Inside Retail CIO Thinking: A Fireside Chat with Bruce Burrows of Sobeys and Loblaws

Q: What drew you to join Simbe as a strategic advisor?

A (Bruce): When I got exposed to Simbe and Tally, I thought it was the last frontier in terms of providing that link in the supply chain. Retailers don’t know what’s in our stores. At one point in my career, a vendor asked: “What thing can I really help you with?” I said, you could tell me what the next best action is to make sure I’ve got product in the store when the customer is looking for it. That’s the link.

And what’s been difficult, certainly in the Canadian landscape, is we have trouble attracting labor, we have high turnover, and we have ongoing problems with supply chain. We don’t have the capability to get at these things. When I got exposed to Simbe and Tally specifically, I thought, that’s it. I just wanted to be involved.

I’ve spent about a third of my career in technology, a third in operations, and a third in supply chain. And operations was split between store ops and merchandising. So I’ve seen it from multiple sides, and Tally hits core pain points across all of them.

Q: What’s your view on the current state of retail technology?

A (Bruce): Retailers have been latent adopters of retail technology. Especially in grocery, where margins are razor thin, 4% or less. They sweat assets as long as they can. So any tech investment must show fast time-to-value. SAP takes years and is a tens of millions dollar investment. But with a platform like Tally, where you can see ROI in-year, that’s game-changing.

“With a platform like Simbe’s, where you can see ROI in-year, that’s game-changing.”

Q: What are today’s CIOs really worried about?

A (Bruce): Three things: cybersecurity, data quality, and complexity. Everyone’s talking about AI, but unless you’ve got clean, centralized data, it won’t work. CIOs are also tired of managing 300+ apps. They want platforms. That’s where Simbe has huge potential.

Q: How do you see Tally enabling AI in retail?

A (Bruce): Tally gives you item-level data; location, price, and stock. Nobody else has that level of certainty and frequency. Tally powers intelligent agents: order this if it’s out of stock, fix that promo, optimize facings— nobody has to walk the store and figure it out manually. It’s a massive enabler. Add in inventory and sales data, and suddenly the possibilities are endless.

Q: What separates vendors from partners in your eyes?

A (Bruce): You want my business? Show me results in my store. But more than that, be responsive, understand my business, and stay in it with me. Simbe’s account model impressed me. One of the hardest parts of any tech rollout is changing behavior. I want partners who make sure I’m getting the outcomes you promised. If I don’t know someone’s using your tool, I won’t see the benefit. A true partner helps me get there and doesn’t disappear after the contract is signed.

“Are you a partner or a vendor? Do you show up once and disappear, or are you here for the long haul to make sure success gets delivered, and stay when it doesn’t?”

Q: Beyond operational efficiency, where do you see untapped potential for technology in retail?

A (Bruce): The industry still has huge whitespace in space optimization and supply chain execution. For example, the back-of-store process is broken in many big boxes. If tech can help organize what comes in and how it flows to the shelf, that’s massive. One example: I walk into a store and see four facings of an item we sell one unit of a quarter. Why is that space being wasted? That’s a missed opportunity to place something better suited to customer demand and it’s the kind of insight you can only act on when you have the right data. I also think master data management is underrated. Poor item data contributes directly to out-of-stocks and failed promotions. Tech that strengthens foundational retail data will quietly deliver huge returns.