envelope, we're there.
If anybody doesn't know about Stanley Black & Decker, I think that we're-
I'm probably gonna say Stanley Black & Decker is your household brand. We are for those who make it work. You have heard of DEWALT, black and yellow, CRAFTSMAN, LENOX. Think about it, we are right there in your house somewhere. So you're gonna see a quick video to talk about who we are, but if I were to summarize it in one line, we are for those who make this work. Anybody who constructs anything, builds anything, have aspiration to do anything, we are right behind as their spine to deliver that.
Now we'll see if it plays. Live television.
You gotta... I'm pretty sure some engineers out there, they can appreciate the juniors.
We're well known for the tools and outdoor solutions that pros, tradespeople, and consumers count on, but that's only the beginning. We're also unrivaled in engineered fastening systems and a global leader in industrial solutions. We support infrastructure that reinforces the roads you drive on, the bridges you cross, and the energy installations that power our lives. And what we really build is trust. The trust of our customers, our employees, our communities, and our stakeholders. No matter how much things change, our commitment to building a better world remains steadfast. At Stanley Black & Decker, we have amazing people, amazing brands, and an amazing innovation machine, and we are for those who make the world. Our focus is sharpened on truly delivering this purpose by bringing us closer to those who build, grow, and connect our world.
I cannot thank Stanley Black & Decker enough for all of the cool things that I got in my garage that make me really happy over the weekends, right?
We're happy to help. This keeps going on.
Okay. We're back. All right, so we wanted to talk about the innovation, and we're gonna share some interesting things in the future, but we thought of starting on the things that we've done, so-
So thinking about tools, when you think about connectivity, when you think about tools innovation associated with it.
Can you-
Okay. Can you guys listen to me just like that?
No. Ah! Give it a try. Talk now.
Do not have it. Turn back.
Maybe they shut down that one, and we'll get you... Again, live television. This happens.
Hello. I hope, I hope this is better. Can you guys hear me now? Okay, awesome. Thank you. I appreciate the patience from everybody. So when you think about your household tools, like many people think that innovation from the physical world to the virtual world is just by the mechanics or the efficiency or the electric or the motors of it. But a lot has been going on behind the scenes, that probably will not get noticed at first chance to a lot of our consumers. And when we talk about those, our focus as a Stanley Black & Decker is on specifically three things: That whomsoever uses our tool, they are more safer, they are more productive, and they're secure in the environment.
And when you think about those challenges, when you think about those applications, asset tracking, asset management, asking a very simple question: Where is my drill? Where is my device? It's a very simple question, which requires a lot of energy on a job site, which is 5 acres or probably seven stories, and having work on 20 different places in this story. Where is my battery? Where did I leave it yesterday when I checked out? Those are very simple questions, which many times our users lose a lot of time in finding it. So making sure that our innovation is making and more productive out of their lives. Fleet management, our channel partners, when you're thinking about at NRF, think about Home Depot, Lowe's, any channel partner, Ace Hardware and all of those, how do they manage more effectively, more efficiently, the things that they have?...
They sell our tools, they are our face for everything that we do. How do they manage their inventory much better for the things that they sell? We have been pushing that envelope forward using the data and AI, leveraging it, making our things much better, secure, and more innovative.
Hello. This is gonna be - give me some memories. So, I think any of these cases would have been great to share. I think there is so many conflicting objectives that need to be filled by technology, and retailers have been dealing with supply chain sh- issues, with commerce, replatforming, a lot of data and analytics to help them figure out. And I think these cases are, were really sound. But because this was a big idea session, we thought, why don't we actually think of what's coming next? Why don't we think of what's the next thing that's gonna be relevant for experience, right? And we thought this was an interesting time to be talk about AR and VR. So why?
I think we're just weeks away from the release of the Apple Vision Pro, and we're coming out. And that's gonna be something that people talk a lot about. We are coming off the shoulders of CES, where we saw a lot of releases on VR, AR, and a lot of new devices. But it's not only this year. Actually, last year had a new Quest 3 that was released. If anybody hasn't used it, I truly recommend working out with the Quest. It's all of my workout warm-ups in the morning are with the Quest. And it's not only on the VR devices, there are more devices that are coming through.
These little guys, the Meta Ray-Ban goggles, were released last year, and they were actually selling so well that it took me, like, two months to get a good pair of them. So finally, I have them. Is to the point is that there is so much innovation going through on devices, that I think it's gonna be shifting where we can go.
