Meet the Kalibrate team: Dustin Stancil, SVP Location Intelligence and Strategy

At Kalibrate, we believe our success is driven as much by our people as our technology. Here, we meet Dustin Stancil, our SVP Location Intelligence and Strategy, and find out more about his role at Kalibrate.

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What’s your role at Kalibrate?

Every day offers new and exciting opportunities. Most days are spent engaging with existing and prospective clients, learning as much about their business and needs as possible to offer the best solutions. I also engage a lot with vendor partners to stay up to speed on new data offerings and the benefits that Kalibrate clients could gain with new information.

Internally, I work closely with our Client Success and Client Solutions teams to get feedback on the voice of the customer to understand opportunities to improve Kalibrate user experience. I also work with the Kalibrate Analytics and Consulting team to brainstorm solutions for our clients’ analytical needs.

Building a partnership with clients is key – always communicating when things are good, and acknowledging and solving their challenges is critically important. It ensures we have trust with our clients. Effective communication internally is also key to being able to service clients at the best level.

What does a typical day look like?

I really enjoy learning how our clients are using data and GIS-type tools. After spending many years in the real estate strategy field, I am always impressed at how different clients approach business goals. Having the opportunity to work closely with them to solve their challenges is a ton of fun.

Being able to translate the needs our clients have using past experiences reminds me how important good tools and data are at being successful. It’s also fun to just nerd out all things geospatial because, let’s be honest, without geography, you’re nowhere… (drum, drum, cymbal.)

We always ask the “so what” questions with our clients and often challenge them to think about what the best solution is for their goals. We do this by first understanding where they are and then where they want to go.

Internally, it’s about challenging each other to be the best provider of our software and services. Constantly putting ourselves in the client’s shoes. It’s critical to challenge the status quo, especially when it may be unpopular.

Tell us about your journey with Kalibrate

I spent 15 years working in strategic roles for both retail and financial organizations using various geospatial tools. TAS (now Kalibrate) had developed the most comprehensive platform that I had ever seen.

After talking to Bill about his strategic vision, it was a no-brainer. The team at Kalibrate is top notch. Everyone takes an immense amount of pride in their work and always put our clients first. It’s an engaging and empowering place to be. The future of Kalibrate is going to be incredible and there is no other place I’d rather be.

What do you think are the greatest challenges and opportunities facing the retail sector?

Understanding and building for the omni channel customer experience continues to be a challenge I see brands trying to cope with.

Ensuring consistent consumer experience whether you’re in a store or online is key. With that I think portfolio optimization will play a key role. Regardless if it’s retail or banking or QSR, having the right format store in the right location will be so important.

From an opportunity side, there is going to be a lot of real estate available (an impact of COVID) in the near term. Being able to identify those early and get in before the competition will be a big boost for the next 10+ years.

Where do you see the retail sector heading?

It’s online. Customer experience and speed of delivery is going to be so important going forward. Distribution will play a key role in that. Many retailers may be able to leverage their existing footprint to improve that capability.

If we’re thinking brick and mortar, shrinking floor space and more storage space for shipping could be an option. I also think we’ll continue to see variations of brick and mortar, more along a hub and spoke approach that banks have adopted.

They key is really ensuring that the omnichannel experience is in place. Consumers, much like the financial markets, don’t like uncertainty. They want to know whether they go in a store or online, it will be a great experience.