Retail Digital Summit:Transforming the customer experience
NG Retail Digital Summit
From Malls to Marketplaces – How shopping centers are the future of Retail
You’ll be in great company at this year’s NG Retail US Summit, joining speakers from Footlocker, Harbor Retail, and Near.co to name just a few.
Join your peers in sharing knowledge on the current and future state of the Retail industry. We’ll discuss some key industry topics including:
•Online stores in offline spaces, offline stores with digital faces
•Navigating the road to a more sustainable Retail landscape
•The future of retail in a postcovid world
•Leadership innovation: People, process and technology
Stephanie Garey
Why Attend
New connections
Build new connections with likeminded senior leaders
Business trends
Stay current with emerging business trends
Key takeaways
Downloadable and actionable takeaways
New partnerships
Accelerate key projects through meaningful new partnerships
Insights
De-risk new projects by gaining a broad range of insights
New technologies
Understand the impact new technology can make
Trusted by
We host global organizations with the conversations that matter. That’s why we’re trusted by these top brands.
Event Agenda
09:00 - 09:15
Opening Remarks
Intro & Diamond Commentary
09:15 - 09:45
Keynote
Reimagining the jewelry buying experience through technology
Signet Jewelers is a company that firmly believes Connected Commerce is the clear future of retail and has worked to create a seamless shopping experience, enabling their consumers to interact wherever and however they want, and it’s driving growth. Today, the company is committed to continually meeting and exceeding customer expectations for the experience they want to have when shopping and are expanding on their capabilities that combine the human and tech interactive experience.
09:46 - 10:26
Panel Discussion
Leading Digital in 2022 & Beyond
Covid-19, the great resignation, supply chain disruption and the evolution of Web3 and heightened customer expectations. To say retail leaders have their plate full would be an understatement to say the least. Shifts in environmental and consumer behavior indicate a necessity for leaders to develop agile strategies that enable the highest levels of customer care and brand purpose, as well as remaining focused internally on employee satisfaction and retention.
Now is the time for leaders to create new cultures with the right strategy, data and agility to reimagine themselves and grow. Alongside environmental, social and governance (ESG) and digital commitments, retailers should be laser focused on 5 ingredients to optimize chances of growth: digital, fulfillment, sourcing, talent and data.
Crucially, retailers must reset responsibly, and maintain agility to allow them to navigate the ever changing and challenging world and find profitable growth.
10:26 - 10:36
Insight Break
10:36 - 11:26
Roundtables
Track 1: Getting creative with customer experience
As the demands for hyper-personalised, intimate touchpoints increase, the need for a unified approach to customer experience grows. Creating rich customer experiences that continue to build on trust increases the need for customer marketing and customer experience. In a Deloitte survey of 2,447 global consumers, 84% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services, but as we rebound from a disruptive 2020 and transition into a new era of consumer commerce, customer experience in the sector needs to evolve.
Retailers must therefore consider and create messages, experiences, and offers that resonate with individuals’ unique needs and expectations, whether that’s online, in-store or through social. A successful pivot to an agile customer experience channel strategy not only meets customer needs as they unfold but also anticipates the conversation.
Track 2: Omnichannel shopping in 2030
We are entering the world of “phygital”—physical and digital at the same time, where there is not a physical world or digital world in retail, but rather a completely connected one. Traffic in stores is almost certainly going to be down permanently. As customers get used to shopping online, what’s going to make them come to the store? How do you think about driving engagement with the brand, driving product knowledge, making it a fun experience, and removing all the friction in that experience?
As you see the shift to e-commerce, whether it’s five, ten, or 15 points, some portion of your customers are not coming back in the store or not coming back at the same frequency they used to. So being able to maximize the value of each trip is going to be incredibly important.
Track 3: Unlocking the Power of Your Best Content
Customers want relevant content at a time that suits them while teams want the flexibility to deliver those tailored experiences. With a flexible, cloud-native platform that marketers and developers can use simultaneously, you can keep the content flowing so your customers keep coming back for more. A digital foundation starts with the right CMS but how do you unlock the power of your content and ensure that the right messaging is connecting to the right audience? How do you achieve this at scale to ensure productivity and accuracy for all?
11:31 - 12:11
Masterclass Breakouts
Track 1: Reimagining the Future of Commerce
Sponsor:
The visions we have for commerce in 2030 neglect the reality that it won't be the small incremental steps that get us there, but a fundamental reshaping of how people shop. With over a decade of experience reshaping the world's largest retailer, Firework's CMO is going to talk through the future of experience, and work backward on the immediate steps that get us there (note: you will NOT hear reference to the metaverse or crypto).
Track 2: Delivering on the Promise of Transformation with Customer Identity
Sponsor:
Successful transformation of the digital experience hinges on a business understanding who its customers are the moment they touch an online or mobile channel. From an engagement perspective, this enables businesses to deliver tailored customer experiences that drive revenue and loyalty. Unfortunately, many businesses have relied too long on methods - such as passwords, long registration forms, and requiring account creation to checkout - that can end up causing more abandonment than happy customers. In leveraging customer identity as part of any digital experience strategy, businesses have the potential to ease their dependence on these tools by orchestrating smooth and secure end-to-end user journeys that are optimized to deliver business impact.
