The World Retail Congress, now entering its sixth year, is the pre-eminent meeting place for retail leaders from across the globe. Uniting retail CEOs the Congress provides critical context, new ideas and challenges conventional thinking. An internationally acclaimed i2i event dedicated to showcasing the various aspects of the Retail industry worldwide is conducted by Emap Networks and it will be held in London, between 19-21 September, 2012.The World Retail Congress brings together over a thousand senior executives from the global retail industry. The Speakers include leading retailers and visionaries that will interact with an equally eclectic audience from across the continents in over forty interactive business streams, keynotes and executive roundtables.
A component of this meet is a student competition called the ‘Retail Futures Challenge’. Its aims are in line with the feedback received from many senior international retailers that they wanted to see the World Retail Congress give prominence to the issues of future retail talent and what the industry needs to do to support existing centres of educational excellence together with a desire to include within the Congress programme sessions that focused on innovation and inspiration.WeSchool enjoys the distinction of being the only business school to represent India at this prestigious forum for three years in a row.
One of the key drivers of change for retailers around the world is the convergence of technologies and digital channels which is leading us, as consumers, to see the world as “Omni-channel”. Consumers now expect a completely seamless interaction with brands across all of the channels all of the time.The 2012 Retail Futures Challenge takes as its context this critical crossroads facing retailers. The competing teams including the Fashion Institute of Technology (New York), Fashion Retail Academy (London), Welingkar Institute of Management (Mumbai),Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Keio University (Tokyo) will imagine that they are a retail start-up that has a great idea for a new product, or way of bringing together a range of existing products or services and with a clear idea of the target market. Thinking about the Omni-channel world and the next generation of technologies likely to impact on how we all live and work, this is the chance to break completely new ground. With no legacy of stores or even an existing website to worry about but only a vision for the future, each team will set out their plans for their retail business of tomorrow.
Preparation for this competition is a rigorous affair with students being mentored by some of the best in the industry. Be it inputs to crystallize their business plan or hone their grooming skills. Sukriti Bajaj, Simki Dutta, Shruthi Suresh And Veeshan Rodriguez ,of PGDM –Retail are being mentored and groomed by Prof.Dr.Swapna Pradhan, Head of Dept, Retail Management who will be leading the WeSchool team at the Congress.
