Retailers Focus on Investing in the Future

Recap of the Inaugural Retail Innovation Center Stage

Last month, the Retail Innovation Center launched its first virtual Stage featuring sessions of a variety of speakers and lengths around three topic areas: Retail Ecosystems, Research & Trends, and Applied Technologies. These topic areas helped define this summer’s theme of “Investing in the Future” and how to raise awareness about the importance of innovation to the core business. Over the next month, we’ll be highlighting short-format videos that were featured on the Retail Innovation Center Stage. You can follow along throughout September, by following our LinkedIn page here.
 

Retail Ecosystems

This past Spring, RILA launched Retail Speaks, in partnership with McKinsey & Company, which defined 7 key imperatives for the industry. Number 6 on that list was to Pursue an Ecosystem-Friendly Retail Strategy. On the Retail Innovation Center Stage, we tapped into the RILA ecosystem to help better orient executives to retail’s full picture. We’ll be sharing quick snippet videos that weave together POVs from various ecosystem stakeholders.
 
  • What can the Retail Innovation Center do for you?
  • Retail Leadership w. Nick Ahrens and Brian Dodge
  • Retail Public Policy w. Michael Hanson
  • Unpacking the Pivot to Direct-to-Consumer: Every Retailer & Brand Must Dive in Now
  • The State of Retail Startup Investment Panel
  • Retail ESG w. Erin Hiatt
While watching, retailers should carefully consider how their capabilities may serve other ecosystem players and which players may bring additional capability and value to retailers.


Research & Trends

Understanding any ecosystem would be incomplete without a foundation based on research. In the past two years, that means understanding the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on retail in terms of business models and operations. While consumers saw major disruptions in the way they shopped, thus shifting consumer behaviors long-term – global supply chains faced some of the greatest challenges. Visit the RIC Stage sessions that help make sense of our collective experiences and how we can better prepare for the future.
 
  • Key Retail Trends w. eMarketer
  • Intel Delivering to the Future of Supply Chain
  • Microsoft: A Supply Chain Transformation Story
  • Microsoft: The Future of Supply Chains
  • Retail Supply Chains w. Jess Dankert

Applied Technologies

As business continues to change, technology plays an ever-increasing role in retail. Many retailers may now even see themselves as part tech company. Check out a few of the technologies powering part of the industry, and many more included in our Retail Innovation Center Insights on-demand webpage.
 
  • How Retail Simulation & Optimization Can Power Hyper-localized Retailing
  • How portable master data capture boosts storage & packing efficiency in the DC for a better bottom line!
  • ENAiBLE, A CMU Retail and Services Collaborative: Innovation in the Age of AI
 
RILA’s Retail Innovation Center was founded several years ago with a recognition that the change to the retail business model expanded the ecosystem of partners critical to future growth. For this reason, the RIC maintains an Investor Network and a Startup Network to help retailers connect with the different types of partners and to help those partners and their investors to better understand retail needs. You can take a look at all the sessions by visiting The Retail Innovation Center Stage.
 
Tags
  • Retail Innovation Center
  • Technology & Innovation

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