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THEME 2016

Connected Retail: The New World Order

By end of 2016, connected retail is expected to influence 44% of retail sales.*

Built on the pillars of innovation, convenience and engagement, Connected Retail seeks to offer fully-integrated, digitally enhanced, personalised in-store experiences that engage customers at the intersection of the virtual and digital world.

This is done by integrating channels and optimising all business processes including sourcing, HR, supply chain, operations, payments and marketing.

Connected Retail offers retailers the opportunity to digitally enhance immediacy, control, convenience, touch-and-feel and face-to-face interactions — key factors that form a store’s core strengths.

However, connected retail demands a fundamental and enterprise-wide transformation in the current operating model. New systems will have to be put in place, new priorities set and new job roles defined – all centred on the customer.

Connected Retail is undoubtedly The New World Order and therefore the focus of Retail Leadership Summit 2016.

*Forrester

RLS 2015

RLS 2014

RLS 2013

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Author: Robert Gordon

Author: David Crystal

Author: Adam Grant

Publisher: Viking

Comments: Adam Grant from Wharton School, addresses the challenge of improving the world, from the perspective of becoming original: choosing to champion novel ideas and values that go against the grain, battle conformity, and buck outdated traditions. How can we originate new ideas, policies, and practices without risking it all? He tells surprising stories from different areas of life which explore how to recognise a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act and manage fear and doubt. He looks at how parents and teachers can nurture originality in children, and how leaders can build cultures that welcome dissent. Specific examples inlude Apple, the CIA, Finance and TV.

Author: Alan Lewis and Dan McKone

Author: Sydney Finkelstein

Author: Emma McClendon

Author: Joshua Cooper Ramo

Author: Alan Treadgold and Jonathan Reynolds

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Author: Vijay Govindarajan

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press

Comments:Probably one of the classics in management theory about innovation, The Three Box Solution develops Harvard Professor Govindarajan’s idea that, in order to innovate, companies need to create a separate innovation team; nevertheless linked to the core business; and evaluated not in terms of financial metrics but in terms of its ability to test assumptions about the future. Box 1 is about managing the present. It is about competing for the present through incremental measures and is about closing the performance gap. Boxes 2 and 3 are about selectively forgetting the past and creating the future. They are therefore about competing for the future by responding to weak and non-linear signals to develop new business models and new customers. This is about closing the possibility gap. Each of the two areas must benefit from separate resources which need to be ring-fenced so that, when times get tough, the creation of the future is not jeopardised.

watch him

See also The Day after Tomorrow: how to survive in times of radical innovation by Peter Hinssen

and Dealing with Darwin: how great companies innovate at every stage of their evolution by Geoffrey A. Moore

Author: Klaus Schwab

Attracting and engaging tomorrow's consumers How can retailers create winning customer experiences in a digital age?

Organisational change and leadership

The consumer is constantly transforming and you must keep up. How can you build innovation from within? How can you build a more agile organisation that can keep pace with the change ?

Customer experience

From technology to the people who sell your products, making your customer (your guest) feel special has never been more important. What strategies fly or fail? Who is winning and why?

Disruption and innovation

Who is doing what differently and why does it work? From young entrepreneurs making waves in retail and related industries, to established brands revising their business and customer engagement models – the Congress is dedicated to shaking up your thinking.

Engaging with your consumer

How do you talk to your customer across marketing, advertising and social media? How should you be?

International expansion

Conquering the world is no easy feat, but it can be easier. What can be learned from the battles won and lost by retailers around the globe who continue to expand?

New markets (and old)

Iran and parts of Asia and Africa hold exciting retail potential, while the way the BRICs need to be approached is changing. Get to grips with the entry challenges and opportunities in these markets.

Future-gazing: What’s next?

From the way consumers will shop, to mobile use and shifting demographics – what is on the horizon for retail?

Author: Afdhel Aziz & Bobby Jones

Publisher: Regan Arts

Comments:We have been talking for a long time about the new marketing model. This book is a contribution to that debate. Millennials and Gen Z no longer trust advertising. While they still insist on cutting-edge products, they demand increased social responsibility from their brands. Brands have always had to be cool. Now they also need to be good. The authors, both from marketing, use a provocative and street-wise style to critique conventional marketing to advocate creating a new model in which great marketing optimises life. They use insights and interviews with Zappos, Citibank, The Honest Company, as well as Lady Gaga, Pharell and Justin Bieber. The latest manifestation of conscious capitalism.

Author: Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind

Author: Catherine J. Turco

Author: Alex Moazed and Nicholas L. Johnson