John Lewis announces winner of its UK tech innovation competition
John Lewis has announced that technology start-up Black Marble has won its Great British Technology Innovation for Retail competition.
The retailer held the competition to help it find firms which could develop technical solutions to real business challenges posed within the business. The competition brief included the following there retail scenarios:
- Customer collection within John Lewis shops – ways in which to improve the customer and staff experience and increase efficiencies
- John Lewis children’s shoe department – creating efficiencies around stock management and customer service
- Market-leading John Lewis Partner knowledge and service – how can this been replicated and communicated on online channels
Black Marble’s winning submission tackled the second option for the John Lewis children’s shoe department. Its solution centred on a ‘Help Us-Help You’ system for advance bookings via smart phones which aimed to enhance customer interaction in each shop and ensure customers are served as quickly and as efficiently as possible. The company also suggested an innovative back of house tracking system to better manage stock and inform customers of availability.
Paul Coby, director of IT at John Lewis said: “This innovation event was a chance for us to really explore what smaller technology firms have to offer a large retailer like John Lewis. Black Marble brought the second idea to life in the presentations and it was clear from the start how keen they were to work with us. Importantly, the solution has the potential to be used across a number of channels, not just smart phones so there is certainly scope for extending this idea in the future.
Never Miss a Retail Update!“Our relationship with the all finalists however, won’t end here. We are committed to working with UK technology start-ups to build on our heritage of British innovation to drive great commercial success in our omni-channel world. We want to create an eco-system of technology innovators to support our ambitious business plan and objectives and importantly keep us ahead commercially.”
Richard Fennell, engineering director, Black Marble added: “At Black Marble we have always been keen to push the boundaries of technology, particularly in addressing improvements in everyday experiences. We saw the Great British Innovation Award as a chance to demonstrate what is possible in retail, and John Lewis as an organisation that is forward-thinking enough to make it a reality.”