As you think about this transition, which is happening, we want to take you and bring you back probably 15 years, when we used to navigate through manuals, physical printed manuals, or finding SKUs that we all wanted to find in Home Depot, Lowe's, or even in your any store. The transition from those devices happened to digital devices, which is computer. Then came another revolution that you moved from computer devices to mobile devices. The next revolution for the devices is coming from the audio and mixed reality, where you are not just sticking to the transition of information, but also the transition of the reality. And what does that mean? If you can go to the next. That means how our customers engage with us is evolving.
The last time when the users had the difference of change from physical to digital, their experience and expectations of what values can be delivered changed. It evolved. Their expectations of how they search for a SKU was not going alphabetically. They started searching into a search bar, which we all know led to different searching algorithms and the whole Google that we know today. So the point being, as the devices evolve, they naturally drive the experience of our end consumers into different direction and the realm.
And the opportunity to change the experience is real. Actually, I think there is a contrarian case of what's going on. For the last 15 years, we've been going on and on with our phones around, and I think that, as Shobhit said, the first experiences that we had with the phone were somewhat limited. Probably the first year, the Whiplash was probably one of the most downloaded apps from the App Store. But you wouldn't expect to have the experiences that you can see today, from curbside to pickup, to really not only interacting with news by following a link or actually exploring content in different ways, but actually changing the form factor and the length of the content that we're sharing.
So that's a point to say that the way that the mobile phone changed the experience, we can expect it to happen. Actually, when you think about it, we first started to having these watches to have our heartbeat and to know our hours of sleep, and our rings can do that. These little guys can connect to the internet. They're actually your phone. You can make calls with them, you can hear music on Spotify, they will connect to your Bluetooth devices. You can very much work without a phone. And, yeah, probably I'm not gonna be taking photos like that. It, it's somewhat a gimmick, but I can go around and say, "Hey, Meta, take a photo." Just like that, my glasses took a photo of the audience.
Worry, I'm not gonna be sharing that much of that. But at the same time, I think it's changing the way that these devices are allowing us to interact with technology, and it's changing on the verge of the many things that happened with AI last year. Because now these assistants can really change the way that we interact. So I think that was a case of how the many devices are changing the way that we interact with technology, but we wanted to get back on VR. And before where we think that we can share what can be useful. We wanted to tell about things that have already happened.
These are not hypothetical use cases or something which is cool to hang around. We have really tried to bring this virtual reality into the value for our end customer, and one example is our pre-fabrication platform from Stanley Black & Decker. For those of you, quickly telling, if you look up in the ceiling, you see a lot of hanging different pipes, different steel pipes, and different kind of things. A lot of those were not built in here. They were built in a shop, they were brought in here and installed. There were specific trades which are responsible for calculating those engineering, what kind of studs, what kind of anchors, what kind of hangers go in there. That is one of our primary audience as a Stanley Black & Decker, we help them pre-fabricate.
The point being, think about this building built in real time, 30 different trades, the plumbing, the electrical, the mechanical, the fire stop, everybody trying to work together at the same time and running into each other. That information is presented today in 2D format. You build a 3D model from your architect, you print it out on sheets, and then you look at top view, section view, side view, and all kind of views. Even on digital devices, you just keep looking at those 2D PowerPoints to see the progress, the critical points, the challenges, which requires a lot of context setting. What our pre-fabrication platform does, is bring all that data together, brings all those tech stakeholders together to resolve those issues without setting those contexts. What better way of representing that information into a 3D model?
Think about this whole architectural building as being built upon the areas where there are conflicts coming in red, the areas which are running on a schedule in green, and the areas which do not have clarity in yellow. You can zoom in, figure out the challenges, talk to the people without, again, setting any context. You're working in zone A, plumbing, who's the sub? No, no lingo required. Think about the new people or the new information being passed on flawlessly in real time to all the parties together, bringing the transparency, bringing the profitability, bringing the safety and security for everyone.
I really love the concept of making things simple, especially in those projects. If it's hard for me on the weekends to figure out how to make one of my projects, I can't really figure out one of those big projects. It's really a good concept of games, right? We've been working, building AAA games for many of the main studios for many years, and I remember a talk in the Game Developers Conference, I think it was 2016, where NASA came in, and they gave a talk called "We Are the Space Invaders.
I don't wanna spoil it for you, but they're actually saying, "We spend over $6 million training each pilot just to fly a plane, and every kid's learning how to pilot a whole space fleet a week in their basement." So there is so much that you can learn about using gamified experiences to have people engage with learning in a different way. We've been doing a lot, and I think just one case where we've used game-like technology in different industries was when COVID hit. Nissan was launching the Ariya, the car, and there was no way to get everybody in a room to show the car. We created a virtual showroom together with them to for them to be able to share that in the launch.
