 Hello everybody, and I have just got off the stage here from being emcee at the future of retail at the launch of the 16th Dublin economic monitor and I wanted to share some of the learnings that I got from the panel discussion and the various presentations and So we're here at this beautiful Dublin City Hall building. It's absolutely gorgeous I have to say and as you can see the hashtag behind me there was Dublin economy So if any of you want to see what the conversation was all about you can go on to Twitter and you can see it there Now here's what happened not first and foremost to make sure you can see there This is the Dublin economic monitor There's this is the 16th edition of it and it includes a wide range of statistics about the city So for example, we learned today that there has been 33,000 people extra who are in employment in Dublin in the last 18 months And if you look at if you compare to when they began the Dublin economic monitor, which is now four years There is the equivalent of Croke Park and a half In the terms of the number of people who are now extra in employment for those of you who don't know where Croke Park is it is our stadium in Ireland and On when it's absolutely full it can hold up to 80,000 people So the way in which it was described today is that it that it now has The Croke Park and a half and has now are now backed back to in incremental employment in Ireland Sorry in Dublin The second thing as well that I thought was really interesting is that there has been 55 million journeys in Dublin on public transport Over the past year across the Ford four different types of public transport that there is and the bus is the most popular and That links in and in terms of the future of retail that 53% of people use public transport for shopping So there's a huge link there between transport infrastructure architecture and retail Something else thought this was really interesting as well 14% of people in Dublin use mobile payments like Apple Pay and Whatever you think about that number is one thing, but it's actually 7% in the UK So there's more people here using things like Apple Pay and so on in terms of mobile payments than in the UK I was surprised by that as I wouldn't have expected it to be higher here and certainly not Dublin But here's another one right and this this in some ways contradicts and That's that statistic, but I can unfortunately I can see why That is that there is an expectation that will be six billion billion would it be? Euro spent in Ireland online in 2019. That's good. However 70% of that is expected to go outside of the country. So therefore A lot while that money is being spent. We are a digital importer Now if you are somebody tuning in right now and you're thinking oh my god, I need to do something about that I'm not online and what I would say is look at the and the online trading voucher That is an offer from the local enterprise office in Ireland And they're also they're available in different guises in different programs around the world But there is funding available to get online There really and truly is and I could talk more about it But it's sending a message if you need to know more and I will tell you now We didn't apply for it because we were online before they became available But I have sent lots of people for it and it's two and a half thousand euro voucher That that is given to you They're pulling down the stage behind me if you spend over two and a half thousand yourself on your own website So a wide variety of insights. I give these I recommend these two to the teachers To the teachers as well the economics teachers because they're absolutely packed full of data really good stuff Comparing Dublin with the country it looks at transport looks at retail looks at employment looks at earnings Looks and of course residential commercial you name it the lot. It's all there now Also, we had a panel then on the future of retail So I had done a variety of research into this and it's it's really interesting to look at where retail is going So the volume of sales at the volume of sales in terms of retail is still happening in store But the growth is happening online and 74 percent of people still prefer to go into a shop when they have time But in comparison to 24 percent of people prefer to shop online now Prefer is not the same as can so But the thing is is that the growth is certainly online and that was one point second point data Data data data data data is everywhere But what I particularly heard from the panel today is that we're not using data to its greatest effect So Yvonne was here from Ernst and young and she was particularly talking about that data is in silos So yes, we may have a loyalty card scheme For example a retailer may have a loyalty card scheme But then they're not actually using that to convey maybe with operations or with marketing or with whoever and so that That's what means that there was data in silos and we need to use this much better So I said yeah, but does that cost a fortune and then she said no doesn't have to if you do it right It can be done in Excel spreadsheet. It can be done as the RM But that's not the point the point is what are you actually trying to achieve with that data? And that's that's what people need to go and to consider then we also had Marvin Green He is managing director of CHQ building now again for any of you who don't know who that is and in Ireland CHQ is a building It's a big big retail and experiential building in Down in the darklands in Dublin and in it is dogpatch labs now dogpatch labs is the closest thing to a silicon valley type of an incubation Center, you know now where there's grass in the top floor that type thing and great a huge thriving hub for Innovation and businesses and startups but also for events, but then they also have epic now Epic is a museum all about Ireland's past. Would you believe the first time that I went to epic? I wasn't in physically in the building at all. I was in South by Southwest in Texas and Somebody was there and they were trialing 3d glasses and they were actually I walked walked around Epic by using those those 3d glasses So I actually said that they're really taking experiential to the nth degree So and he was making that point is that retail is now an experience We don't go because we want to have a transaction a transaction can occur anywhere and some retailers are offering transactions online via text via Instagram via chat You name it. It's happening from all over. So it's not retail is not about a transaction But it's instead it's about experience then we also had We had Susanna who is a CX strategist now I am going to tag all of these people on the LinkedIn post so you can talk to them directly and Susanna I have to say she was probably one of the clearest people that I've ever heard speak about customer experience She said what we need to do you and me right? What we need to do is that we need to look at what happens between when we set an expectation to when we fulfill it So I set an expectation when I had agreed and Delightfully so when I had agreed to work with Dublin City Council to emcee today's event when I sent in the proposal about what I was going to do That was where the expectation was today I fulfilled it and it's what happens in between that in terms of time in terms of responsiveness in terms of going the extra mile in Terms of thinking about things that my customer doesn't have to think about and To be for me to bring best practice from other people that I've worked with or other events that I've gone to That's the bit in the middle. That's customer experience. It's not process And it's not customer mapping it deserves its own category And that was her point is that we particularly need to look at that Then we leave a power as well from the ethical silk company fabulous business. Oh my god Fabulous business and she sourced her materials in India and then from there she sells Very unique very unique pieces online and it's and particularly her whole entire ethos is about sustainability of the materials And the people working in the jobs Who are creating the materials and she donates 10% of her profit to charity 5% of folks Ireland and 5% of a hospice in India No, the reason that we she was talking to us is that she exclusively sells online and Online doesn't just mean direct but also using an online marketplaces and she shared her story today And she was just talking about how the future is of course baseline is quality If you don't like the job or if you don't like the service, you don't like the product You're not gonna buy it but sustainability is becoming it's moving from nice to have Up to a must-have and she's she's already there. She's already there on that journey And then finally we had Sopan and for Mastercard. So what he showed us was heat mapping right now This is this is fantastic, right? So the way in which heat mapping would work in a country like our sorry again city like Dublin is They are they are seeking to pilot technology that would capture all of the point of sale Transactions in the city. So if if Dublin City Council wanted to evaluate, okay What is the impact of a particular piece of weather? Okay? So we all know snow happened in Ireland last year totally disruptive But what was the impact on retail or what what where is the spending happening around Saint Patrick's Day? Is it happening along the Saint Patrick's parade route? Is it happening in the suburbs? And how does that change in comparison to any other day? So the idea then is is that they could take the data not from a once-off basis But evolving and then what they could do is feed that data in for example to Dublin City Council when they're planning Where they're going to put the next shopping centre or let's say if you're planning to design a retail space or Terminology I learned today extend your branch footprint. Well, then you could use this information to plan from there. So I Have to say I learned a huge amount fascinating briefed for me to work on but working on it for a couple of months Now it's brilliant and thanks so much to everyone at Dublin City Council for inviting me to be part of this And I have to say the future of retail its data its personal and it's bright. Thank you. Bye