Discussion Questions:
•How do you see identity working with other parts of your tech stack?
•Does your organization approach identity as a function of security, ecommerce, or another team?
•Which direction and why are organizations going when it comes to build or buy decisions when supporting IAM requirements?
•How are initiatives like passwordless handled when they end up on your radar?
•What is the tipping point before passwordless access and identity proofing measures are seriously considered?
12:12 - 12:42
12:12 - 12:42
Headline Keynote
The Key to Unlocking Ecommerce Growth During Economic Volatility
Macroeconomic conditions (inflation, layoffs, interest rates) are leading consumers to be more careful and considered in their purchases. We will review 2023 holiday season transaction data and shopping trends from across the Signifyd client network (the largest in the IR 1000) as a window to how consumers will behave in 2023.
And with that industry perspective, we will click into how customer experience at checkout and payments can be a key source of growth and a strategic offset to that shift in consumer behavior.
Discussion points:
•Consumer price sensitivity and basket level trends from the 2023 holiday season
•Implications for driving higher conversion rates at checkout
•The strategic imperative of payments modernization in achieving conversion rate goals
09:00 - 09:10
Opening Remarks
09:15 - 09:45
Keynote
5 Things I've Learned About Retail by Living in Campgrounds for a Year
Ron Thurston is a highly accomplished retail leadership executive for America's most prominent brands, board advisor, and the Amazon Bestselling Author of "RETAIL PRIDE, The Guide To Celebrating Your Accidental Career."
For the last three years, Ron has been named one of the top 100 most influential people in retail, and in early 2022, Ron left NYC for a year-long tour called "Retail In America, Live from an Airstream Trailer" to discover the real retail heroes across the country.
In this opening keynote, Ron will share 5 of his biggest discoveries about retail across the country and what living in a campground has taught him.
09:47 - 10:27
Panel Discussion
Loyalty Best Practice Panel
A huge part of providing a great customer experience is making sure that CX is ongoing and focused on keeping your existing customers, rather than just attracting new ones.
Recurring customers are more valuable than new customers. Studies have found that it costs five times as much to attract a new customer as it does to keep a new one, so it’s definitely worth putting in the effort to keep your customers happy. Loyal customers also help to increase the reputation and awareness of your brand as they’ll talk about your company and products with their friends and family. Happy customers make great (and free!) brand ambassadors and influencers.
10:27 - 10:37
10:27 - 10:37
Insight Break
The real value of data in the current retail context
Inflation is the short-term priority; sustainability is the necessary long-term goal and in between the never-ending need to keep on growing and cater to customer loyalty. Within this challenging context, retailers can activate their core data to streamline processes, simplify complexity, ease growth, and accelerate their transformation initiatives. No matter where the starting point is, connecting product, customer, supplier, and location information in a single data hub opens an extensive set of opportunities for retailers to respond better to increasing demands in a unified commerce framework where the multiplicity of channels, the coexistence of diverse customer segments, the possibilities that technologies bring for new experiences demand rich, accurate and accessible data.
10:40 - 11:30
Roundtables
Track 1: Getting creative with customer experience
As the demands for hyper-personalised, intimate touchpoints increase, the need for a unified approach to customer experience grows. Creating rich customer experiences that continue to build on trust increases the need for customer marketing and customer experience. In a Deloitte survey of 2,447 global consumers, 84% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services, but as we rebound from a disruptive 2020 and transition into a new era of consumer commerce, customer experience in the sector needs to evolve.
Retailers must therefore consider and create messages, experiences, and offers that resonate with individuals’ unique needs and expectations, whether that’s online, in-store or through social. A successful pivot to an agile customer experience channel strategy not only meets customer needs as they unfold but also anticipates the conversation.
Track 2: Omnichannel shopping in 2030
We are entering the world of “phygital”—physical and digital at the same time, where there is not a physical world or digital world in retail, but rather a completely connected one. Traffic in stores is almost certainly going to be down permanently. As customers get used to shopping online, what’s going to make them come to the store? How do you think about driving engagement with the brand, driving product knowledge, making it a fun experience, and removing all the friction in that experience?
As you see the shift to e-commerce, whether it’s five, ten, or 15 points, some portion of your customers are not coming back in the store or not coming back at the same frequency they used to. So being able to maximize the value of each trip is going to be incredibly important.
Track 3: Unlocking the Power of Your Best Content
Customers want relevant content at a time that suits them while teams want the flexibility to deliver those tailored experiences. With a flexible, cloud-native platform that marketers and developers can use simultaneously, you can keep the content flowing so your customers keep coming back for more. A digital foundation starts with the right CMS but how do you unlock the power of your content and ensure that the right messaging is connecting to the right audience? How do you achieve this at scale to ensure productivity and accuracy for all?
11:31 - 12:01
Closing Keynote
Make it Easy: How Reducing customer effort can accelerate growth.
CX practice often focuses on reducing friction which is only one piece of the equation. In this session we’ll explore the other side of the equation, reducing customer effort. Learn how Party City has accelerated growth through reducing effort in its online shopping journey. Leave with an understanding of ways to identify effort, build effortless solutions, and measure outcomes.
