Dunnhumby Labs Launched to Accelerate Tech Innovation

Global customer data science leader Dunnhumby has introduced Dunnhumby Labs (dh Labs), an internal accelerator created to nurture innovative technologies that expand and advance the company’s current product offerings in the global retail marketplace. Kyle Fugere, who also heads up Dunnhumby Ventures, is leading the new business unit.

“As part of my role operating the venture capital fund, I have had the opportunity to work hand in hand, as a board member and as an advisor, with startups around the world,” noted Fugere. “Now, in my dual role leading dh Labs, I am working with the team to take the lessons learned from working with high-growth startups and applying them to our most promising innovations. The mission is to push our team members to think like a startup, to aggressively pursue big opportunities and to accelerate their path to value creation.”

“We are extremely proud to be empowering businesses everywhere to compete and thrive in the modern data-driven economy with our science, product and computational execution innovation,” added David Jack, CTO of Dunnhumby, which has U.S. offices in Chicago; Cincinnati; New York; Rochester, N.Y.; and West Sacramento, Calif. “I am delighted that we are able to build on the successes of our venture team investments through our new accelerator to develop our own startups.”

The dh Labs team is now working on various products to address three areas of common challenges for retailers and brands:

•  360 View of the Customer: HuYu is a B2C mobile app that sources behavioral, attitudinal and lifestyle data directly from verified customers, generating insights for retailers and brands to help them understand their customers’ attitudes and behavior, and better respond to their needs. Enabling a 360-degree view of the customer with products like HuYu, Dunnhumby can now deliver “rest of market” and “rest of basket” insights to retailers and CPGs. 
• Speed-of-Thought Insights: The OneFour analytical engine quickly calculates customer-based metrics such as household penetration, with results available in milliseconds rather than minutes or hours, as in the past. In today’s competitive environment, speed-of-thought insight is increasingly important to retailers that are no longer willing to wait for answers to crucial business questions.  
• Automated Machine Learning: dh Evolve is an automated machine-learning platform designed to solve complex retail challenges such as understanding customer churn and predicting propensity to purchase and in what retail channel.

Using these brand-new technologies, dunnhumby data scientists can automate time-intensive data analytics and deploy machine learning to uncover deeper insights and trends that will enable clients to gain competitive advantage and boost sales and profitability.

“The retail market is undergoing a massive transformation, and leaders need to look beyond the immediate horizon to be successful long-term,” asserted Fugere. “With Dunnhumby Labs, we are looking to support our retailer and CPG partners across the globe with bleeding-edge technology and innovations, to help them better compete today and tomorrow.”

Dunnhumby employs more than 2,500 experts in offices throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, working for brands such as Tesco, Coca-Cola, Meijer, Procter & Gamble, and L’Oréal.