BUSINESS

Broadcast Retirement Network’s Jeffrey Snyder discusses how retirement recordkeepers select the right technology partner for their platforms with Fintech & Wealth Executive Scott Parry.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkWell, Scott, it’s so great to see you. Thanks for joining us on the program this morning.Scott Parry, Wealth Fintech ExecutiveYeah, thanks. I’m glad to be here. Thanks, Jeffrey.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkYeah, you’ve had a storied career in technology and specifically financial services technology. You know, I’m very interested, and maybe I’ll start off by asking a very high level question. How does a record keeper or service provider identify the right technologies for its customers?To me, it’s very complex.Scott Parry, Wealth Fintech ExecutiveWell, you know, you think about this. If you’re a record keeper, your record keeping software is your business, right? You can’t really be in business without it, right?So it’s essential to your business, right? So, and most of these firms are not building their own stuff. I mean, larger firms are building their own technology, but that’s sort of going away too.It’s hard to build a record keeping solution. And there’s some out there that basically, you know, they work, they account for things, they account for the micro penny. And the reality is, so it’s essential to your business to have it, right?And if you want to grow your business and be at the top and be a top tier player, you’ve got to have a top tier record keeping solution. And you’re basically, you’re dependent on your provider. You know, so I ran the Relias business for a couple of years.So I’m familiar with Relias and I competed with, you know, SSNC with track and, you know, Schwab’s RT product. Here’s the secret. They’re all the same.You know, they all do the same thing. They all record keep, you can, you know, they all trade, they all, you know, have participant, you know, front ends. It really is, you know, they’re all pretty much the same.For me, what was important is the provider, you know, what’s the commitment of the company you’re basically in bed with? Like, you’re making a bet on your provider that they’re going to keep that thing current and they’re going to be state-of-the-art. They’re going, I don’t want to be state-of-the-art.So I would really, you know, having run Relias when it was part of SunGuard and then we got acquired by FIS in the middle of when I was there and ended up running Relias for FIS. You know, you have to ask the question, how much capital are they going to put into these products? How much time, how much money are they going to spend to get these products to, you know, keep them state-of-the-art?And we struggled at, you know, when I was at SunGuard FIS, we struggled to get, you know, they’re big companies, right? They have a whole bunch of products that they’re trying to invest in. And so you basically fight for your dollar, you know, to invest in your product versus the other 240 products that SunGuard has in their product suite.So it’s important to really understand what is the commitment from your provider? What kind of capital are they going to be putting into this solution for the next five years? And where are they going and what’s their history?Have they been keeping state-of-the-art? When I got to run Relias, people were not that happy because the front end had been kind of gotten stale. Well, we spent some, we got some money and we actually reinvested in Relias’ front end.And then we brought statements in the house. So we did some cool stuff, but, you know, but that’s the number one question I’d want to know because whether it’s A, B, or C, they all do the same thing. In reality, they all do the same thing.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkSo Scott, it’s all about the commitment. Let’s talk about, you mentioned some of the developing technologies. Certainly the big buzzword in our industry, yours and mine, is artificial intelligence.A lot of companies are embedding that into their base record-keeping platform. But how do you decide whether or not to go out and develop it yourself or to acquire another company in order to bring it in? Because that’s a big decision.Either way, that’s a big commitment to buy or to develop.Scott Parry, Wealth Fintech ExecutiveYeah, that’s a good question. I mean, it depends on what record-keepers you’re talking about. I think most of the smaller record-keepers, they’re not going to have the money to do this on their own.They’re going to need to basically take, you know, take what’s available in the marketplace. If you’re a large company, you’re Fidelity or, you know, some of the larger ones, Empower, maybe you’ve got the capital to build your own, you know, AI tools. But, you know, I think we’re in the infancy of AI.We don’t really know where it’s going to go and who’s going to be the players to survive and whether they’re going to care about what we do. I think what’s, I did a consulting assignment last year, actually, in the pharmaceutical area. And there was some very cool stuff going on with AI companies building AI tools for specific, like for mental health.You could literally call an 800 number if you were having a mental health crisis and you could talk to somebody who you thought was real. And it was a complete AI bot that was asking you questions about how