In this conversation, Konrad Olsson speaks with Laurent Mainil, Founder of Markmi, and Markus Krenn, Head of Commercial Planning & Operations at C&A Europe, about how their collaboration uses artificial intelligence to drive sell-through and reduce overstock. The discussion explores how AI can transform pricing strategies, how large retailers adopt startup solutions, and what change management is needed to make AI work inside complex organisations.
Key takeaways
1. AI pricing helps C&A respond faster to inflation and customer needs
In 2022, when inflation hit Europe, C&A sought to stay affordable while managing vast product volumes. “With the sheer amount of SKUs that we’re having, always setting the right price out of non-data-driven decisions is basically impossible,” said Markus Krenn. “So we said, how can we serve our customers best? By just using the technology that is out there to set the right price for them in the right moment.”
2. Collaboration between startup and heritage brand is about solving a shared problem
Despite C&A’s 180-year history and Markmi’s startup roots, the collaboration worked because of focus. “It’s not a matter of heritage, size of a company, etc. It’s how targeted you can solve the problems that we need to address,” said Krenn.
3. Implementation success depends on trust and transparency
Krenn described how enthusiasm for AI can shift into fear within large organisations. “When enthusiasm switches into fear, you need to create a lot of transparency—why was the decision taken, why is it the right decision, and what can we learn from it for future seasons.”
4. Changing minds is harder than changing code
For Markmi, convincing people inside large organisations is the biggest challenge. “Technical implementation is about 30 % of the job and 70 % is convincing, educating, change management,” said Laurent Mainil. “Changing the minds of people is way harder than changing a line of code.”
5. AI adoption in fashion will start with point solutions
Mainil believes fashion will first embrace specialised AI tools before evolving toward full integration. “In the coming three to five years, fashion will start adopting point solutions for very specific problems,” he said. “If I look further, I think there will be an AI-driven operating system for a fashion retailer.”