Adoption of Smart Packaging : Case Study Analysis from retailer’s perspective

Abstract: This paper presents the challenges faced by the retailers during the adoption of smart packaging in food packaging industry. The paper introduces three largest food retailers in Sweden, and the problems they faced during the introduction of the adoption of smart packaging technologies packaging. Introduction- The authors present the paper with complete background of the food packaging industry in general, as well as each types of smart packaging techniques. In addition, the paper introduces the adoption process for the smart packaging. The research question of this paper is: What are the hinders of adopting smart packaging technology in food packaging industry and why? • What challenges do they face during the adoption process? • What are the hinders in this adoption process? • What are the new hinders in this adoption process? Purpose- The main purpose of this paper is to find the challenges that occur during the adoption of smart packaging in food packaging industry faced by the retailers. Knowing the basic knowledge of the food packaging industry and giving importance to the challenges may lead to achieve our aim. Methodology- This research paper uses the research onion model as a methodology to analyse the gathered data. The authors performed interviews with retailers and end-users of food packaging industry to analyse their challenges during the adoption of smart packaging. The collected data are further discussed in the analysis and discussion part. Conclusion- This paper concludes the adoption in the new technology and concentrates on how each retailer has their own perspective to see the quality and use it to overcome the adoption process. This paper describes the common and unique challenges faced by the retailers during the adoption process. The main common challenges faced by all the retailers in common was to create awareness and to make end-user understand the adoption process but also the benefits of adoption. The most important challenges faced by the retailers of ICA is they consider that adopting to new technology in smart packaging is a challenge for them, because they must create an understanding about the new technology to the end-users which requires a lot of time for the adoption process. According to Coop the open to new smart packaging technologies because since they use only localize products and resources, the overall cost of the product increases which again becomes a barrier for end-user adoption. The interviewee from Willys state that they offer affordable smart packaging technologies without creating barrier for customer adoption, at the same time they are not willing to adopt new technologies without testing its feasibility with the customers. Omar, Uma Thesis in Industrial Innovation Management (IN7001) iii Limitation- The aim of this study is focused on only one element of smart packaging i.e. “Adoption”. Moreover, this study is limited to adoption of smart packaging done in three companies (Coop, Willys & ICA Maxi) in the retail sector in Halmstad, Sweden. This study is conducted from the retailer perspective, by analysing the challenges faced by the retailers during the adoption process.