12:03 - 12:33
Closing Prime Keynote
09:00 - 09:10
Opening Remarks
09:15 - 09:45
Keynote
Data Analytics & AI to Empower Omnichannel Shopping in 2030
Omnichannel shoppers behavior continues to evolve rapidly over the past several years, while data analytics and AI have been the backbone to enable the scale, speed, and seamless experience. In this presentation, we will examine closely how data analytics and AI get us where we are today, and more importantly, discuss where it might take us in the future.
09:46 - 10:26
09:46 - 10:26
Panel Discussion
Leveraging Retailer & Consumer Data to Gain Insights on Your Target Market
Digital is reshaping every aspect of our Retail space. Innovative technologies are blurring the lines between online and offline channels and experiences.
Creating value for Retail brands starts with optimizing the value of their data. The proliferation of new apps, platforms and services has been reshaping consumers’ shopping behavior for years. Master data management (MDM) helps retail companies govern their data to make it fit for commerce, compliance, supply chain optimization and analytics.
Do you have a MDM (Master Data Management) strategy today?
Is you company going through M&A (Mergers & Acquisitions) which can results in faulty data coming from siloed departments?
How long does it take to bring our products to market?
10:27 - 10:37
Insight Break
10:37 - 11:27
Roundtable Leaders Panel
11:27 - 11:32
Short Break
11:35 - 12:05
Innovation Exchange Keynote
12:06 - 12:36
Closing Keynote
Giving customers a voice in a world full of numbers
We live in uncertain times. Technology changes very rapidly. Business models evolve almost overnight. To top it off, we are in the midst of a global COVID-19 pandemic which changed how people interact with each other and with businesses on a daily basis. Some of the most hotly debated topics in business circles are about whether the pandemic has changed customers’ needs, behaviors, and attitudes for good or whether there will be a return to a pre- pandemic “normal”.
This time of uncertainty is dominated by the rise of big data, data science, machine learning, and algorithms. On the other hand, many businesses strive to create customer loyalty and increase Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) by creating products and services which are personalized, tailored, evoking emotional connections with customers.
In this talk I will try to convince you that these two trends -the fascination with big data, statistical averages, and algorithms, on the one hand, and the quest for cultivating lasting customer loyalty
based on positive emotional experiences, on the other - are in opposition to one another and create inherent tension. This tension needs to be resolved by any business which wants to win the hearts and
minds of the customers of today and tomorrow. In other words, businesses cannot create products and services that result in remarkable customer experiences and cannot hope for meaningful customer loyalty until they understand and treat customers as people instead of just numbers.
What you will learn:
•The role of customer trust in loyalty and customer lifetime value
•How to build your own VOC program
•Busting some common customer-related myths
•The Zappos journey to give customers a voice
•Lessons learned
12:36 - 12:46
Insight Break -Closing Comments
Speakers Include
Rakesh Srinivasan
Rebecca Wooters
Xingchu Liu
Ronald Thurston
Rick Lockton
Jenny Engemann
Shannon Symalla
Matt Goldberg
Melissa Day
Mark Knitowski
Raghu Ramakrishnan
Anna Gill
Scott Toborg
Lee Bogner
J. Bennett
Jesse Blount
Drew Cashmore
Irene Sibaja
Cecilia Zalazar
Dr. Branden R. Williams
Miriam Molino Sánchez
Alex Genov
Nick Harbaugh
Faisal Sayed
An immersive
event experience
interactive features including:
Audience Interaction
Engage with a virtual live audience just as you would at a physical event and create meaningful conversations.
Interactive Live Polling
Keep engaged through interactive live polling and gamification tools.
Direct connections
Ask your questions face-to-face with the speakers via our leading stage technology.
Relationship building
Build stronger connections with leading executives that you will take with you through your career
Thought Leadership
Content and insight from industry experts when it matters most
Intelligent interaction
Interactive quizzes gamify your experience
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Have a question…
There is no cost associated with attending a GDS Summit. In return, we ask that all senior executives in participation attend for the full duration to ensure that all attendees get maximum value and insight from the interactive roundtables, live Q&As and breakout networking sessions.
Our digital summit portfolio is designed to bring together senior decision makers from large global businesses and innovative disruptor brands to drive industry forward through addressing business critical challenges collaboratively.
If you’re keen to build new connections with likeminded leaders, de-risk your projects through new insight and establish new partnerships that can accelerate your projects then apply to attend today.
Complete our form below if you’re interested in attending the summit and you meet our application criteria. A member of the GDS team will then reach out to run you through the programme and event format and discuss your participation.
On stage: co-host a panel discussion with a group of likeminded senior executives or host a solo keynote presentation. Both slots include elements of interactive audience Q&A
Off stage: become a roundtable moderator, leading the discussion with the same cohort of executives for the duration of the summit around a specific topic you’ve agreed to focus on during the roundtable session.
We can tailor a partnership package to help meet your business objectives. This might include brand awareness, driving traffic to your site or quality editorial content via exclusive interviews and Q&As with our executive audience. Enquire today for more information.