That's just one case that I think it's interesting for retail. It's appealing, and it's actually similar to something that we've seen, 'cause everybody's been able to as if a shelf is gonna fit in their living room and what else. So this is very natural. There are cases like that are important, but there are also very interesting cases that can be expanded from that. So we thought of going a little bit further.
We don't want you to get caught up into any of these specific examples. As we will zoom out a little bit, are there themes that at Stanley Black & Decker, we have identified for the use cases for, specifically productivity or, impacting our end customer? And these are three themes which are coming out, which came out really, really, early to us. Training for our users and consumers to use our tools more effectively so that they are safe. If you're thinking about it, I'll give you a example of angle grinder. It's a, it's a very simple tool. A lot many people will say, but the pros who use it know exactly what you're talking about, and we're gonna see some applications to it.
Changing a disc or a blade on an angle grinder could be an art in itself, and the direct safety of that tool depends on how it is operated. And while Stanley Black & Decker, and we hold ourselves as DEWALT in the highest esteem, and knowing guaranteed tough, and trying to provide as much information and education to our users, many times we all know that information remains printed into a physical format of manuals. The whole world has moved on to digital, while our most critical, important pieces of training, safety, and others remain in physical. And how do we transition that journey to next level to make things more secure? Which is again, gonna drive that training directly associated through data and AI association, personalized versions of safety and security. How do you use certain tools on the job site? How do you make it more effective?
If you use a tool properly, your repairs and breakdown of those tools remain very, very less. It's a circle which starts from productivity and brings you safety back to profitability. We have seen this very common link of these applications coming.
... Yeah, and I think these cases are very interesting. They apply to Stanley Black & Decker, but safety, security, training, repairs, it could be very much interesting for any of your channel partners as well. So we wanted to bring this to life in the context of NRF, how this technology can be really helpful. So we decided to make a POC, and before this, before it's too late, Mika, if you can shut off the audio, 'cause we're gonna voice it over, and this might be competing with my audio. So one thing that we worked with was Magic Leap. And can you pause for a second, Mika? Mm. Just one context for anybody that doesn't know about Magic Leap, they were doing demos all the expo in our booth.
If you wanna come in and see a demo, definitely recommend. They're not like a Quest. A Quest is a VR experience. Magic Leap is more like a mixed reality, and it lets you do fully 3D mixed reality, and it allows you to mix things that you have in your physical world with virtual devices. So you're gonna see something that's... It resembles AR, but it, this is actually 3D. You can use goggles. And if you can play now, Mika. What you're gonna be seeing is a case where our developer is actually looking at a list of products at the top.
So you can basically have a list of product that you're seeing, and in that list of product, you might be able to pull one of those products down, and you're gonna see how he, on the one hand, is interacting with a physical, drill, and on the other hand, he's actually interacting with a virtual, tool. And this allows you, because you have the tool in front of you, to not only play with accessories that you have in the physical world, but even maybe filter the accessories that are applicable to this device, and for you to, to experience, with them and see how they work together. At the same time, I'm not sure if you've worked with an angle grinder. It can be a scary, scary tool, and you really need to know how to do it.
So what you're seeing is a little bit of an unboxing reimagined. He, in this case, has a virtual tool, but he could very much have a physical tool in his hand, and what he's doing is he's interacting with the things that you would play with after you've gotten the tool. On the one hand, he's got the virtual PDF to watch of the instructions, and he's watching a tutorial at the same time, in media content and in a video, where they're explaining how to change the disk. And it's important that you do it well for safety reasons, and in this particular case, he's not only being able to interface with a digital twin of the tool, but also overlay both the print and the video content that helps him learn how to use it.
This is a little bit of a rethinking of the post-purchase experience. This is the training portion of that, but it's not limited to that. We chose to use Magic Leap because they have some platforms that allow you to do this POC fairly quickly, and you can not only use it to experience something, but also you can collaborate. So basically, you could have several people watching the same digital twins or VR objects and sharing a collaboration session, not only for people that are present, but actually for people that are remote. So if you're troubleshooting something on your device, you could very much have someone that's around the world connect to your use case, see what you're seeing, help you figure out the content, annotate things as you're working out, and help you troubleshoot an environment.
That's where we thought this is going beyond the usual case of discovery of a tool, but this is actually helping collaborate in... before the purchase and after the purchase, in the whole journey that brings together a manufacturer, a consumer, and a retailer.
I think one thing to notice in this video, if you guys have all observed, is the experience of the user. What does that mean? It's the journey that has evolved. If you're talking about doing a digital experience, you are most probably talking about either seeing a video or seeing a PDF open or seeing an Amazon open or having a tool. It does not necessarily, in digital world today, replicate the journey of our user experience from end to end. It is broken into smaller parts. Yes, our customers go through that today, but as the technology and the devices are pushing to the next level, that's gonna pivot, and that's the opportunity that we're gonna talk a little bit about as our learnings.
