Inspired by the lack of visibility in high-value retail assets across various locations, Karan Bakshi, CEO of Vision Group Retail, committed himself to bridging the gap between physical operations and digital intelligence in the retail world. The company empowers CPG brands and retailers with real-time visibility, smarter decision-making, and data-driven execution. Being awarded as one of the “Fastest Growing Companies of 2025” by The CEO Views, Chief Revenue Officer Jason DeRienzo proudly takes us on a tour of the company’s journey, highlighting its unique solutions and strategic moves to thwart market competition.
What inspiration influenced the business idea? What was the mission at the beginning?
Eight years ago, inspiration struck our CEO, Karan Bakshi, unexpectedly while he was presenting an asset tracking solution at a trade show. A representative who would later become one of Vision’s largest customers visited our booth and described a significant challenge: they had tens of millions of high-value assets spread across countless locations, yet they lacked clear visibility into the performance of those assets. That conversation sparked a groundbreaking idea. With his background in IoT and computer vision, Karan recognized an opportunity to develop a solution that would bring intelligence and connectivity to the physical retail world.
Please give us a brief overview of the company.
Vision Group Retail technology company transforms the consumer-packaged goods (CPG) and retail landscape through artificial intelligence and computer vision. We enhance physical retail by providing end-to-end visibility, which includes creating digital twins, recommending specific channel-tailored assortments, generating store-level planograms, utilizing AI-powered image recognition, and offering real-time remote visibility into retail execution. Our platform also facilitates frictionless, checkout-free retail experiences. We help CPG brands and retailers analyze in-store conditions, track product performance, and optimize merchandising strategies on a large scale.
Shed some light on the unique solutions offered by the company.
Imagine driving your business forward with a clear view of the road ahead rather than just focusing on what’s behind you. That’s exactly what our software solutions provide. Our solutions not only identify problems but also deliver actionable insights and automation, empowering customer-facing teams and category managers to operate with unmatched efficiency. The result? Smarter shelf decisions, perfectly optimized product placements, and streamlined operations boost sales and deliver an exceptional customer experience.
Our shelf-level image recognition provides real-time, forward-looking indicators by revealing exactly what is happening on the shelf at this moment. This immediate, actionable intelligence allows you to anticipate trends, identify issues such as out-of-stock or compliance breaches, and take proactive measures to prevent lost sales and optimize strategies before they impact your bottom line.
As one of the fastest-growing companies, what are the key drivers of growth for Vision Group Retail?
Vision Group Retail’s rapid growth stems from a three-pronged approach:
- Strategic Client “Land and Expand” Model: A key driver of our growth, and a distinct advantage over competitors, is our successful strategy of landing key clients and relentlessly expanding our partnerships within their organizations.
- Adaptive and Agile Product Development: Our sustained growth isn’t just about the solutions we offer, but how we build them: through unwavering adaptation and agility. We actively listen to our customers, rapidly integrate their feedback, and continuously evolve our solutions to precisely meet their evolving needs.
- Strategic Expansion and Key Acquisitions: Our fast growth is also fueled by strategic expansion and key acquisitions. A prime example is our integration of Hivery Curate, a cutting-edge AI for hyperlocal assortment optimization, to our existing strengths.How is the company combating the industry challenges to thrive?
Holding onto a market position in the rapidly evolving retail market is not easy. How is the company combating the industry challenges to thrive?
Vision Group Retail combats industry challenges and thrives by strategically leveraging its core strengths and anticipating market needs:
- Continuous AI Innovation: Heavy R&D investment keeps our AI and computer vision technologies superior, evolving from simple detection to advanced prescription and automation.
- Real-time Intelligence: We provide leading indicators through shelf-level image recognition, enabling immediate corrective actions before issues escalate.
- Integrated Solutions: Our end-to-end suite covers retail execution, visual merchandising, and category management in one unified platform.
- Strategic Growth: Acquisitions like Hivery expand our capabilities (hyperlocal assortment optimization) and market reach, making us more resilient and complete.
- Global Scale: Operating in 55+ countries via scalable SaaS with a customer-first approach ensures strong retention and sustainable growth.
What distinguishes Vision Group Retail from its competitors in an environment of continuous market competition?
We are the only end-to-end merchandising solution provider.
We combine a 1+ million product image/attribute library, planogram software, assortment optimization, retail execution tracking, and IoT solutions under one AI-powered platform.
Our dual-AI approach
Our generative AI via an LLM will automatically transform our image recognition data into clear insights and recommendations. Using agentic AI, our Assortment Optimization tool (“Curate”) autonomously optimizes assortments across shelf space, incrementality, and cannibalization—intelligent automation that other tools in this space cannot match.
Unmatched Partnerships
While many companies offer similar services on paper, our extensive experience with large-scale deployments across diverse CPG categories is a distinct competitive advantage. Our partnerships with industry leaders like Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Kenvue, Ferrero, and more highlight this unique capability.
Experience Navigating Category-Specific Challenges
Every CPG category presents its own unique challenges, requiring our systems to adapt to significant visual clutter and frequent package changes.
Our work exemplifies agility and adaptability. We’ve successfully identified products in highly varied environments, from meticulously arranged frozen pizza displays to dynamic bakery sweet shelf sets that contain a mix of bags, boxes, and tubes.
Delivering Universal KPIs with Precision
The core KPIs of the company remain universally critical for CPG brands. Our ability to consistently deliver accurate, actionable insights for these key metrics, regardless of the inherent visual chaos or order of a given category, is a testament to our image recognition technology’s unparalleled adaptability, scalability, and precision.
What are the targeted KPIs of the company to thwart market competition?
- Product & AI Performance
- Speed to Insights
- Scalability
- Customer Value & Quantifiable ROI
- Customer Retention and expansion of solutions
- Time to Value (TTV)
- Product Development Velocity
What are some of your customer acquisition strategies that help you achieve sustainable growth?
- Webinars & Virtual Events: Participating in webinars and virtual roundtables focused on CPG challenges and AI solutions. These direct engagements allow us to share real-world examples with potential clients and position the Vision Group as a proven, trustworthy, and reliable solution provider. One notable example was a recent joint webinar with our client Sanofi (Opella). This webinar focused on how AI image recognition and VR are helping CPGs gain shelf space while saving time.
- Account-Based Marketing (ABM): We have gotten smarter over the years and no longer cast our prospects net wide. We have a good handle on our ICP (Ideal Customer Profile).
- Expansion of Partnerships and Ecosystem Development: Recent additions include relationships with Salesforce and the activation of our solutions in Accenture’s innovation center, where prospective clients can engage with our solutions live.
Provide a brief bio of yourself.
Jason DeRienzo is a highly accomplished and results-driven executive with over two decades of leadership experience in sales, marketing, and category management within the retail and CPG sectors. As the Chief Revenue Officer at Vision Group Retail, Jason utilizes his deep understanding of sales management, data analytics, and competitive landscapes to drive revenue growth, marketing, and strategic initiatives. He joined Vision Group in 2021 through the acquisition of SMSB Consulting Group, where he served as CEO since 2018. As CEO, he played a crucial role in helping retailers and CPG manufacturers optimize sales efficiency.
Before becoming CEO, Jason served as Executive Vice President of Sales for over twelve years. During this time, he achieved a 233% increase in revenue and secured major clients, including Coke, Diageo, Whole Foods, Keurig Dr. Pepper, Red Bull, Kroger, and many other notable CPG retailers and manufacturers. Notably, Jason was also a founding partner in the creation and development of ezPOG, the first-ever web-based planogram solution. He excels at maintaining strong relationships and helping clients bridge the gap between category management, sales, and retail execution.