In which we spend time in the studio with Jamie de Cesare of Orlebar Brown and Annabel Thorn of Sweaty Betty.

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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.

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.

Thanks to the team at STEP for a great afternoon of digital discussion in Odense in September. They kindly did a video that sums up the sessions…https://www.instagram.com/p/BorFK3Iibas/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

It was my pleasure to open the Ometria Lifecycle conference with a keynote on ‘Connecting with the Connected Customer’ – one of my persistent themes, focused on how retailers and brands can connect effectively and profitably with demanding consumers. Taking insights from the IREU Top500 I looked at 6 challenges that retailers need to overcome in order to succeed.Congratulations to Ometria on a full house, great organisation and an a fantastic vibe to the day. Looking forward to our upcoming collaboration on White Papers and continuing this thread of conversation.

See Ometria and details of Lifecycle 2017.

"Brilliance is taken for granted and anything less is punished by demanding customers" great quote by @ianjindal @OmetriaData conf

— James Gurd 🌝 Replatforming & Other Stuff (@JamesGurd) October 17, 2017

@ianjindal not your ordinary keynote! Quip laden and super engaging. Bravo! #lifecycle17 @OmetriaData #pandco

— James Wintle (@james__wintle) October 17, 2017

#lifecycle17 @Feefo_Official @LoyaltyLionHQ @MeRetain @OmetriaData @ianjindal – cracking start to the day. pic.twitter.com/h1k57JEPfE

— retain.me (@MeRetain) October 17, 2017

trading in EU? Get this handy report now #GoldDust #EU #Retail tips + cheat sheet 😍 @ianjindal thx! #Lifecycle17 https://t.co/pM1aGLkOjk

— eva pascoe (@EvaPascoe) October 17, 2017

Ian Jindal @ianjindal, Founder of @etail at #Lifecycle17!@OmetriaData #PhotographersOnDemand pic.twitter.com/nqUJhsVWAW

— SPLENTO 📸 (@splento) October 17, 2017

ShopTalk had their first European ‘outing’ in Copenhagen in October, with a three-day event that gathered some 2.500 delegates for three days of networking, meetings, keynotes and presentations. The IR team was there for the whole event and we were busy from dawn until (nearly the next) dawn catching up with retailers and innovative vendors from Europe and the US.I gave a speech on the final day with six lessons from the IREU Top500 ranking of Europe’s multichannel retailers, brands and ecommerce pureplays.

You can see more about the IREU here: www.internetretailing.net/ireu and about ShopTalk here: www.shoptalk.com

@ianjindal of RetailX rocking it at #Shoptalkeurope pic.twitter.com/jeNV53ejnJ

— Insider Trends (@insidertrends) October 11, 2017

Our own @ianjindal sharing the findings and trends of our RetailX research. A packed room in the #shoptalkeurope theatre pic.twitter.com/9WdH2TICKm

— Andy James (@ajames1976) October 11, 2017

41% of all consumer visits in Europe goes to 2 websites: #Amazon and #ebay. @ianjindal #shoptalkeurope pic.twitter.com/wUt8kBDtLM

— Luisa Walendy (@LWalendy) October 11, 2017

I was pleased to renew my co-operation with the team at Postnord’s Ehandeldsforum and travel to Boräs in Denmark to speak at their 2017 event.The venue was fantastic – a former train maintenance shed that had been converted into an event space – and the production values were extremely high.

My keynote opening session was a Q&A and I was grilled, supported and made to look sensible by the excellent chairing of the day’s host, Beata Wickbom.

Brilliant start of #eforum17 with @ianjindal !

— Martin (@MrMartinRich) September 28, 2017

Cistomers love brands. Customers don't love retailers. Uphill struggle for retailers according to @ianjindal. #eforum17

— Fredrik Ottosson (@FredrikViskan) September 28, 2017

Customer profitability over a two year period is the best KPI (LTV) what is the lifetime value of your customer? @ianjindal #eforum17

— Kyle Lacy (@kyleplacy) September 28, 2017

Thanks to Brand Quarterly for publishing my article on the challenge of ‘silos’ in retail. Charged with being simultaneously agile/flexible and stable/optimised, organisational silos were an answer to the latter, yet create a barrier to the former. In this article I discuss the balance that retail leaders must strike in order to benefit from flexibility as well as efficiency.http://www.brandquarterly.com/eternal-battle-multichannel-retail-flexibility-vs-efficiency

These are my links for June 25th through June 26th:

• Coca-Cola European Partners to invest £39m in UK facility | FoodBev Media – Infrastructure and investment. Part of the ongoing IR theme that in order to success in the post-retail age you need invention, investment and integrity (less so ‘just’ innovation, which in a competitive sector is widespread).
• Edge Cases For Self Driving Cars – Rodney Brooks –
• The key to jobs in the future is not college but compassion | Aeon Essays – Twin argument of ‘caring/emotional’ work in the future and the fact that never-ending education is not a solution. Example being an overqualified doctor working 80 hours a week, but lacking empathy… when AI can diagnose more effectively where is the new value?”The US economists W Norton Grubb and Marvin Lazerson call the belief in more schooling as the solution to every labour problem the ‘education gospel’. As Grubb argued in a 2005 talk, having more education tends to help individuals find better work, but that doesn’t make schooling a good overall economic strategy. In fact, he said, 30 to 40 per cent of workers in developed countries already have more education than their jobs demand.”
• Opinion | The Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence – “Service jobs of love” and ‘strength negate strength’. The impact of AI will concentrate power in the hands of the us and china, and leave only ’emotional’ and interface jobs.
  Interesting article.
  Note too the characterisation of current AI as ‘spreadsheets on steroids’ – main point being that solutions are domain- and purpose-specific at present, not overarching ‘intelligence’.

I’ve just had an editorial published in the Raconteur supplement in The Times, in which I argue the role of ‘carbon-based life-forms’ over and above robots. This piece was a counterpoint to the ‘store staff have no future’ debate that’s frankly ignoring the point: as retail becomes increasingly about stories and experience, it takes wonderful staff (not just wonderful robots) to bring this to life…https://www.raconteur.net/business/people-our-staff-standing-on-the-shoulders-of-robots-and-digital-capabilities-are-the-future-of-e-commerce