But before we definitely wanted to give a shout-out, I don't want to skip that slide that we had the previous one.
Yeah, just one, one quick comment. It was shout-out to Magic Leap for their platform. I think it was super interesting. It was really useful to make it happen really quickly, to the point that this morning I asked Mati, that's Mati, our head of games, and I asked him to get a new demo. He couldn't get me on time, so he shared a photo of him holding the batteries. I wanted more, more batteries in there. But the bottom line is that Magic Leap was really helpful. They've been really helpful in bringing this together. The same way that AWS was really useful helping us scale up the previous innovation, Magic Leap was really helpful in this one.
I think as we go into our learnings part, one thing which is probably very known to everyone, but I just wanna reiterate, is choosing the right partners is probably the most important thing. Right tools, we all understand, are important when you are going on a job, but knowing and choosing right partners can improvise the utilization of those tools exponentially. In our case, Magic Leap One, AWS being another. They have been extremely helpful for us to go through and cut through different technology processes, and you have a partner who is pushing through your problems. Our problem is providing value to our end customer, not necessarily solving for a bigger software ecosystem.
While we have got partners who can zoom out that application or use case and bring broader solutions to us to push through the technology, so that in the end, our customers are more meaningful. But going into learnings, I'm gonna steal a line from Jack Reacher, "in investigation, details matter." I'm gonna fit that into engineering. In execution, details matter. What does that mean? It's important to us because most of our engineering firms will know who do manufacturing. 3D models are not new. We have such a fine-tuned 3D models, where you can actually have a one-sixteenth of an inch of accuracy for the physical versus the virtual model. You can do all kind of injection molding and cases and everything you name about it. Fine.
But when you take this experience onto physical devices to more virtual devices, can you use the same models? Why not? They have the same kind of fidelity. Unfortunately, we learned very quickly that's not possible because the fidelity that you have on execution models is around 2-3 GB at the best. And worse, if we were to be real engineers, they go in double-digit GBs, while our edge devices are not that capable of handling it, and they don't even have use cases associated with it. So the transition from execution to planning was quite a bumpy one. It was a quick transition. We quickly realized that we have to shove down other details, but like they say in engineering, "In execution, details matter." So that's definitely been one of our learnings, that streamlining our assets.
If you are thinking of that journey as an engineering firm or as a manufacturing company or as a retailer, most of us have 3D model representation of our physical world. They are replicable, they are applicable, but they are not directly applicable. You need some transition. It is small, it's very quick, but you still need that transition.
I love it. Perhaps we didn't need the 2 GB representation of the tool. Maybe with 50 MB of 3D asset, we were fine, right? So quick... We're a little bit over time, I think, with the back and forth. Just super quick, three things that we learned: make sure that you got the right assets in 3D. This is gonna become more important from the production to actually the dashboard that you're showing your own car in your dashboard. You need the 3D asset. Don't try to replicate the experience that you got today in the physical world, and don't try to be a game.
I think a lot that went into metaverse was sometimes misuse of the technology, and there is real opportunities to creating a longer-lasting experience of you as a retailer with your clients, being along the line, the training and the exploration of projects.
Just thinking about this transition, I think one thing again to remember, and we're gonna bring ourselves back to 10-15 years when the transition happened from physical manuals to digital channels. The customers are looking to solve their problem, but they are not looking for same experience. For an example, if you're searching a manual, they're not looking for a long list of alphabetically organized, all the SKUs, where they are gonna scroll through your webpage. That is where the industry has gone through. When we make this transition, and as the industry pushes through this transition, we don't have to repeat that mistake again. We don't have to replicate what our customers see as digital experience into the virtual experience.
As you are seeing, if you were to just make it a training use case or a safety use case, or a security use case, this is gonna replicate your digital journey. But if you think holistically, zoom out what problems your customers are really trying to solve, the opportunity for businesses to grow and our customers to get the value out of it is gonna be exponential. And that's been our learning, that bringing all of this together, which is fragmented in one place, easier, makes faster and much better for everyone.
Thank you, Shobhit, and thank you for letting us be part of your journey. Thanks, everybody, for joining today. Sorry that we're a little bit late because of the back and forth. If you have any questions, we'll stay around. Thank you for joining, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the show.
Thank you, everyone. We are happy to answer any questions if somebody have.
We got time for questions? Anybody? I think we have time.
Very good. Thank you very much for joining. Hope you guys have a wonderful day. Thank you.