are you feeling? Are you feeling suicidal?Look, all this stuff. And you could say, that’s the last person I’d want to talk to if I’m having a mental health crisis. But the reality is, is trying to get a mental health counselor at 2 a.m. if you’re having a crisis is not so easy, right? And do you want to go to the emergency room? So, that’s a product that was built by, in that industry to be very specific to that particular mental health industry for sort of a real-time kind of emergency care kind of thing. So, the question is, what are the opportunities in the retirement space?I mean, clearly, when I was running Relias, we didn’t call it AI at the time, we called it intelligent workflow. But we built a tool at Relias that allowed you to do distribution. So, we had one client that went from six full-time employees down to two full-time employees because we built intelligence into the distribution process where basically it could dive into the technology, into the database and see, all right, are you in a term status?Yes, you’re in a term status. Okay, go to the next step. Do you have this available to you?Yes, you do. Okay, and then basically, they were just managing exceptions that got kicked out of the intelligent workflow because there wasn’t enough data on that particular person’s process. But if it went through the entire system and every question was checked, it just processed the distribution without any human involvement.So, I’m sure that’s a good example of what AI can do, but also, look, call center, like AI is really big in call centers. I just described an example in the mental health industry. So, clearly, the retirement game, record-keeping game’s about profit margins, it’s about reducing labor.If AI can help reduce labor and processing distributions, I know, like in the trust space, it’s about reconciliation. It’s about post-trade reconciliation. Can the AI be intelligently built to do post-trade reconciliations?That kind of stuff, I think, can certainly cut back on the number of people where they’re just processing exceptions, not actually processing reconciliation. So, I think there’s a lot of opportunity to reduce headcount, which is really what AI is. Unfortunately for people who need jobs, that’s what AI is all about.I do think there’s opportunity in that space to do it. Where it is right now, I don’t exactly know, but I think there’s certainly opportunity.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkYeah, well, the thing about AI, or at least today’s AI, I guess, apparently, it learns. So, it’s gonna be growing exponentially and probably changing. Scott, how have today’s chief technology officers had to adapt?So, we’ve talked about, you have to know the commitment of your partner, the technology firm that you’re partnering with. But you also have to have a whole bunch of different skills to be that CTO, to be that person to help drive innovation at your company, at your record-keeping company. It’s an evolved role.It’s no longer just, hey, how does technology plug and play? You’re doing a lot more.Scott Parry, Wealth Fintech ExecutiveWell, if you have a CTO, you’re probably a pretty good-sized firm. So, I don’t think most small record-keepers would have a CTO role, per se. When I was a CTO at Citizens Wealth, for me, it was about prioritizing.I had 20 people asking me for stuff all day long. So, we built a whole process to sort of prioritize what was gonna get done. We only had a certain amount of resources to do what we wanted to do.And we would prioritize things by revenue opportunity, cost savings opportunity. So, that was for me to understand, I got 100 requests. I can only get 20 done this quarter.Like, okay. And you can’t be negotiating, sort of people buying you dinner to get you to do their thing. No, you can’t do that.You have to have a real facts-based, numbers-based, is it gonna add revenue, or is it gonna save costs, reduce costs somehow? Those were big drivers. So, that’s important.And once again, getting back to your vendors, when I was in that role, I had 110 different solutions that I was responsible for, were all working from investment, which was probably our biggest relationship, which was millions of dollars per year to investment, down to, we moved from SCI to InnoVest for trust systems. So, it’s about managing your vendors, really. Once again, who’s gonna be staying on top of stuff?Who’s investing? And by the way, SCI went through a huge change from their old Trust 3000 to their new wealth management platform. Didn’t go so well, right?So, not just that they’re investing, but did they do a good job? Are they really hitting on all cylinders in terms of building and designing what they’re trying to do? And how much work is it gonna be for you to move from one system to the next?If it’s got a completely new system that you’re gonna have to retrain everybody, this is what we did. It’s like, well, we’re gonna have to retrain everybody. Let’s go out to bid.Let’s just see who else is out in the market. We ended up leaving SCI and going to InnoTrust and InnoVest, which is now an SS&C company. So, for me as a CTO, it was really, once again, who are your vendors?What’s their commitment? What are the priorities? How much resources do you have?What can you get done this quarter versus next quarter? Who are you listening to? Clients, what’s the technology you’re actually using for project management?We have some really cool, there’s a cool piece of technology called AHA, A-H-A, which is for project management. It’s great. Actually, I can build a website for my client.If they wanted any requests, they just go to the website, they just put in, we’d like to have this done. It would automatically insert it into the queue. And then we’d score it based on whether it was a high priority or low priority.And then we would basically run our scrum teams based on what was coming out of those priorities, basically coming out of AHA. Nice piece of technology, actually. We really enjoy using it.