Former Ralph Lauren Chief Digital & Technology Officer Dr. Janet Sherlock speaks with Starbucks Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Deb Hall Lefevre and Levi Strauss & Co. Senior Vice President & Chief Digital Officer Jason Gowans at NRF 2025: Retail's Big Show.
The next time you stop at Starbucks for a coffee or drop by the Levi’s store to browse for a pair of jeans, look around. The two companies are in the midst of digital transformations — though it might be hard to notice.
Successful digital transformation should be impossible to see but easy to detect, Levi Strauss & Co. Chief Digital Officer Jason Gowans said during a panel discussion at NRF 2025: Retail’s Big Show with Starbucks Chief Technology Officer Deb Hall Lefevre and former Ralph Lauren Chief Digital and Technology Officer Dr. Janet Sherlock.
Take the store environment for example: If a customer in one store can’t find the product they want in their size, a Levi’s stylist can use the company’s BackPocket platform — which provides a holistic view of the customer — to look up their sizes and style preferences. The stylist can then either recommend a similar product in that store, or find the item in another store and have it delivered to the customer’s home or made available for in-store pickup. That’s digital transformation, Gowans said.
Or say a customer comes into a Starbucks and wants to order one of the chain’s possible 87,000 drink combinations. That customer doesn’t care (or differentiate) whether it’s a Starbucks café, a Reserve, a drive-through or a licensee; they want a seamless ordering experience and a consistent product, Lefevre said. It’s all powered by digital transformation.
“When you have 40,000 sites around the world, making sure the technology just works is very important,” she said. To do that, Lefevre makes sure that any changes or upgrades to technology are “easy to use, reliable, secure and compliant. We do that through great engineering practices and ensuring that tech is woven through everything we do.”
Starbucks has always been at the forefront of digital transformation, constantly employing technology to improve customer experience. For 170-year-old Levi Strauss & Co., digital transformation has been more recent, as the company evolves from a wholesale denim business to a first-class digital retailer. That’s meant “rewiring the whole business,” Gowans said.
To do that, Gowans' team focused on three value streams: consumer experiences, employee experiences and platforms. For the last two years, Levi’s has been aggregating and leveraging vast amounts of customer data —including to organize its 37 million Red Tab members — to evolve the product assortment, create a digital flagship experience and improve view rates by 10%. As a result, Levi’s has seen its direct-to-consumer business grow for 10 consecutive quarters, Gowans said.
Starbuck’s tech modernization efforts are focused on unifying its tech stack across all its 40,000 stores and 19,000 licensee locations. “We’re working hard to get a unified tech stack so we can drive innovation across the platform,” Lefevre said.
Starbuck’s new CEO has also made a commitment to “get back to Starbucks and what makes us different and unique.” That commitment will require technology and digital capabilities, Lefevre said. “Everything starts and ends with our partners, and we need to be setting them up for success."
Toward that end, Lefevre’s teams are working on algorithms to help reduce customer waiting times during peak ordering periods, when 40% of orders come in via mobile or delivery. The “smarter production system” will be tested in February and March, Lefevre said, and should improve the customer and the partner experience.
“If you have a strong [tech] foundation and solid architecture, you’re going to have a winning platform,” she said.