Retail Insider Announces Winners of First ‘Transforming Retail’ Awards
Glynn Davis, editor of Retail Insider, kicks off the evening
Senior retail executives recently gathered in central London at Sourced Market to attend the inaugural Retail Insider ‘Transforming Retail Awards’ designed to showcase the most exciting developments in the retail sector over the past year. The Awards attracted multiple entries of a high standard giving the judges a difficult job. However they eventually whittled all six categories down to three shortlisted entrants.
Bertrand Bodson and Sean McKee were among the Award’s judging panel
The judging panel consisted of a group of retail experts overseen by Glynn Davis which included Paul Wilkinson, head of technology research at Tesco Labs; Martin Newman, CEO at Practicology; Lawrence Shaw, CEO of Sitemorse; Simon Harrow, former CEO of Elevaate; Sean McKee, director of e-commerce at Schuh; and Bertrand Bodson, former chief digital and marketing officer at Sainsbury’s Argos.
Tossed Restaurant was the major winner of the evening being crowned ‘Overall Technology Innovation of the Year’, sponsored by Webloyalty, after winning out against competition from Provenance, Elevaate with NotOnTheHighStreet and Shop Direct Very Assistant, while also coming top in the ‘Best In-Store Experience of the Year’ category, sponsored by K3 Retail. Judges praised its innovative moves towards being completely cashless.
Guy Chiswick of Webloyalty (centre) hands Overall Technology Innovation Award to Neil Sebba and Lisa Prisk of Tossed Restaurants
Natalie Bruins of K3 Retail (right) hands over the award for Best In-store Experience of the Year to to Neil Sebba and Lisa Prisk of Tossed Restaurants
Refer a friend marketing company Mention Me took the title of ‘Most Promising Newcomer’, sponsored by ORESA beating Syte.ai and Starcount on the judging day. It is currently working with over 200 online retail brands and has earned more than £110 million of new revenue for these clients to date.
Orlando Martins of ORESA (right) hands over the award for Most Promising Newcomer of the Year to Tim Broughton of Mention Me
Starbucks came first in the ‘Best Multi Channel Experience of the Year’, sponsored by Bond Dickinson, seeing off GoInstore and Farfetch’s ‘Store of the Future platform’.
Gavin Matthews of Bond Dickinson hands over the award for Best Multi-channel Experience of the Year to Tim Curtis who accepted it on behalf of Starbucks
Judges were impressed with its Starbucks Barista which enables customers to order and pay for their food and drink just by speaking in a conversational exchange into their device.
Chirag Amin of SAP (left) hands over Delivery Innovation of the Year Award to Rohan Pradhan of Deliveroo Editions
Picking up the accolade for ‘Delivery Innovation of the Year’, sponsored by SAP, was Deliveroo Editions with its exciting new development involving fully-equipped kitchens created in shipping containers where food specifically for delivery is prepared. A number of major restaurant brands are working with Deliveroo on this. Deliveroo beat Starship Technologies and Amazon Prime Wardrobe to come top in this category.
Finally Shop Direct’s Very Assistant topped the ‘Most Intelligent Use of Data’, sponsored by Clipper Group, beating Blue Yonder and GeoBlink. Judges pointed to its conversational user interface technology that involves a fully-automated platform to allow customers to quickly find answers to questions in a WhatsApp-style chat environment.
Tony Mannix of Clipper Logistics (right) hands over Most Intelligent Use of Data Award to Nick Atkins and Chris Stebbings of Shop Direct
Full run-down of the winners is:
Best In-store Experience of the Year: Winner – Tossed Restaurants
Most promising newcomer: Winner – Mention Me.
Best multi-channel experience of the year: Winner – Starbucks
Delivery innovation of the year: Winner – Deliveroo Editions
Most intelligent use of data: Winner – Shop Direct’s Very Assistant.
Overall Technology Innovation of the Year: Winner – Tossed Restaurants
During the evening Pete Brissenden of The Bottle Shop matched beers to individual categories which proved very popular with the attendees.
Pete Brissenden of The Bottle Shop (left) hosted the beer tasting
Retail Insider would like to thank the sponsors of the Awards for their support: Clipper Group, Webloyalty, K3 Retail, Bond Dickinson, ORESA and SAP. And special thanks to Pete Brissenden of The Bottle Shop.
Glynn Davis, editor of Retail Insider