The Retail Influencer

In this episode, I chat with Marko Nousiainen, General Manager France at Hitachi Solutions Europe. 

We discuss the results of a survey titled “Fashion’s Digital Tipping Point, Why a strong transformation strategy needs a strong digital foundation”.  Hitachi Solutions Europe and K3 Business Technologies commissioned a survey over 300 Directors of ecommerce, Finance and Buying and Merchandising from footwear and apparel brands with a turnover of over 100 million euros. Insights were collected from France, Germany and the UK and the survey was conducted in Q2 of 2021. So, it’s quite recent. And those directors active in the fashion channels were questioned about their digital systems and the consequences of the pandemic. 

The results are fascinating and I thought it was interesting to get Marko’s comments on the survey and on ERP implementations. 

So, there you go, enjoy our little chat. 

In today’s episode, I chat with Oliver Frese, Chief Operating Officer of Koelnmesse. 

We discuss how the event industry evolves to the new hybrid era and how digital and live events will complement each other in the future. 

It’s the third and final episode in this three-part series dedicated to the digitalisation of retail events. Don’t miss the conclusion in the end where I summarize a few of the key points we learned during this mini-series. 

In this episode, I chat with Corinne Moreau, CEO of Promosalons. 

Due to the pandemic the event industry accelerated its digital transformation and many announce the dawn of the hybrid era, where events will combine digital and live. 

After the first episode with the founders of MAD//FEST, this second instalment gives you the views of one of the leaders of the industry. Corinne Moreau explains how the digitalisation is only an acceleration of what was already in the pipeline, and she shares her views on how the future events will look like. So, these are great insights on how you, as a professional, will be impacted and how your networking events will be thoroughly and safely prepared. 

This is the first of three episodes to discuss the digitalisation of the event industry. With the pandemic, Retail events were forced to accelerate their digitalisation and transformation into the hybrid future. This transformation impacts how retail professionals like yourself will network or showcase their products on events in the future. 

In this episode I chat with Ian Houghton and Dan Brain, Co-Founders of Mad//Fest. 

Their idea is that a business event can feel like a festival and be efficient. Last march, they also organised Mad//Anywhere, a digital event which was a vivid example of how a digital happening should be, with great content and also various options to practice digital networking. 

In the next 20 to 30 minutes, Ian, Dan and I discuss about the story of their Mad universe and how they concretely approach networking at their events, whether these are digital or live.

In this episode, I chat with Thierry Jourquin Co-Founder at XRintelligence, a Belgian company specialised in VR technology. 

During a small half hour, we discuss about some of the opportunities and challenges that virtual reality brings to the retail industry today.

In the second part of the show, we also discuss how the technology impacts the event industry. 

In today's episode, I chat with Amancio Junior, CEO and Founder of Analyticalways 

a company specialised in optimising stocks thanks to AI technology. 

We discuss about concrete cases and the impact that artificial intelligence has on the retail industry.