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkYeah, the only AHA I know is the song Cake on me. Anyway, and I know you’re a magician because I can see the, I don’t know why I brought that up, but I can see the guitars behind you. Last question, we’ve got about two minutes left.Let me ask you about consolidation. So we just, the day we’re doing this conversation, there was an announced merger between two big insurance companies merging together. So we continue to see consolidation in the retirement industry.What does that mean long-term for things like technology? Do you get the best of both worlds when you bring those two companies together? There’s one less retirement company out there now.Scott Parry, Wealth Fintech ExecutiveWell, that was kind of a nightmare as a vendor because you’re losing clients, right? You’re watching your client base drain away just through mergers, right? And also if they have two different solutions, like if they’re using Relias in one division and the other business is using Trap, they’re gonna make a decision.Let’s hope they make the right one for you. So that’s not always a great thing for the vendors. From the provider point of view, yeah, you’ve got, it’s also complicated because now you’ve got a, I’ve actually been asked, talking to a firm about coming in to be a project manager for two banks that have merged and they have two different trust departments and one’s on one FIS trust system, the other is on another FIS trust system, which I used to run both those businesses.So they’re talking to me, well, I have some knowledge about them, about what would be the best system to be on. And my answer might be go to a different company. But there’s complexity in that, right?So it gets complex. Like what’s, one bank has a huge trust department on one system. Another bank has a smaller trust system on another system.Well, who’s got the better operation? About the people, who’s got a better team? And they know that one system.And maybe it’s not the best system, but they know it and getting them to change is gonna be difficult. Obviously you’ve gotta do a migration from one system to the other. Hopefully your vendor will help you do that.So there’s a lot in those. When I was at Citizens and the CTO at Citizens, we acquired a registered investment advisory firm and we took probably two years to basically integrate that RIA into the citizen’s infrastructure from the most basic like email, right? To like secure, like a small RIA doesn’t have as high security as a massive bank, right?So, we found they were using a piece of software that was coming out of Moscow and they’re like, oh, it’s great. I was like, okay, that’s great. But Citizens can’t be using, have a vendor that’s based in Moscow.It’s just not gonna go well, right?Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkSo- Yeah, I can’t see the state departments. I couldn’t see the state department signing up for that, at least in today’s environment.Scott Parry, Wealth Fintech ExecutiveMaybe back then, maybe, but- Their biggest thing was, well, the FBI uses this technology. I was like, that’s not a good thing.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkYeah, that’s, I don’t know if I would base everything on the FBI. God, clearly it’s an evolving world. There’s a lot of technology.There’s a lot on people’s shoulders in terms of evaluating the technology. Look, we’re not gonna be able to get to every detail today, but I hope that you will come back again very soon. And look, we’ll continue the conversation.Scott Parry, Wealth Fintech ExecutiveYeah, no, there’s a lot to talk about. There’s definitely, there’s more to talk about with mergers because there’s different, and what’s going on in the industry, right? People are selling, they’re merging, they’re just getting out, they’re closing down, they’re outsourcing.FIS was a huge on outsourcing, trying to get firms to basically offload their operations folks. And so there’s definitely ways to stay in the business if you want to versus just selling like Prudential did or like Mass Mutual did. Love to have that conversation as well because there’s certainly a size that makes sense.We try to do outsourcing in Relias. It didn’t quite work. Worked great for the Omni clients.So there’s certainly a size difference that makes sense. I’d love to come back and talk about that as well. I’m sorry, they were doing lawn maintenance as we were talking.So if you heard any background noise, it was the blowers out there.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkNo, we did not hear it, but I hope the blowers did a good job and your house looks great. Great to talk to you. And look, we look forward to having you back again very soon, sir.Scott Parry, Wealth Fintech ExecutiveGreat, thank you, Jeffrey.

