New York, April 2019.

If you missed this event, then you missed a real treat. The event brought together many of the leading industry thinkers, practitioners and technology innovators into a single location where ideas were freely shared for the benefit of furthering the industry and the customer experience. The conference was sold out, and the delegates had the chance to listen to, and engage with, C-level executives from some of retail’s most successful companies. The theme of the day focused on the challenges of creating an exciting and relevant unified experience across all the customer touchpoints. From in-store service innovations in the pet retail sector, to clientelling in womenswear and leveraging customer insights and forecast analytics in fast fashion, everyone was in agreement that their most successful initiatives had come from projects that gained a better understanding of the customer and how they wanted to interact with the brand.

There were painful truths in there as well. As Bill Gates said, “You learn the most from your unhappy customers”, the delegates were certainly honest about their struggles and challenges that still lay ahead in achieving their goals, and there was great advice from the leaders in the room on how to pull teams together and structure them to be successful.

The day had plenty of time for the delegates to network and connect with their peers, as well as to learn about the new innovations from the event sponsors and how their technologies are shaping the future of retail. Plus the hors d’oeuvres were delicious.

Keep in touch for the next events in this series. Hopefully, it won’t be a decade until the next one.