The world of transformation and technology moves at a phenomenal pace. At Lean Tree, we know it is crucial to stay ahead of trends and emerging technology to best suit our clients. One way we ensure we’re up to date on the latest trends and emerging technology is to attend relevant industry events.
The Retail Technology Show is a two-day event that brings together over 15,000 forward-thinking retailers and leading tech innovators offering an opportunity to collaborate, network and learn. At the beginning of April, a selection of our consultants attended the 2025 Retail Technology Show, below they share their key takeaways from the day.
Kathryn Roberts, Principal Consultant from our People, Teams & Leadership Offering, shared her biggest insight from the event:
“Events like these provide us with a brilliant opportunity to ensure that as an organisation we are staying up to date on the current technology trends, and aware of brilliant examples of transformation across the retail sector.
“It is key to us that we are investing in our people and nurturing our networks. Reconnecting with stakeholders and partners from previous transformation engagements, discovering the tools and strategies that industry leaders are employing to move businesses forward, and making the most of the networking opportunities available.
“The staggering pace at which the world of technology evolves requires a vigilance to stay constant, and events like this allow us to ensure that Lean Tree remains at the forefront of these developments, offering this expertise to our clients now, and in the future.
“My biggest takeaway from the event was the importance placed on regularly inspecting and adapting outputs to ensure that the results align to business objectives to ensure businesses stay competitive. The impact this can have on organisations is massive and can sometimes be missed. Many speakers recognised this as key to success, especially in a world where change is a constant, and markets are subject to varying external pressures.”
Antony Rawlins, Lean Tree’s Managing Director, shared his key takeaways:
“My highlight was a discussion from Paul Curtis, the CTO of EasyJet, “Airlines Trading Like Retailers”. He shared the challenges of launching the holidays business at the end of 2019 and the repercussions of Covid-19 hitting just 3 months later.
“He discussed the challenges and complexities of building a holidays business from a technology point of view alongside an already established business like EasyJet. His big focus was on getting the organisation right and highlighting the right things once the world started to return to normal.
“One example that stood out to me was his approach to incremental gains, he shared that “Selling 1 cup of coffee to everyone that flies would drive significant additional revenue and profit “. The business thinks like a retailer, with passenger experience raised to a new level of importance. One way that the team at EasyJet are doing this is including airport transit as part of the experience, beyond just selling a seat on a plane. One way they are doing this in Milan is trailing linking holiday-goer’s passport to their phone and boarding pass, so once validated, the journey is made smoother by not having to constantly have your passport available.
“Overall, it was an honest, transparent and informative talk about building, evolving and transforming a business following the pandemic super focus on the customer, and the teams supporting them.”
Abbie Ross, Senior Consultant from our People, Teams & Leadership Offering, commented:
“Change Management was a key topic of conversation, both within the talks and presentations, but also within the questions from the audience too. We heard examples of this discussed within the Holland and Barrett talk, discussing Retail Evolution, how as a business the teams continue to evolve and make changes daily to ensure they keep competitive, and the fact change management is one of their key elements of success.
“There were also examples of it within the panel discussion “The Trading Panel – Technology’s Role in Modern Trading”, which explored the importance of change management and project management and how there is often an underinvestment in these areas and shouldn’t be because of how valuable they are. In a panel focused on technology stack inheritance, CTO Carole Kingsbury, shared how she had approached change at C&C group, using small steps so that change doesn’t feel so big, working jointly as business and tech and arming people with information.
“There were many people talking about change management and its importance, but also an acknowledgement of how challenging it can be to execute effectively. Many of the questions from the audience involved “how do you implement change management successfully?” and “how to go about it, where do you start?”. But also, in some cases the concept and problem being acknowledged, but then the solution being rolled up into generic ‘project management’ discussions, not giving change management the space and attention it requires to be successful.
“Another key takeaway on the subject of change was the importance of ensuring business teams are equipped to succeed in delivering the desired results using the technology and tooling they currently have. If teams aren’t achieving results, reflection on the usage and implementation of the tools already in place is a vital step that is often overlooked which change management, in the form of training and comms, could help resolve.”
Dom Harman, Principal Consultant from our Delivery Execution Offering, shared the highlight for him:
“As someone with a growing interest in AI and its use, I attended a few of the other AI specific presentations over the two days at RTS. It’s certainly a case of “how” retailers and tech providers are implementing it and not “when” anymore! AI is present across multiple areas of retail technology now and is being used to increase efficiencies and improve productivity, it’s an exciting journey to be on.
“My biggest takeaway came from Mohsen Ghasempour, Group AI Director at Kingfisher, the international parent company of home improvement organisations including household names B&Q and Screwfix.
“He explored approaching AI to help you solve problems, as opposed to how you can use it. AI is the tool and not the mission. One way that the team are implementing this at a business-level is the use of a virtual assistant, online and via the Screwfix app. This virtual assistant utilises AI models to assess and categorise the chats, reducing the need for agents to interact on topics that are simple solves, such as helping to find a particular item on the website, and allowing them to focus on assisting customers who require more detailed assistance.
“Tools driven by AI are also used to optimise markdowns and clearance, with early pilots at B&Q delivering encouraging results. Another aspect that Moshen and the team are focusing on from an AI standpoint is the leadership literacy. Partnering with L&D teams, instigating an AI academy yearly, and highlighting the value it can have in the businesses, helping people connect with the technology and the benefits it can have over the fear.
“While it is clear to those of us within the technology space that AI is here to stay, seeing real-world applications for improving efficiencies and moving businesses forward are exciting steps forward in the development and use cases it can have in the real world.”
Tim Topper, Lean Tree’s CEO, shared the insight that he thought had the biggest impact from the show:
“The former Gymshark CEO Steve Hewitt held a very engaging talk, the best in the show for me, and his key messages around running and scaling a successful business really resonated with me. He took on the CEO role in 2017 when the revenue was £4m and stepped down 4 years later with a revenue of over £400m.
“What was very clear from the start was that Steve was very engaging and a real people-person. He explained how having a great product is important, but not enough to grow a successful business. He shared how differentiation of your brand is crucial, and you do that through storytelling. He also highlighted that without brilliant people and the right culture the business would not have achieved half of what it has done.
“He had been quoted in the press as saying that he’d “rather have holes in [his] organisation, than a****holes.” When asked if this was a misquote, he responded absolutely not and explained how some of his highest performing people, when he joined, were his biggest problems and they were holding the organisation back as their values did not align to the values of the company. The impact they were having on the culture and others around them was significant and they had to go. He accepts everyone has an ego but those with the biggest egos need to leave them at home on a Monday and pick them up again on a Friday afternoon. He had no problem with what they did over the weekend but there was no room for a big ego in his organisation as everyone is as important as each other and teamwork is critical to success.
“He talked a lot about employing people based on their values and not on necessarily skills and experience alone. This is something I feel very strongly about at Lean Tree. We need to get the right people with the right attitude, in the right seats. If you do this then skills can be taught, and the experience gained.
“It was clear to me that by prioritising people and values above everything else, Gymshark was able to scale beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and become one of the fastest growing and most successful UK companies in modern times. The employees love working at Gymshark and feel truly valued and there were a number past and present in the audience that Steve interrupted his talk to warmly acknowledge and greet which was lovely to see. Gymshark’s value and approach is truly inspirational and one that any small business would clearly love to emulate.”
Lean Tree on The Road
Didn’t manage to catch us at the Retail Technology Show? We are planning to attend a variety of technology and transformation events across 2025, get in touch to arrange a discussion at the next event we’re attending.
