Interview: Roberto Abbondio, Managing Director of Eurostar

We spoke to Roberto Abbondio, MD New Digital Business of Eurostar, to find out how they plan, optimize and manage their digital transformation and long-term marketing strategy. Roberto is one of many senior keynote speakers at Digistrategy 2017, London on December 14th.  Roberto joined Eurostar in 2017. As MD New Digital Business, he is in charge of strategic projects aimed at engaging the customer with innovative and relevant ancillary propositions. Roberto joined from Cathay Pacific where he served as Managing Director Cathay Pacific Holidays in Hong Kong, leading its transition to a modern digitalised one-stop shop for the airline. Prior to that he was part of the start-up of Hostelbookers.com and he worked for Expedia as Business Development Director for their b2b division, based in Paris. In his early career, after his Political Economics degree at Bocconi in Milan, Roberto covered various roles at British Airways,…

Key Findings from a survey of 500 European fashion retailers

Retailers are undoubtedly enthusiastic about innovation, with more than half viewing it as a priority for their business. But when it comes to actually delivering innovation, retailers face a variety of challenges. To find out how retailers are approaching innovation in 2017 and beyond, we surveyed 500 retailers from across Europe. Here, in a summary of our full report, we share five key findings.

9 in 10 retailers take innovation seriously

Almost all retailers surveyed recognise the value of innovation, highlighting the growing importance of innovating in order to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive market. UK retailers in particular, place great emphasis on innovation, with 76% of respondents saying that it is a priority for their business.

A lack of time is the #1 barrier to innovation

Fashion retailers cite several barriers to…

On average only one-third of businesses have a process for funding tech innovation across the whole business

Our quarterly focus on digital transformation is soon to end, as we pivot to a new focus on eCommerce marketing. But whilst we're on the subject I thought it was important to highlight the lack of process in place for even larger businesses when funding technology innovation. Technology innovation will be what brings in the customers of tomorrow. Those businesses who've used the latest tech to create the best products and the most seamless customer journeys will be the ones winning in the years ahead. [si_monthly_campaign_blog_cta_banner id=154882] Yet only a minority of businesses actually have a formal process in place across the business for funding technological innovation. The best performers were businesses with a turnover of over 250 million dollars, but even they had only a minority of 45% that were using formal processes established across the business. Smaller businesses…