What: The Financial Times welcomed the audience to London with all panels and speakers focusing on the subject of Sustainability, Innovation & Customer-centricity

Why it is important: The point of the conference was to examine how the retail industry has fared following a period of high inflation, rising energy prices, a cost of living crisis and ongoing geopolitical volatility.

Financial Times Future of Retail 2023

What: GDI held the 72nd International Retail Sumbit in Zurich to discuss flow commerce and how shifting the boundaries is reshaping retail.

Why it is important: Smooth process flows have never been as important as they are now. Yet they have also never been as challenging. How does commerce stay in flux? A new poker for procurement has begun; new bets are being made on customer preferences.

GDI 72nd International Retail Summit 

Author: Richard Thaler, Cass Sunstein, Penguin Books

What: The Nudge theory, which was released in 2008 and adopted by many regulators across the planet, has been updated by its authors and applied to contemporary issues, among which the climate change.

Why it is important: Retailers already used nudging techniques in the past without labelling them as such. Having a clear and complete understanding of what it entails and how it works can help them to fine-tune their approach and potentially apply these techniques to encourage customers to buy in a more sustainable manner.

Nudge, the Final Edition

Author: David Fubini, Wiley

What: A very practical, exemplified and detailed set of advice for CEOs based on the experience of a seasoned McKinsey executive.

Why it is important:  Unlike many management manuals, this book tries to go behind the scene thanks to an impressive set of real-life examples of CEOs that the author has worked with in the past. As a result, the reading is extremely enjoyable, in addition to being crystal-clear and full of great ideas for anyone interesting in team management.

Hidden truths, what leaders need to hear but are rarely told

Author: Yves Morieux, Peter Tollman, Harvard Business Review Press

What: A new approach to complexity in organizations, based on “smart simplicity”

Why it is important:  It is easy to answer to the world’s increasing complexity by more “complicatedness” in organisations. Reviewing the organisations from IADS’ members and their evolution in the 2021 White Paper is a living proof of this easy temptation. The authors argue that actually, it is possible to achieve more, and better, by simplifying the structures, based on the knowledge that every human behaviour has a strategy. Understanding and leveraging this strategy is therefore crucial in order to simplify organisations.

Six Simple Rules, how to manage complexity without getting complicated

What: Key learnings and speakers from Shoptalk according to The Retail Bulletin.

Why it is important: Shoptalk is an interesting conference for anyone interested or involved in retail tech.

The Retail Bulletin takes stock of the most important themes discussed during the London edition of Shoptalk, that was held at the same time than the IGDS conference in Seattle in June 2022. They identified that personalization, building out eco-systems, autonomous deliveries and rich shopper engagement where the key topics this year.

Ahold Delhaize discussed about ecosystems by mentioning how they are merging the data from their food and nonfood customers (something that El Corte Ingles already does well), in order to provide them with easy checkout processes across all channels. Ahold Delhaize also announced the launch of a joint retail media service solution, as well as joint logistics.

Alibaba explained that they were accelerating in autonomous deliveries, with the Xiaomanlv, a logistics robot entirely developed in-house, able to deliver 50 packages at a time. They also discussed the success of their streaming operations on Taobao and how they are able to increase the customer engagement.

Learnings from Shoptalk 

Retailing from the outside-in

The IGDS has held its first annual department store summit since the ease of the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic, in Seattle, USA, with the support of Nordstrom. The IADS attended the whole event and made a selection of interesting conferences for its members.

IGDS 7th Global Department Store Summit

What: At the annual Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen, fashion leaders gathered to discuss circularity, carbon, community, and pre-competitive collaboration.

Why it is important: The overlying message that came from the conference was that the industry needs to work together in order to make any progress.

Individual goals are a great start to approaching sustainability topics, but the industry is limited on how much progress can be made without more collaboration among players. The industry does have several alliances at play, but they are disjointed like The Fashion Pact and the UN Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action.

The Global Fashion Agenda shared the GFA Monitor which is a new report to guide fashion brands towards a net positive industry. GFA also unveiled the Global Circular Fashion Forum, a global initiative to scale the recycling of post-industrial textile waste in textile manufacturing countries. Supply chain transparency and traceability platform TrusTrace released an open-source traceability playbook in collaboration with campaigning organization Fashion Revolution and Amsterdam-based change agency Fashion for Good.

The conference was the opportunity for several major fashion brands to introduce new business models; a common thread was the concept of “timeless design” that is no longer seasonal as a sustainability solution.

While collaboration and exciting progress and announcements were greatly highlighted at the conference, there seemed to be some criticism about the lack of conflict between panelists on stage, remarking that collaboration often involves difficult conversations.

Key takeaways from the Global Fashion Summit: More diversity, more collaboration

What: The webinar covers how brands can future-proof their business models and what the future of sustainability will look like for the fashion industry.

