The RCS Group, in partnership with Echangeuar, hosted its third annual Retail Summit on 27 of June at The Venu in Melrose Arch in Johannesburg, under the theme, ‘Explore the evolution of retail’. Delegates got a glimpse of the future of retail from the speakers, who explored mega-trends that will shape the future of global and local marketing and retail in South Africa.
Nicolas Diacono, Technological Trends Expert at Echangeuar, discussed Chatbots, AI, Machine Learning, VR, AR and IoT retail. He decoded the key technological innovations in 2018-2019, as they applied to retail, and showed South African marketers how to recognise the biggest innovations to impact their business, discover new retail practices and to refine their sales strategies.
Dion Chang – Trend analyst and founder of Flux Trends, explored new and emerging urban tribes that are shifting the zeitgeist (and therefore the consumer mindset), globally as well as locally, such as Generation Z, Neo afro-culturist, African spiritualist and more. This follows the ground-breaking 2012 e-book, New Urban Tribes of South Africa. He touched on how diversity and inclusion are two of the commanding values driving Gen Z, and therefore, their interactions within society and commercial industries.
Warren Owen, Managing Director of 2Way Systems, discussed the future of workforce mobility: how employee mobility leads to better processes, improved productivity and 100% more satisfied employees.
