Morrisons Chief Technology Director Anna Barsby has been focusing on the technology opportunities which provide business growth, and has been encouraging key skills and people to the supermarket retailer as part of her ambitious improvement plans. The 2015 CIO 100 leader and her team are initiating major moves into cloud, digital and data – acutely aware of the need for the supermarket's back-end systems and infrastructure to support its front-end, customer facing touchpoints. A new technology innovation team has been set up, with Morrisons the first of the big four supermarkets to integrate online grocery shopping with Amazon's Alexa voice recognition personal assistant. The digital and data initiatives are starting to enable a more modern Morrisons, while improved systems stability and till availability showing that uptime and consistent BAU are core platforms to a transformation and innovation agenda. An artificial intelligence-driven ordering system rolled out across the retailer's 491 stores, which has lowered stock holding and improved availability, was espoused by CEO David Potts as an important move and for showing the art of the possible with a new way of working during a 2017 results announcement. As well as being active in schools locally – which has included having Morrisons developers offer training for the coding club at a local girls' school – Barsby has set up a diversity and inclusion group in her technology function, an initiative she is now sponsoring across the whole business.
