I’ve just returned from an interesting trip to Moscow, where I was invited to speak at the Plus Alliance’s “3rd International Online and Offline Retail Forum 2016. Plus Alliance is an organisation much like the UK’s British Retail Consortium (BRC) promoting the needs of Russian retail through its forums, conferences and media publications. I was invited to come and talk about the importance of innovation in retail, and also discuss the history of the grocery retail market in

At short notice (I learned at 12:15pm today!) I am giving a speech and presentation as part of the Internet Retailing Conference at Novotel Hammersmith, London, tomorrow. I’ll be replacing my CIO, JJ VanOosten who has had to pull out at short notice. Given that I wrote his presentation, JJ kindly suggested that I may as well go and present it myself! I’ll be replacing JJ in this conference stream (link goes to conference stream page). on “How To Win In The Digital World of Re

In Berlin I learned two things: Britain (and USA) is quite some way ahead of central Europe when it comes to e-commerce service on the web, and We are way behind on the actual mechanisms of delivery. That is, of getting the products to the customer at the time most convenient to them. I can always tell the moment when the content of my presentation finds its home in a delegate’s mind. First they slant their head to one side whilst staring the PowerPoint slide, and start to ta

Tomorrow morning I’m giving a keynote speech at the European Online Retail Conference in Berlin (link goes to Microsoft English translation of German site). Called ‘Tesco.com and the Fourth Screen’, my presentation explores new thinking on how to bring grocery shopping to customers using a new, challenging idea: Make it effortless for customers. I’ve always admired the trustworthiness and integrity of e-commerce conducted throughout western Europe so I was delighted to accept