Information Age Magazine September 2016

Digital continues to be a significant theme for Information Age – and, indeed, businesses of all shapes and sizes – as we explore it from numerous different angles in this issue.

There is, perhaps, no more visible example of digital’s transformational powers than the British high street. Brands that consumers turned to consistently throughout their lives have been shunned in favour of online alternatives, leaving retail powerhouses that failed to adapt facing a painful demise.

British Home Stores is only the latest victim of digital, but the company’s management team only have themselves to blame. In today’s landscape, it doesn’t matter how big or well-established a company or brand is: it must disrupt or face the consequences of disruption.

One retail brand that understands that ethos is River Island. The family-owned company, which has 48 stores in the UK and 350 internationally, boasted turnover of almost £1 billion last year, with healthy pre-tax profits of £149 million and ambitious expansion plans.

At the heart of its success has been a keen approach to digital: in 2015, it saw a 48% increase in mobile traffic to its website and a 32% uplift in click-and-collect sales. We discuss the company’s digital transformation with CIO Doug Gardner on page 14.

Digital is also top of the agenda in a frank discussion with Jon Carney, chief digital officer at advertising giant McCann Worldgroup, on page 10.

With the marketing function embracing digital to drive brand engagement, the advertising industry is facing significant pressure to transform how its clients reach and connect with audiences. However, Carney openly admits that digital has torn up the rulebook and nobody knows what it’s all about.

From retail to advertising to postal services, we catch up with Thomas Lee-Warren three years after he was given a mandate from Royal Mail’s management team to change the perception of data from something that appeared in reports to something that could change the fortunes of the company. Having now built the organisation’s influential Data Group, Lee-Warren discusses how a digital transformation has revolutionised operational efficiency.

Also in this issue:
Reimagining the workplace: The office faces a heavy makeover
Augmented reality in the enterprise
GDPR in a post-Brexit world
Security vulnerabilities in the connected system
3 emerging technologies that businesses must embrace
The shift from a linear economy to a circular one