Why it is important: Fashion is under pressure to improve its environmental and social footprint as problems including climate change and global inequality worsen, and expectations from investors and consumers are higher than ever. Some of the steepest challenges for fashion — such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions and cutting down on garment waste — are at odds with its conventional business model, which depends on increasing production and sales of new items.

Vogue Business Sustainability Forum: Fashion’s next sustainability chapter

What: The FT Climate Capital Live 2022 is a platform for politicians, business leaders and financiers to evaluate the risks and opportunities they face in light of the climate crisis.

Why it is important: The conference provided actionable insights on how regulatory changes, business strategies and innovative financing structures are moving the world forward to achieve net-zero goals and rapidly reduce GHG emissions through action rather than talk.

Financial Times Climate Capital Conference 

Author: Steve Dennis

What: In its first part, the book offers a comprehensive review of the current and changing retail landscape, advocating for branding over store closing. In its second part, the author gets more practical and suggests a method (a compass more than a map) and priorities for retailers to rethink their business taking into account the interweaved stores and e-commerce, and the necessary ingredients to make a store memorable.

Why it is important: Retail is not dead but boring retail is. While it is now obvious that retailers have to change, the problem is that they used to think they have time. While Covid accelerated the need for change, the author sets 8 paths to reach remarkable retail with the idea that experimenting, trying – and failing – is the best, if not the only way to succeed.

Book review: Remarkable Retail

What:  The Robin Report’s take on what to remember from the NRF.

Why it is important:  This year, innovation is not all at all about investing in new tech or new equipment, but smartly utilizing and upgrading the existing one, to optimize capex investments.

Gwen Morrison, former CEO of WPP and partner with Candezant Advisory, gives her views from the NRF Big show that took place earlier this month (and which we also reported). From her point of view, the lack of enthusiasm from big players (be them solution-providers or retailers themselves) left more room for smaller, younger innovators, as clearly visible in the innovation room, which was thriving, compared with the main exhibitor space which was more quiet.

When it comes to leadership she reports the speeches from Brian Cornell (CEO of Target) and Pete Nordstrom (President and Chief Brand Officer at Nordstrom), who both discussed about the supply chain, and the customer-centricity in the case of Target, or the efficiency of the right merchandising and price policy across channels for Nordstrom.

Among the innovations not to be missed, she mentions the metaverse, but more immediately applicable, also solutions allowing to optimize the physical space, not by investing in new equipment but by leveraging the existing one (for instance, by delivering special intelligence to existing security cameras, or adding the understanding of traffic trends in real time to store operators).

Regarding the 2022 NRF themes for the year, it is all about unified commerce, new shopping behaviours, purpose and values, and sustainability.

NRF, come and gone

What: Raynor de Best, Specialist Expert Financial Services & Real Estate at Statista, shared interesting insights about the topic of cryptocurrencies as it continues to develop as a trending topic facing businesses into 2022.

Why it is important: Cryptocurrencies, whilst not new, reached a new level of popularity in 2021 and increasingly got the attention of mainstream audiences across the world. NFTs accelerated this further, as they provide "real world" applications for these digital coins. One of these applications, the metaverse, could continue to grab headlines in 2022, along with China releasing its own digital currency during the 2022 Winter Olympics as a response to unregulated cryptocurrencies.

IADS Recap - The Cryptoverse - cryptocurrencies becoming mainstream

Statista presentation

What: Helene Valade, the director of environmental development for LVMH group, discusses the vision of luxe, how it looks and how it’s made concerning sustainability and reducing the LVMH carbon footprint.

Why it is important: As sustainability and reducing carbon footprints become more and more relevant to companies, it becomes important for luxury retail and fashion leaders to discover ways to lead in sustainability while continuing to inspire.

The Luxury of Engagement – Exceptional encounter with Hélène Valade of LVMH

What: A selection of interesting conferences that the IADS attended for the 2022 Retail Big Show held in New York.

Why it is important: We focused on 2 increasingly hot topics: sustainability, and digital (especially the Metaverse).

This non exhaustive selection of conferences that the IADS attended in New York includes:

• A conversation with the CEO of Target, Brian Cornell, who thinks that the most interesting outcome of the Covid-19 related crisis is the new corporate culture and cohesion that was created, and which is now an asset in the operations of the company,
• A exchange between the new NRF VP for Sustainability and the Senior Director for Sustainability at Walmart, on how to develop a sustainable mindset in companies. 2 hints: at the operational level, go for medium-range targets which are actionable, practical, and emphasize on the business advantages they will create. At the corporate level, consider implementing a Sustainable Board of Director composed of experts from outside the company, if not the industry
• A presentation of a selection of innovative concepts from GDR UK, where she talks about the store becoming increasingly a discovery and e-commerce fulfilment space, the “alt-commerce” replacing e-commerce, composed of entertainment, gamification, community, socialising and collaboration, and the Metaverse which could be very well a new channel,
• A presentation of the 8 top trends in retail as identified by Kantar
• A presentation on the promises of the Metaverse for retailers made by Wunderman Thompson Intellilgence where we have spotted an actionable and quick way for department stores to monetize their real estate assets: why not sell the “airspace” in stores for AR advertising, now that Shapchat has created Arcadia, a new division dedicated to this activity?

