The Tile Shop

Christopher Davis

Pandemic Shift Analyst

As a VP and CIO, Christopher Davis successfully transforms teams, processes, and technology by collaboratively identifying business opportunities and gaps in current capabilities. He develops IT strategies aligned with business objectives and helps develop vendor-partner relationships to execute successful technology initiatives focused on growth and cost optimization.

1. Can you walk us through the journey that you have had?

I have spent more than 15 years in the specialty retail industry. I began my career as a consultant traveling across the U.S. and overseas, implementing large ERP systems. My first job in retail was in 2007 for the Sleep Number company. The experience I gathered from there helped me to understand the nuances and challenges of retail, doing everything from ERP, CRM, and e-commerce implementations to running their infrastructure and operations and managing large numbers of stores. It has been instrumental in teaching me cross-functionally how retail works.

After that, I worked as CIO for Express Oil Change, an auto services company, and later at a company in the veterinary industry.

And then, two and a half years ago, I landed at The Tile Shop. The company needed a full technological transformation to drive success. We rebuilt the entire team, made changes to the organizational culture, and made new investments in transformation. We started with simple things and continue to expand our footprint, migrating completely to the cloud and transforming every aspect of the IT function to derive the full value of technology.

2. What are some of the major pain points prevailing in the market today?

Talent is one of the critical challenges the technology industry is facing. It is the core reason we focus on fostering the right culture at The Tile Shop. We have realized that the right challenging environment draws people to the team and helps them stretch their limits and grow.

Secondly, the fast rate of change in technology and keeping everyone up to date on it is a constant challenge. Due to the consumerization of technology, we need to weed our way through buzzing technology to understand the true value that adopting a particular technology can offer us rather than simply going with the crowd. Instead of making technology decisions based on others in the industry, it is a continuous focus to understand your own target audience and customer and make choices that deliver value to your organization.

3. What, according to you, are some of the trends that have emerged in the retail space?

Increased migration to the cloud, the proliferation of e-commerce, and change in organizational culture due to hybrid and remote work are the major trends in the space. There are also highly technology-based drifts like the craze around generative AI. However, most people are still unsure of the real business value it can deliver.

"You regularly hear that ‘brick-and-mortar stores are dying;’ not true. As is often said, “change or die.”Retail continuously changes to make the customer experience as seamless as possible while focusing on challenges such as data, analytics, and security. "

Even though e-commerce is booming, for us, consumers often start their journey online and pickup in store to manage the shipping costs of stone and man-made tile. As a result, we are investing in new marketing models and digital strategies to better communicate with the customer and find ways to enhance the customer experience.

 4. How do you envision the future of this space?

You regularly hear that ‘brick-and-mortar stores are dying;’ not true.As is often said, “change or die.”Retail continuously changes to make the customer experience as seamless as possible while focusing on challenges such as data, analytics, and security.These changesshould also help engage and attract the digital-first millennials, the new retail customers.

For the road ahead, we need to figure out strategies to meet the challenges of demographic changes, omnichannel growth expectations, delivery speed, product availability, go to market strategies and customer product offerings.

Within the industry, there is a huge shift in flooring from carpeting to luxury vinyl tiles or luxury vinyl planking. It is a positive trend for us that can potentially help our business grow. To that end, we are bettering our people, processes, and products to be competitive and leverage the trend to our benefit.

5. What would be your piece of advice to your fellow CIOs?

I advise my fellow CIOs to understand their businesses, customers, and peers and be a business leader focused on leveraging technology to solve their company's challenging issues. They should be deeply and holistically involved in the business, spending time with customers, sales associates, and employees and helping to knock down roadblocks for their team’s success.

The job role of a CIO is not to be a technologist but to provide the vision and direction for the team and empower them to take charge and lead technology.