Today’s organizations exist in an increasingly complex and ever-shifting ocean of change. When market forces cause disruption, retailers search for opportunities to gain competitive advantage. As a result, successful executives today position collaboration and the skills of collaborative leadership as essential ingredients for continued success.

Until recently, proven methods to nurture and improve the level of employee engagement have been ignored by many retailers, but not all. Macy's works hard on a mission that aims to inspire 150,000 employees to want to come to work every day, which in the retail environment is a tough task. In this session, learn how Macy's carefully tracks employee engagement metrics and has taken steps that have produced steady improvement since 2009.

From product displays to shopper engagement, retailers are making a technological dynamic shift to empower their associates and managers to take ownership of the shopper experience. In this session you will gain insight on how  GUESS? has integrated the use of  iPads to enhance visual merchandising, reporting tools, real-time data, replenishment and revenue generation. By integrating the latest technologies, it will align the synergies between stores, digital commerce and wholesale operations.

Offering a first-rate experience to the online shopper requires the combination of many complex and inter-dependent machine learning algorithms. In the age of big data and shortage of tech talent, a robust model management system is key to empowering data scientists and engineers to focus on developing new algorithms rather than on maintaining models already in production. This talk covers strategic details about the creation of a process to handle models in production with little to no human intervention.

These sessions feature frank discussion of solutions, vendors, RFPs, past and current experiences with IT deployments, traps to avoid, best practices and more. They are focused on a single topic and led by moderator and a member of the RIS editorial team. They will be highly interactive but structured on pre-conference polling of attendees who sign up for the session. Post-event follow up will enable attendees to continue the dialogue and dig deeper on specific topics.

Mastering digital commerce means more than just managing a website. It means understanding your shoppers and pivoting your business model so that it operates efficiently and profitably online. Join the discussion to learn best practices. 

These sessions feature frank discussion of solutions, vendors, RFPs, past and current experiences with IT deployments, traps to avoid, best practices and more. They are focused on a single topic and led by moderator and a member of the RIS editorial team. They will be highly interactive but structured on pre-conference polling of attendees who sign up for the session. Post-event follow up will enable attendees to continue the dialogue and dig deeper on specific topics.

Managing the challenges of AI, chatbots, predictive analytics, prescriptive analytics, and analytics governance to help make smarter decisions at the speed of retail

• Mobile Sales Associate – 89% plan to offer mobile solutions for associates
• Mobile Customer Identification – 75% plan to identify customers via their mobile device
• Mobile Payments – 89% plan to accept mobile payments
• Mobile POS – 84% plan to use mobile POS

Chat bots represent a unique opportunity to provide a seamless, feature-rich, scalable experience for consumers and enterprise operations alike. In this session you will learn about how one major retailer uses chat bots for highly specific processes that maximize enterprise value.

The second annual technology startup competition will feature three up-and-coming tech innovators who will pitch their game-changing ideas to a panel of industry experts. The panel will evaluate the contestants’ solutions on their usefulness and overall value in the current retail landscape. Following the presentation, the panel and summit attendees will vote on the most innovative and market-ready technology.

Success in today's consumer-driven, collaboration economy requires retailers to earn trust and loyalty. To do this, retailers need to listen, learn and adjust to fast-paced disruptions. In this session a leading expert provides an inside look at key takeaways from a unique study that polls 5,000 shoppers. What emerges from the insight is a new way of thinking that views shoppers as collaborators, partners and enablers in the retailer's own success.

Even as large retailers are hitting financial headwinds, small and mid-size retailers are thriving. By leveraging smaller footprints, local knowledge of customer bases, and IT tools once only available to enterprise-size corporations, Main Street retailers are hitting their stride and scaling for growth.

Change is accelerating at a staggering rate and the only way to succeed is by moving forward to where the marketplace and shoppers are heading. In this session, the Chairman and CEO of Xcel Brands will explain how his breakthrough company is racing to hit the $700 million mark in sales in just a few short years. Learn the inside story about Xcel Brands' unique business model based on direct-to-market TV, entertainment media and strong brands.

Panel of noted Wall Street advisors, analysts and investors will examine the competitive strengths of the industry’s top retailers both from a customer and a business performance viewpoint. They will provide insights into whether retailer strategy and resource plans are succeeding or struggling, and explore areas for improvement.