Softr, the Berlin-based no-code platform used by more than one million builders and 7,000 organizations including Netflix, Google, and Stripe, today launched what it calls an AI-native platform — a bet that the explosive growth of AI-powered app creation tools has produced a market full of impressive demos but very little production-ready business software.The company’s new AI Co-Builder lets non-technical users describe in plain language the software they need, and the platform generates a fully integrated system — database, user interface, permissions, and business logic included — connected and ready for real-world deployment immediately. The move marks a fundamental evolution for a company that spent five years building a no-code business before layering AI on top of what it describes as a proven infrastructure of constrained, pre-built building blocks.”Most AI app-builders stop at the shiny demo stage,” Softr Co-Founder and CEO Mariam Hakobyan told VentureBeat in an exclusive interview ahead of the launch. “A lot of the time, people generate calculators, landing pages, and websites — and there are a huge number of use cases for those. But there is no actual business application builder, which has completely different needs.”The announcement arrives at a moment when the AI app-building market finds itself at an inflection point. A wave of so-called “vibe coding” platforms — tools like Lovable, Bolt, and Replit that generate application code from natural language prompts — have captured developer mindshare and venture capital over the past 18 months. But Hakobyan argues those tools fundamentally misserve the audience Softr is chasing: the estimated billions of non-technical business users inside companies who need custom operational software but lack the skills to maintain AI-generated code when it inevitably breaks.Why AI-generated app prototypes keep failing when real business data is involvedThe core tension Softr is trying to resolve is one that has plagued the AI app-building category since its inception: the gap between what looks good in a demo and what actually works when real users, real data, and real security requirements enter the picture.Business software — client portals, CRMs, internal operational tools, inventory management systems — requires authentication, role-based permissions, database integrity, and workflow automation that must function reliably every single time. When an AI-generated prototype fails in these areas, fixing it typically requires a developer, which defeats the purpose of the no-code promise entirely.”One prompt might break 10 previous steps that you’ve already completed,” Hakobyan said, describing the experience non-technical users face on vibe coding platforms. “You keep prompting, keep trying to fix errors that the AI generated, and you end up maintaining something you didn’t even sign up for in the first place.”This critique targets a real structural limitation in how many AI app builders work today. Platforms that fully rely on AI to generate application code from scratch leave users with a codebase they cannot read, debug, or maintain without technical expertise. To connect those generated apps to real databases, login systems, or third-party services, users often must integrate tools like Supabase and make API calls — tasks that effectively require them to become developers. Softr’s position is that these platforms have replaced one form of coding with another, swapping programming languages for English-language prompts that carry all the same fragility.How Softr’s building block architecture avoids the hallucination problem that plagues AI code generatorsRather than generating raw code, Softr’s platform uses what Hakobyan describes as “proven and structured building blocks” — pre-built components for standard application functions like Kanban boards, list views, tables, user authentication, and permissions. The AI interprets a user’s requirements, guides them through targeted questions about login functionality, permission types, and user roles, then assembles these tested building blocks in a constrained, intelligent way. Only when a user requests functionality that falls outside the standard 80% covered by these blocks does the system build a custom component with AI.”It basically never hallucinates, because it’s all built on an infrastructure that’s secure and constrained,” Hakobyan explained. “It doesn’t generate code or leave you with code, because underneath, it uses our existing building block model.”The result is not a code repository. It is a live application running on Softr’s infrastructure, with a visual editor that users can continue to modify — either by prompting the AI further or by directly manipulating the no-code interface. This dual-editing model is a deliberate design decision that Hakobyan frames as the platform’s core differentiator. “It almost combines the best of both worlds of AI and no code, and really lets users to either continue iterating with AI or then continue working with the app visually, which is much simpler and easier and for them to have control,” she said.Core platform foundations — authentication, user roles, permissions, hosting, and SSL — are built in from the start, eliminating what Hakobyan calls the “blank canvas problem” that plagues vibe coding platforms, where every user must architect fundamental application infrastructure