Highlights from the second day on the Retail Re-engineered stage at Tech. 2019 included a debate on what makes a tech leader and whether digital transformation really exists. Following on from day one’s five lessons, here are five more takeaways from day two.

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Time is the currency for business

After the release of our Tech 100 list last week, the Retail Re-engineered stage at Tech. 2019 began with a discussion on what makes a tech leader.

Part of being a great leader is attracting great talent, and Salesforce’s senior area vice president Michael Green and Capita’s head of experience and design Fabian Wong say the key to that is a flexible working approach.

Wong, Fabian

Fabian Wong

In the digital age, every moment of time can be scheduled down to the exact minutes, and even seconds. Allowing employees flexible working hours, to accommodate activities such as picking their children up from school, will attract a higher number of diversely talented applicants.

Retailers and their tech teams need to capitalise on new types of talent, and that doesn’t always mean a new pool of university or school graduates. While STEM programmes in education help, Green suggests capitalising on, for example, women returning to work after maternity leave, or veterans returning from service and their spouses.

Social media can be key to global success

The International Retail Index, a ranking created by Loqate, RWRC and Edge by Ascential earlier this year, reveals the top 30 international retailers based on a scoring system across various key metrics including the number of markets, languages and currency options retailers operate in, as well as social media followings and voice capabilities.

Matthew Furneaux, global commercial director at Loqate, Ian McGarrigle of the World Retail Congress and Robert Gregory, advisory research director at Edge by Ascential, joined Retail Week Connect’s Isobel Chillman to discuss the findings of this research. While some obvious global online leaders such as Amazon and Inditex were on the list, smaller players including Gymshark also performed well.

The key to Gymshark’s success is its social media campaigns – using sporting influencers across the world to promote goods online. The sports retailer also regularly opens pop-up stores, creating a buzz wherever it sets up shop.

Remember all sales are a win for the whole company

Clarins digital, ecommerce and CRM director Emilie Maunoury revealed in her talk how the beauty brand has broken down organisational silos in order to better serve the customer across all channels.

Retailers are all talking about having a single view of the customer, so by combining digital, CRM and ecommerce teams all in one place, so too is the data.

Maunoury states that the teams should be incentivised by sales across the whole brand and the ability to create customers everywhere, rather than competing with each other.

Partnerships are the basis of an omnichannel future

Retail Week head of insight Lisa Byfield-Green’s session detailed the challenging market retailers face and how partnerships are a key strategy for success.

Not all retailers can be technologically savvy across all areas, so teaming up can help create a stronger and wider customer base to propel growth.

Examples include Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods and partnership with Morrisons to expand into the grocery sector.

Amazon has also partnered with Next to offer a click-and-collect service, which is a win-win for both parties – Amazon extends its delivery options, while Next gains the ability to upsell to Amazon customers in-store.

Digital transformation is really cultural transformation

The Retail Re-engineered stage’s closing session had the provocative title ‘Digital transformation does not exist’.

Sorted sales director Andy Hill and AS Watson head of IT Paul Eastman countered the idea that retail needs to undergo a complete digital transformation – instead, they propose a technology roadmap driven by the highest value and most exciting propositions.

The transformation needs to occur outside of the technology itself to change the mindset of the whole company. If everyone takes small opportunities to digitise piece by piece, it allows for a more agile business strategy.