After the punctuation of Christmas and New Year, the business of Business is back in full swing. Retailers are announcing results and discussing plans for how technology will drive competitive advantage this year.

A New Year – and with it, as always, new challenges for the Retail sector.  How should retailers invest hard-earned profits when it comes to technical roadmaps? What are the key retail technology trends emerging this year?

The Retail Sector is leading the way in educating and creating user expectations in digital; however the Government must keep up.

Last Tuesday, we were fortunate enough to be joined by guest speaker Phil Pavitt, former HMRC CIO and now Global CIO at Specsavers, who discussed the lessons the Public Sector can learn from retailers in embracing Digital.

Here we discover 8 pieces of advice that can be incorporated to the Public Sector:

Like most fads crossing over from the US, Black Friday has made its way across the Atlantic and onto European shores. This US shopping phenomenon, which falls on the Friday after the Thanksgiving holiday is devoted to firing the metaphorical starting pistol for the retail industry’s busiest trading period of the year. Despite the absence of a formal holiday, this bargain hunting break has been adopted by UK retailers for around decade now.

As Jeff Bezos rightly said, “If we can keep our competitors focused on us while we stay focused on the customer, ultimately we'll turn out all right.” An isolated, unhappy customer experience can undo a brand reputation that may have taken years to build. Whether it is online, mobile or offline, digital technology is a key factor in creating a cohesive customer experience.

Increasingly, the continuing health and wealth of organisations in the retail space is reliant on big data. There is a pressing need to not just analyse the information, but to appropriately leverage the wealth of business intelligence in order to manage customer expectations. This can be done by effectively extracting value from the information available and transforming this big data into big value.

Getting closer to the customer no matter the channel they use to shop is a major thrust for retailers. It is expected to shape retail offerings in 2015 and in the years ahead. This theme also echoed in the retail technology applications and solutions showcased at two recently concluded retail events, the NRF retail show in New York and closer home, the Retail Business Technology Exposition in London.

It’s not uncommon for supply chain analysts to lose sight of the wood for the trees by diving deep into the data at their disposal whenever retail supply or availability issues are raised. Alternatively, Supply Chain functions may retain their own team of reporting experts specifically to address this need. While it is a given that the designated analysts will do their best to respond to the issues at hand, conducting a thorough and often complex investigation can be the only way to confirm what remedial action should be taken.