Category: Speaking
Keynote at Oracle OpenWorld London’s retail track
It was a pleasure to join Oracle again for a post-NRF round-up of what’s new and interesting in retail.
I spoke about my impressions of NRF, gave information on the store tour I ran, and also gave some highlights of the RetailX Top500 UK that we were about to publish…
You can see the Reports here (free access to Top500 retailers and members – contact membership@internetretailing.net if you can’t access).
HMV announced on 28 December, 2018 that they were appointing KPMG as administrators, following “a “tsunami” of retail challenges, including business rate levels and the move to digital”, according to Hilco, the restructuring group who rescued the retailer in 2013.
This is sad news for the retail sector, and for music-lovers who remember the age of dominance of HMV and Virgin Megastores (who at the time were challenging HMV as the ‘traditional giant’).
Hilco mention a ‘tsunami’ and I think that this is the key point. No one factor killed off HMV – not digital downloads, not rates, not changes in consumption and the music industry… Rather, these factors have all been accelerating and working in unison.
This is the inflexion point where a slope turns into a cliff.
I was invited to comment on the news both on Sky News and on LBC that evening and my clips are below.
For information, here’s the PDF case study from Hilco’s site to show how 5 years is a long time in retail, as well as to hope that there’ll be a further incarnation for HMV in 2019…
Speaking at NetcomSuisse’s “E-nnovation” event in Baden on “AI in multichannel retail”
It was a pleasure to travel to Baden (not far from Zurich) to present at the E-nnovation Week (https://e-nnovationweek.com/) event. Congratulations to Carlo Terreni and his team for putting on an impressive multitrack, multiday conference and expo.
I took as my theme the growing role of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in multichannel retail… what is it, what are the main elements and how can we use it. I focused on AI in image-recognition and looked at examples from shelf-edge scanners to custom tailoring; checkout-free stores to product search.
If you’d like a copy of the presentation or to discuss further then do let me know.
“Consumerism” Megatrend – a speech at the EU’s Joint Research Centre
I was invited to address the EU’s Joint Research Centre team as part of their series on Megatrends. I took as my theme the changes in consumerism and how they would affect not only retailers and consumption in the short term, but also the relationships between state, services, brands and commerce. It was a stimulating opportunity to take the last four years of IREU Top500 research, the ongoing changes and disruptions in our industry and place these in the context of social and scientific policy-making.
The JRC’s base is in Ispra, high in the mountains, on the site of a former nuclear research centre… The setting is very ‘James Bond’ – massive security (a well-dressed, very serious nuclear police force!) and then a campus that blends the look of a modern high school with a moonbase. I was expecting solid concrete blast doors but – although the reactor is still in use for research – the environment was serious rather than max security.
The welcome was exceptional and I was treated to a tour of the information centre where you could see not only the major workstream of the EU policymakers, but also the contributing science to assess and support those goals. It is a multidisciplinary and multinational place.
After my presentation I spent a couple of hours in the electric vehicle testing unit, seeing how electric cars are tested, safety is assured and the impact on the national grids are calculated. Not only is each vehicle charger tested for how it (alone and in concert) can affect the grid, but how the grid’s flux and stress will affect each one. I’ve attached a photo of one of the test rooms that checks for electro-magnetic emissions during charging, rest, load…
It was a fascinating day where I was met with enthusiasm, patience (as things were explained to me) and a clear passion for their role – ensuring that decision-making and policy are based on the very best evidential and practical base.
You can read more about the JRC on their rather understated website: https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/about/jrc-site/ispra.
I can’t share my slides but I will be digging into these themes in our webinar series to support the IREU Top500 throughout 2019.
Looking forward to speaking at the upcoming eCommerce Trends Poland. This will be the fourth time I’ve spoken at the NoNoobs-organised event and there’s always been a full house and lively discussion.This time I’m taking ‘competing with/alongside Amazon’ as my theme. Amazon is of interest to Polish merchants for both the growth opportunity and the threat. Even though Allegro.pl is a pan-European powerhouse of a marketplace, somehow the encroachment of Amazon is seen more as a threat. In my presentation I’ll look at the areas for merchants to sustain their independence, to work with Amazon and thrive in a multichannel world.
http://2017.ecommercetrends.pl/