from scratch via prompts. The platform uses a SaaS subscription pricing model, with each plan including a set number of AI credits and the option to purchase more — though the visual editor means users don’t always need to consume credits, since direct manipulation of the no-code interface is often faster and more precise.Inside the five-year journey from Airtable interface to profitable AI-native platformSoftr’s journey to this moment has been a gradual, disciplined expansion that stands in contrast to the rapid fundraising cycles common among AI startups. The company launched in 2020 as a no-code interface layer on top of Airtable, the popular enterprise database product. Co-founded by Armenian entrepreneurs Hakobyan and CTO Artur Mkrtchyan, the startup raised a $2.2 million seed round in early 2021 led by Atlantic Labs, followed by a $13.5 million Series A in January 2022 led by FirstMark Capital.What happened next is notable for its restraint. Softr has not raised additional capital since that 2022 Series A. Instead, it has grown to profitability. “We have been profitable for the past whole year, and we’re about 50 people team,” Hakobyan told VentureBeat. “We have grown to eight-digit revenue fully PLG, no sales team, mostly through word of mouth, organic growth.”That financial profile — eight-figure annual revenue, profitable, 50 employees, no sales team — is striking in a market where many AI-powered competitors are spending heavily to acquire users. Over the past year, the company has steadily expanded its technical capabilities, moving beyond its original Airtable dependency to support Google Sheets, Notion, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, and other databases.In February 2025, TechCrunch reported on this expansion, with Hakobyan explaining that many potential customers had “data scattered across many different tools” and needed a single platform to unify that fragmented infrastructure. Today, Softr offers 15-plus native integrations with external databases, plus a REST API connector for additional data sources. The new AI Co-Builder represents the culmination of this multi-year evolution — combining the building block architecture, the broad data integration layer, and a new AI interface into a single platform for business application creation.How Softr positions itself against both no-code incumbents and vibe coding startupsSoftr’s launch lands in a rapidly fragmenting competitive landscape, and Hakobyan is deliberate about where she draws the lines. On one side sit traditional no-code platforms like Bubble, which offer deep customization and design freedom but require users to build everything from scratch — database schemas, pixel-level layouts, authentication systems — creating a steeper learning curve. A TechRadar review noted that while Softr’s blocks don’t offer the same design freedom as Bubble, the platform’s simplicity makes it accessible to genuinely non-technical users. In a comparison published by Business Insider Africa in June, Softr was characterized as offering “minimal learning curve, especially for internal or web-based tools,” though with limitations in scalability for more complex applications.On the other side sit the AI-first code generation tools that Hakobyan views as fundamentally misaligned with business software requirements. “Before people were coding, then they were coding through APIs, now they are coding almost through a human language interface, right, just by with English,” Hakobyan said. “But what Softr does is fundamentally different. It abstracts all of that and makes the creation simple.”She also distinguishes Softr from developer-focused AI coding assistants like Anthropic’s Claude Code, positioning those as tools that make professional developers more efficient rather than tools that enable non-developers to build software.”There are amazing tools for developers — that’s great. The target audience is developers,” Hakobyan acknowledged. Instead, Softr targets a specific and potentially enormous market: businesses that need custom internal and external-facing operational tools and currently rely on spreadsheets, email, or rigid off-the-shelf software that doesn’t match their actual processes. Hakobyan described use cases ranging from asset production workflows for film companies — where internal teams, external agencies, and approvers interact across a multi-stage process — to lightweight CRM replacements for teams that don’t need the full complexity of Salesforce. “There’s not even a vertical solution for this type of process,” she said. “It’s very custom to each organization.”What Netflix, Google, and thousands of non-tech companies actually build on the platformMany of Softr’s highest-profile customers — Netflix, Google, Stripe, UPS — were using the platform before the AI Co-Builder even existed, building on the company’s original no-code foundation. But the user base extends far beyond Silicon Valley. Non-tech organizations in real estate, manufacturing, and logistics represent a significant portion of Softr’s customer base — companies that often still manage core processes with pen, paper, and spreadsheets.”A lot of these companies — you might think they already have the solutions, but they don’t,” Hakobyan noted. “In tech companies, most of the time, CRM and project management tools are already established. But most of our customers are