NRF big show 2022 - A selection of conferences

Retail Trends 2022

NRF Target CEO’s “vision” started long before pandemic

NRF Rothy’s and Walmart share insights on environmental sustainability in retail

Into The Metaverse

Challenges and promises of the Metaverse

The Robin Report: Nrf, come and gone

What: The webinar is the first of a four-part series that will analyze the outcomes of the recent Conference of the Parties (COP) climate change conference, highlight industry best practices, and outline potential net-zero and sustainability blind spots.

Why it is important: Sustainability keeps climbing higher on company agendas across the globe. Enterprise leaders must wrestle with wide-ranging stakeholder and policy interpretations about sustainable business operations and development.

Gartner Sustainability Strategy to Action

Watch the replay here

Author: Hubert Joly

What: The learnings of a seasoned CEO, who turned around the once-desperate Best Buy, about organisations, people and how to embark them into a new vision.

Why it is important: The book provides hands-on findings and lessons that can be applied quite easily, always with a larger strategical insight, but without the typical pathos and angelism usually found in books claiming to help CEOs to improve their organisations’ social skills.

Buy it on Amazon here: link

Book review The heart of business final

Former Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly Empowering Workers to Create ‘Magic’

What: A conference on how to use the Gartner Digital Disruption Toolkit to evaluate, track and plan for seven major disruptions.

Why it's important: As digital projects move from optimization to transformation, the ability to disrupt becomes critical. To cope with digital disruption, you must be able to recognize, prioritize and respond in the right way.

7 digital disruptions you might not see coming through 2025

Author:  Eswar S. Prasad

What: Prasad shows how these and other changes will redefine the very concept of money, unbundling its traditional functions as a unit of account, medium of exchange, and store of value. The promise lies in greater efficiency and flexibility, increased sensitivity to the needs of diverse consumers, and improved market access for the unbanked. The risk is instability, lack of accountability, and erosion of privacy. A lucid, visionary work, The Future of Money shows how to maximize the best and guard against the worst of what is to come.

Why it is important: We think we've seen financial innovation. We bank from laptops and buy coffee with the wave of a phone. But these are minor miracles compared with the dizzying experiments now underway around the globe, as businesses and governments alike embrace the possibilities of new financial technologies. As Eswar Prasad explains, the world of finance is at the threshold of major disruption that will affect corporations, bankers, states, and indeed all of us. The transformation of money will fundamentally rewrite how ordinary people live.

Book review The future of money

The Economist Finance is changing dramatically

Buy it on Amazon here: link

What: The meeting was organised online on 21 October to get an update from markets.

Why it is important: 27 retail associations from across the world attended the meeting to hear from NRF's chief economist and vice-president, Carrefour’s general secretary and EuroCommerce's general director. They shared various statistics and insights for participants to have a better understanding of the current globel economic situation, as well as an outlook for 2022.

FIRA meeting takeaways

FIRA Participant list

FIRA Meeting Minutes

Jack Kleinhenz

Mark Mathews 

EuroCommerce

What: Organized by Luxury Venture Group, the Luxury Innovation Summit is a learning and networking event for innovative start-ups and senior-level business and creative

professionals from the luxury and fashion industry.

Why it is important: The conference pulls together CEOs, directors, partners, and owners of luxury brands to discuss the next generation of the luxury and fashion industry.

Luxury Innovation Summit

What: Industry leaders share perspectives into how pandemic-induced changes in consumer behavior have created pressure on retail inventory and operations. The webinar covers how day-to-day operations are dramatically improved using item-level RFID and setting the foundation for a new era in retailing.

Why it is important: Dean Frew from SML interviews Johan Strenstom from Stadium about how they use RFID post-covid and what the technology is offering them.

How Item-Level RFID Provides Significant Value for Retailers By Improving Inventory Accuracy

What: The NRF NXT is a webinar series every Wednesday in September covering the future of digital retail.

Why it is important: This week’s topic covered the topic “Artificial intelligence for commerce –Separating the hype from the hip.

Watch replay here

Artificial intelligence for commerce – Separating the hype from the hip

What: Paris Retail Week presents the e-commerce sector, dedicated to solutions for e-merchants, from digital marketing to logistics.

Why it is important: IADS attended the event to listen to key speakers as well as scout out promising solutions for members.

Paris Retail Week