The EMEA Customer Forum 2019 – What You Missed

On the 25^th and 26^th of September 2019, we held the second annual Reflexis EMEA Customer Forum at the beautiful and historic Royal Horseguards Hotel and One Whitehall Place in London. We were proud to host a range of global retailers and give our customers a chance to connect. Hosted by Reflexis VP of Sales and Marketing, David Rogers, the event was sponsored by our partners REPL, Nextenture, Zebra and Maze.

If you weren’t able to make it this time, we have rounded up some of the highlights.

Brexit Might Bite, But the Future is Bright

Managing Director EMEA, OP Choudhary was first to take to the stage with his introduction to the retail environment across EMEA. His presentation acknowledged the effect of Brexit and the resulting downturn in the retail sector, while highlighting the positive future that will come from the use of technology – especially Artificial Intelligence.

Founder and CEO Prashanth Palakurthi also touched on this subject during his State of the Industry presentation. According to 2019 RSR Research, 70% of retailers agreed that the store is the primary face of a brand for customers. In fact, those stores that recognised and prioritised the importance of face-to-face retailing were the ones that were succeeding. Hyper-localisation is working to boost the instore environment and create both jobs and improved sales, while building retail spaces that serve communities and customers.

Customer Insights From Some of the Best

The Reflexis Customer Forum is designed to allow us to give back to our customers and to provide an environment where they can network with each other, hear real life success stories from their peers and build on their understanding of how Reflexis is investing in the future of brick and mortar retail.

Dave Tyas from Co-op UK was the first to offer his insight into API’s, Integration and Real-Time Task Management. As an employer of close to 70,000 people across more than 2,500 stores, the Co-op is a great example of how simple changes that are easily adoptable can have meaningful and sustainable impact. Dave talked through the process of workshopping, building and testing of Reflexis solutions across a 9-month time period and the benefits they are already seeing.

Senior Retail Change Leads, Sarah Evans and Julie Smith from Waitrose & Partners, presented on Implementing Task Management & Workforce Management Together. Their dual brand, high-end positioning and outstanding customer service reputation means they required mobile solutions that would give autonomy to their 83,000 partners, backed by powerful data-driven tools that ensure all employees are in the right place at the right time.

Adding to the line-up was Robin Phillips, Development Manager from Dixons Carphone. This electrical retailer employs more than 42,000 people in 9 countries and boasts 10 different brand identities. With this level of store complexity and with Reflexis Workforce Scheduler already in place, it was a clear choice that they needed a task management solution to fit into their store operations strategy. With impressive results (including 3% higher sales for those stores that had already deployed Workforce Scheduler), Dixons Carphone highlighted their work with Reflexis’ implementation partner Nextenture as instrumental in their success going forward.

Jason Toogood, Global Alliances Director (Workforce transformation) for REPL, a retail consultancy and technology group with expertise in global IT transformation projects. He presented on the Future of Work; highlighting how Workforce Management will play an important role in meeting changing business needs. By acknowledging the role of disruptive technologies including IoT and AI and how they can interact with Workforce Management, Jason showed that it is possible to create a workplace that meets the needs of today’s discerning employee through the deployment of the right technological solutions.

New Solutions Now and in the Future

One of the main advantages of having our customers all together is the ability to present our new solutions range and demonstrate what the future holds. CEO Prashanth Palakurthi focused on AI and Machine Learning and its growing role within the development of our current and future products. Our Solutions Consultants team demonstrated each new solution in turn, showing how they interact with our current offerings and the ways in which they meet the needs of our customers. For a sneak preview into what the future of Reflexis solutions look like, Dave Lancefield, VP of Solution Consulting – EMEA, took to the stage to show how our commitment to improving the usability, accessibility and functionality of our platform never wavers and is being continually updated and enhanced.

Celebrating Customer Success

Last, but very much not least, Customer Success Director Mark Benton discussed the role of the customer success function within Reflexis. With a different approach that is collaborative and created with the needs of customers in mind, customer success is rooted in making sure every customer is happy and getting the maximum benefit out of their Reflexis partnership.

If you missed the 2019 Reflexis Customer Forum, we hope that this summary has given you a little nudge to put it in the diary for next year. We would love to see you there. Details will be announced in good time and we hope it will be even more of a success for all attendees.