using Softr for internal operational tooling or workflow tooling, where the use case involves lots of different departments and even external parties.”The company is SOC 2 (Type II) compliant and GDPR compliant, with additional compliance capabilities in development. Hakobyan noted that auditing and governance functionality can be built directly into applications using the platform’s database and workflow tools, with a native logging and auditing system expected to ship in the near term. Softr’s billion-user ambition and the Canva analogy that explains its strategySoftr’s stated mission — to empower billions of business users to create production-ready software — is audacious, but Hakobyan frames the AI Co-Builder launch as a fundamental acceleration of the trajectory the company has been on for five years. “Everything people would have to spend hours doing is done within five minutes,” she said. “And obviously that helps more people to actually build real software.”The company plans to layer a product-led sales motion on top of its existing PLG engine, targeting larger enterprise customers with higher average contract values. This represents a deliberate strategic expansion from the small and mid-sized businesses that have formed Softr’s core customer base — a segment that TechCrunch identified as natural Softr customers as far back as the company’s 2022 Series A, given that those firms are most likely to be priced out of the competitive developer market.Hakobyan draws an analogy that has apparently become common among the company’s users: Softr as “Canva for web apps.” Just as Canva made professional design accessible to non-designers, Softr aims to make business software creation accessible to non-developers. Whether the company can translate its disciplined growth and profitable foundation into a platform that genuinely serves that enormous addressable market remains to be seen. Softr faces intensifying competition from both traditional no-code incumbents adding AI capabilities and well-funded AI-native startups approaching the problem from the code-generation side.But Softr enters this next phase with advantages that many competitors lack: a profitable business, a million-user base already shipping production software, and an architectural approach that treats AI as an accelerant layered on top of proven infrastructure rather than an unpredictable replacement for it. “No code alone had its own problems, and AI alone also just can’t do the job,” Hakobyan said. “The combination is what’s going to be making it really powerful.”For the past five years, Softr bet that the hardest part of software wasn’t writing the code — it was getting the databases, permissions, and business logic right. Now the company is betting that in the age of AI, that conviction matters more than ever. The millions of business users who have never written a line of code but desperately need custom software are about to find out whether Softr is right.

Your day-ahead look for March 31, 2026

The research shows quantum computers may break bitcoin and ether wallet encryption with far fewer qubits than previously thought, accelerating the push toward post-quantum security.

Fast fashion remains one of the most dominant segments in global apparel retail, driven by growing consumer demand for trend-driven styles at accessible price points. However, the category is undergoing a significant shift as rising operating costs, changing consumer behavior, and the rapid expansion of e-commerce reshape the competitive landscape.In particular, digital-first platforms like Shein and Temu have accelerated disruption across the sector. Their ability to offer vast assortments of ultra-low-priced products, supported by their highly efficient supply chains, has allowed these companies to rapidly capture market share among price-sensitive consumers. In response, the H&M Group is accelerating a multi-year strategy, continuing to reduce its physical footprint in 2026 after closing hundreds of locations in 2025. H&M accelerates store closures as part of a global restructuringFounded in 1947, H&M Group (HNNMY) operates in more than 80 markets, with online sales in over 60 of them. Its portfolio includes brands such as H&M, COS, Weekday, Cheap Monday, Monki, & Other Stories, Arket, Singular Society, and Sellpy.Last year, H&M announced plans to close around 200 locations globally by the end of 2025, mainly in established markets as part of a broader strategy to optimize its store portfolio in response to evolving consumer demand, according to its second-quarter fiscal 2025 earnings report. H&M noted that it regularly evaluates its retail footprint and can renegotiate or exit about one-third of its leases annually. This flexibility allows the company to allocate capital toward higher-performing stores through refurbishments, relocations, and format adjustments, as well as make digital investments.Store optimization is designed to improve margins by increasing sales productivity per square foot while reducing costs tied to excess inventory, staff, and markdown activity.That strategy has now extended into 2026.In January, H&M closed two stores in New York City, affecting 62 employees, according to WARN filings. By late February, the company had filed an additional WARN notice indicating a planned statewide layoff impacting 181 workers, though no timeline has been disclosed.

