RBTE 2014 - the most successful to date

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: RBTE 2014 - the most successful to date.

Retail Business Technology Expo (RBTE) has held its biggest event since its launch four years ago, with a significant increase in attendance with visitors up by over 20%.

Feedback from attendees is that the conference and workshop programme was the best ever with all sessions playing to packed theatres.  The super panel session featuring Steven Esom, Andrew Harrison, Stephen Robertson, David Wild and Peter Williams was standing room only, with all the panellists agreeing that retailers must put customers at the forefront of their strategies.

New features included The Retail Innovation Theatre (sponsored by Epson) which kicked off in style with an opening address from Nick Wheeler, owner of Charles Tyrwhitt and the eCommerce Bootcamps, both of which were massive highlights and will return to RBTE 2015.

The new look Retail Payments Theatre (sponsored by Amazon Payments) took a huge leap forward with a reinvigorated retailer oriented programme.  The Loyalty Roundtable under the chairmanship of Essential Retail's editor Ben Sillitoe was yet another highlight.

Alan Mason, IT Manager,  Kurt Geiger, said, "My visit to RBTE  is really valuable, because so much of what we've got going on is with companies that are here and things that are going on here.  It gives us the idea that what we commit to doing and we're going to be doing over the next 12 months is the right way to go, so there's valuable insight gained here."

Neil Gibson, IT Manager for Retail Business Systems, Starbucks, said, "RBTE is all under one roof, so you don't have to go too far to see the major competition and the major brand leaders."

"RBTE has been useful, it's been good to come and see it and good to see the amount of people that are here."  Said Ian Lenton, Application Architect, New Look.  "As a business we're growing, we're growing internationally, we're growing in the UK, we're growing online as well, that's where we're growing as a business - so to be able to see all these things, see where the market's going and how. see the innovations that are happening within the technology side of things helps us to grow our business as well."

The Champagne Bar sponsored by Dell and the Wifi and Networking Lounge sponsored by Paypal were constantly full of business meetings and networking activity.

Matt Bradley, Event Director of RBTE said, "RBTE has again raised the bar in running a world beating industry event totally in tune its market.  We're looking forward to RBTE 2015, especially as we'll be moving to our new venue at Olympia's Grand Hall.

The dates for RBTE 2015 have been announced as March 10th & 11th.