A large garage door serves as the main entrance to the Canadian Tire Digital Garage that opened Monday in Waterloo Region – but that’s about as close to motor oil and lug nuts as the space gets.
This is where the ideas coming out of the Canadian Tire Innovations (CTi) lab land for some technical loving care. This is where Canadian Tire intends to lead Internet retailing, and shake up the way Canadians buy everything from hockey pads to car batteries.
“There’s a big step from the ideas part to going to that next level of prototyping and beta testing,” said Craig Haney, Canadian Tire’s Manager of CT Innovations. “This extension of what CTi has done will allow us to do more experimentation and development behind closed doors."
Michael Medline, Canadian Tire’s President and CEO, and Maureen Sabia, Chair of its board of directors, counted themselves among the executives and invited guests getting an early look at what Haney and his team have done to a storefront location on Francis Street in downtown Kitchener. Most recently, it housed a coffee shop.
The location is no accident, the guests were told. It lies a short stroll from the Communitech Hub, where Canadian Tire parked CTi in late 2012 and helped build momentum in what has become a busy partnership concourse.
Other companies –including TD Bank Group, Manulife, Canon and Deloitte – have since followed, bringing together seasoned workers and co-op students to think and create. The ideas they come up with improve the way customers buy products and engage services in the digital world.
“When Canadian Tire launched its innovation space in the Communitech Hub, we were excited to see what would come of this bold experiment in retail innovation,” said Glenn Smith, Communitech’s Vice-President, Enterprise. “With today’s opening of the Digital Garage, Canadian Tire has shown that large, established companies have a lot to gain from engaging with our tech community.
“In turn, our local companies benefit from access to a respected national brand, resulting in enterprise sales opportunities they might not otherwise get.”
What happens in the garage stays in the garage until it’s ready for rollout. The open concept of CTi’s space in the Hub is great for collaboration, Haney said, but there comes a time when product development needs to move out of the public eye.
Generally speaking, though, Internet retailing — or e-retailing — refers to a wide spectrum, from online shopping, to promotions and coupons fed to a customer’s smartphone.
Some of the thinking behind Canadian Tire’s product-selector tablets that help customers find auto parts came out of CTi’s Hub location, where about 10 people work today. And while customers still pocket hard Canadian Tire money, as they have since 1958, they can opt into a digital, card-based loyalty program.
Digital retailing, Medline noted, means adapting to customers who pre-shop using their own tablets and smartphones before entering a store.
“Our mission is to serve our customer in whatever way they want, as they want it,’’ he said at the opening ceremony. “Innovation has always been in our blood. The lab is just another step forward in our journey.”
E-retailing, Haney said later, is something greater than customers pecking away at an in-store tablet to find a replacement windshield wiper.
“I don’t think those product selectors are where it finishes,” he said. “If you look at the amount of information that people can share about their lives, whether it’s the year they bought their car, or the amount of lawn or patio they have, we can start to make better suggestions about what they may need, and ensure they are not buying the wrong item.”
Canadian Tire isn’t giving up its space in the Hub. Eugene Roman, the company’s Chief Technology Officer, said the innovation lab is like a university, generating ideas. The Digital Garage is where the heavy lifting happens.
“We took a risk as a non-tech company to go in there (the Hub), and it paid off,” Roman said in an interview. “However, we need to scale.”
The garage “is designed for 35-40 people. We wanted to be close to Communitech and continue that strong relationship, but we also need a workshop. So we built a workshop.”
Roman described the garage as minimalist in concept because, as a colleague once told him, “too much money gets in the way of great ideas.”
It has an open area with rows of shared worktables and a kitchen. Barn boards clad the rear wall. Sandy McTire, the iconic figure on Canadian Tire money, watches over the garage from a large facsimile of a Canadian Tire bank note.
The innovation lab and Digital Garage work closely with Canadian Tire’s 85-seat Cloud Nine computing centre in Winnipeg. By being in Waterloo Region, both the lab and the garage also benefit from the proximity of the University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University and Conestoga College, Roman said.
Haney is familiar with the garage’s location in a small commercial plaza. Thirteen years ago, he owned the Edge, a fitness centre with a storefront two doors away.
“You’re seeing a lot of companies investing in downtown Kitchener because of access to students, access to transit and culture,” he said. “We want to leverage that talent, because we are actually giving students and young professionals an opportunity to re-invent what retail is.
“I think young, talented folks . . . want to feel like they have an impact on the world. I do believe that our group will have an impact on the way people shop.”