H&M confirms more closures in 2026.Shutterstock

H&M faces sales declines amid location shutdownsWhile these closures are intended to improve long-term efficiency, they have had a near-term impact on sales performance.In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, H&M reported a 1% year-over-year decline in net sales in local currencies, citing a 4% reduction in store count as a contributing factor.Overall, H&M reduced its global footprint by 163 locations, bringing the total to 4,050 stores. While this contraction weighed on revenue, the company emphasized that portfolio optimization is expected to strengthen operational efficiency and profitability over time.”The optimisation of the store portfolio has had a somewhat negative impact on sales in the first quarter of 2026 due to store closures and rebuilds,” said H&M in the earnings report. “For full-year 2026, however, the sales effect from store optimisation is expected to be slightly positive.”H&M also projects March 2026 sales to increase by 1% year over year, suggesting the strategy may be stabilizing performance.H&M’s shift to omnichannel retailA key driver behind H&M’s restructuring is the continued rise of e-commerce, which now accounts for more than 30% of its total sales. This shift is forcing retailers to rethink the role of physical stores, not as primary channels, but as part of a broader ecosystem. “Customers want to be inspired and have products available so that they can shop where, when and how they choose – in the stores, on the brands’ own websites, on digital marketplaces and on social media,” said H&M.For H&M, this means fewer but more strategically located stores and increased investments in digital channels to meet evolving consumer expectations. Industry trends support H&M’s new strategyH&M’s transformation aligns with broader retail trends.The global e-commerce market was valued at $25.93 trillion in 2023 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.9%, reaching $83.26 trillion by 2030, according to Grand View Research. Industry experts highlight that success in this environment increasingly depends on customer-centric strategies.”Digital commerce doesn’t look the same as it did when it began,” said Forbes Business Strategy and Growth Expert John Hall. “Improvements in logistics, online platforms, personalization, and marketing continue to drive the industry forward. Brands that are succeeding are putting customer experiences at the center of dynamic strategies, constantly adapting to the digital landscape.”Coverage on more retail store closures:125-year-old retail chain to close more stores in 202648-year-old nostalgic mall retailer will close 25 stores in 202677-year-old jewelry giant will close 100 stores, shut 2 brandsStill, physical retail remains the preferred format for most consumers.Brick-and-mortar stores accounted for approximately $14.4 trillion of total retail sales of $18.9 trillion in 2025, significantly outpacing e-commerce, according to Euromonitor research gathered by EY.”It’s clear that the physical store still plays an important role,” said EY Retail Analysts Malin Andrée and Jon Copestake. “Not only do stores have plenty of runway left in delivering revenue, but they also have opportunities to drive new growth and alternative revenue streams and, by working in tandem with digital channels, they can maximize returns on investment.”H&M store closures and openings in 2026Looking ahead, H&M plans to open around 80 new stores and close roughly 160 locations in 2026.Most new locations are expected to open in growth markets, while closures will continue to focus on underperforming or saturated regions. The company is also expanding its digital presence into new markets and sales channels.Store counts during Q1 2026Total stores: 4,050New openings: 17Closures: 68For H&M, the success of this transition will depend on its ability to balance short-term sales declines with long-term margin improvement while competing against newer e-commerce rivals and their ultra-low prices.The company’s restructuring shows that, in today’s retail environment, scale alone is no longer a competitive advantage for capturing consumer share. Execution, efficiency, and customer experience have become the new measures of success.Related: 106-year-old retail brand operator closing all stores in bankruptcy

Strategists lowered their rating on global stocks while saying investors should hold onto more cash and U.S. Treasury securities.

“Be Your Own Sultan: The Transformative Power of Redefining Wealth” by Sultan Sobhi Batterjee is released with Forbes Books.

JBS meat packing workers in Greeley, Colorado have been on strike since March 16th, the first such strike in 40 years.

“We have no experience with Treasurys .”

Bitcoin’s brief rally faded amid war-driven oil price surge, rising volatility and declining futures interest, signaling growing caution across crypto markets.