IDC & Lenovo Roundtable Singapore
Operationalizing AI-Enabled Retail Experiences
From Deployment to Reliable Service
In Partnership With
Your customers no longer judge your AI investment by how advanced it is. They judge it by whether it works. Conversational assistants, autonomous checkout, and agentic AI that can act across systems are now among the technologies retailers expect to reshape the customer experience over the next two to three years. Yet the everyday reality is more stubborn: 34% of Asia/Pacific retailers name weak engagement and limited repeat business as their leading customer experience challenge, and 31% still point to friction at checkout, at the shelf, and in store navigation. When a self-checkout stalls or an assistant hesitates, you lose the transaction and the shopper’s confidence in the same moment.
What does it take to run an agentic AI platform in a live store, in every trading hour, across every location? Which use cases genuinely pay back, and which quietly consume budget? Advisory depth, integration capability, monitoring, predictive maintenance, and time to restore service have quietly become buying criteria, not afterthoughts.
Join IDC and Lenovo for a closed-door executive roundtable on turning AI-enabled retail experiences into dependable, everyday operations.
Strategic Discussion Areas
Choosing agentic AI use cases that pay back from retail super agents to smart store operations
Building the platform and edge foundation that lets agentic AI run in every store
Setting service levels before selecting the technology
Uptime as part of the customer experience: monitoring, predictive maintenance, and time to restore
Closing the skills gap with the right partner and operating model
Agenda
IDC & Lenovo Roundtable Singapore
Tue, Sep 22
Registration & Networking
Welcome Address
The Retail Check: Bridge the Gap Between AI Ambition and In-Store Operations
Retailers are moving fast on agentic AI, but the store floor doesn’t always keep pace. Stephanie brings the latest IDC research on where that ambition and everyday operations diverge — 34% of APAC retailers are still fighting for engagement and repeat business, and 31% are losing shoppers to friction at checkout, on the shelf, and in navigation. She’ll pinpoint which agentic AI use cases genuinely close that gap and which ones quietly drain budget, giving you the evidence to make your next investment case with confidence.
Stephanie Krishnan
Associate Vice President, Research, IDC
Building a Resilient Edge Foundation for Agentic AI
Every autonomous checkout, in-aisle assistant, and store-level agent lives or dies by what’s running underneath it. Walker gets practical about the platform and edge foundation that keeps agentic AI dependable across every location, every trading hour — including the monitoring, predictive maintenance, and time-to-restore capabilities that turn uptime from an IT afterthought into a real driver of customer experience. Expect a clear-eyed checklist for what to demand of your technology foundation before you scale.
Walker W.
Retail Solutions Head – Asia Pacific, Lenovo
Open Discussion
This is the closed-door, peer-level segment of the morning — no slides, no pitch, just senior retail leaders comparing notes on the calls they’re actually wrestling with: which use cases to bet on, what service levels to lock in before choosing technology, and how to close the skills gap with the right partner and operating model.
Summary & Close
Networking Lunch
Speakers
Stephanie Krishnan
Associate Vice President, Research
IDC
Read bio
Stephanie Krishnan
Stephanie Krishnan is Research Director for IDC Manufacturing Insights, responsible for Industry 4.0 research. In this role, she responsible for the production, development and growth of the IDC Manufacturing Insights program in the Asia Pacific region. In this role, Stephanie will be delivering a research agenda that will appeal to technology buyers and vendors both in terms of subscription products and custom research in Industry 4-0 looking across ecosystems, value chains and supply chains of industrial industries.
Stephanie has more than 20 years’ experience in manufacturing and supply chain, with a diverse background that complements her years in academia and professional development consulting in multiple countries such as Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, UAE and Hong Kong among others. in addition to this, she advises startups in the areas of process automation and technology adoption, particularly in supply chain management. Stephanie has been most recently been conducting economic and supply chain market research as part of consulting in the Middle East.
Event Sessions
One Day Event 10:35 am
The Retail Check: Bridge the Gap Between AI Ambition and In-Store Operations
Retailers are moving fast on agentic AI, but the store floor doesn’t always keep pace. Stephanie brings the latest IDC research on where that ambition and everyday operations diverge — 34% of APAC retailers are still fighting for engagement and repeat business, and 31% are losing shoppers to friction at checkout, on the shelf, and in navigation. She’ll pinpoint which agentic AI use cases genuinely close that gap and which ones quietly drain budget, giving you the evidence to make your next investment case with confidence.
Walker W.
Retail Solutions Head – Asia Pacific
Lenovo
Read bio
Walker W.
Experienced Major Account with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry. Skilled in Management, Customer Service, Sales, Strategic Planning, and Leadership. Strong consulting professional with a Master of Science (M.Sc.) focused in Computer Engineering from The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Event Sessions
One Day Event 10:50 am
Building a Resilient Edge Foundation for Agentic AI
Every autonomous checkout, in-aisle assistant, and store-level agent lives or dies by what’s running underneath it. Walker gets practical about the platform and edge foundation that keeps agentic AI dependable across every location, every trading hour — including the monitoring, predictive maintenance, and time-to-restore capabilities that turn uptime from an IT afterthought into a real driver of customer experience. Expect a clear-eyed checklist for what to demand of your technology foundation before you scale.
In Partnership With
Lenovo
Lenovo is a US$83 billion revenue global technology powerhouse, ranked #153 in the Fortune Global 500, and serving millions of customers every day in 180 markets. Guided by its vision of “Smarter Technology for All”, Lenovo is executing a Hybrid AI strategy that spans Personal AI – one personal AI, multiple devices; and Enterprise AI – helping customers turn data into insights and value. This strategy is delivered through the Group’s commitment to world-class innovation and a full-stack AI portfolio, including devices (PCs, workstations, smartphones, tablets, accessories), infrastructure solutions (server, storage, edge, high performance computing and software defined infrastructure), as well as software, solutions, and services. With a global footprint spanning more than 21 research and development locations and a global supply chain that includes more than 30 manufacturing sites across 11 markets, Lenovo is widely recognized for its operational excellence. Lenovo is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange under Lenovo Group Limited (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY). Learn more at www.lenovo.com and follow the latest news in our newsroom.