What: Tech for Retail offers a complete and relevant overview of digital tools and technological innovations dedicated to the retail industry.

Why it is important: The conference pulls together interesting companies and solutions that are showcased over two days. This year, IADS attended the salon in Paris to scout out the key trends and startups that could be of value to our members. We have recounted the major themes and companies that are offering solutions to these trends.

Tech for Retail

Themes 2015

![GDI 2015

The 65th International Retail Summit identifies the crucial challenges for tomorrow’s retail and answers questions like:

• What does Borderless Retail mean, and how does it work?
• What new products, services, and concepts are evolving at the interface of mobility, consumption, private and work life? How does robotization change retail?
• Which global consumer trends are relevant – and which ones aren’t?
• What start-ups are challenging traditional retailers?

Expect answers from industry giants and promising young entrepreneurs: Douglas Rushkoff, bestselling author and thought leader of the digitalized world, will hold the keynote speech. Food retail pioneer Oscar Farinetti, founder of Eataly, shows how to combine «local» and «global» successfully. Other big names include Andrew Parkinson (Operations Director FC Liverpool), André Maeder (CEO KaDeWe) oder Christophe Cornu (CCO Nespresso).

Author: Pietra Rivoli

Publisher: Wiley

Comments: *Pietra Rivoli is a professor of Finance and International Business at Georgetown University. Tracing a T-shirt's life story from a Texas cotton field to a Chinese factory and back to a US storefront before arriving at the used clothing market in Africa, the book uncovers the political and economic forces at work in the global economy. The story encounters a mix of market forces and protectionism and demonstrates the importance of globalisation to fashion, as well as how some countries have benefited from globalisation such as Taiwan and Japan, some have become less poor such as China and India, and how others have seen no benefits, mostly African countries.

The backlash against globalisation which started in the 1990s, has generalised. The main story now has become environmentalism and sustainability. And indeed with the current covid-19 pandemic, globalisation as a whole is being reassessed; which is why the author did not want to produce a third edition, in spite of the topic’s burning topicality.*

What: A series of testimonials from executives involved in managing transformation and making choices in terms of new KPIs to pilot their activity

Why it is important:  Digital transformation implies: