As many other traditional publishers, Retail Week have suffered from a slump in paper copy sales and have moved online. However, with the variety of sources available online the company has had to look at other ways to monetise its network, connections and expertise. Retail Week Prospect is one such initiative.
Retail Week Prospect is an extensive database of 180 of the largest UK retailers including deep analysis of strategic direction, IT investment focus in the near future, key contacts and much more.
If you are business developing/prospecting for your IT supply outfit and building your UK retailer network you may want to have a look at their [$$] solution here.
The guys at Retail Week organise breakfast events three times per year for RW Prospect. This was the first time they invited non-subscribers (we do subscribe to another Ascential publication... without breakfast meetings!). A fully booked event with about 30 participants.
Phil, the head of research at RW, headed the first presentation with some very interesting stats on UK retail. After him, Lars, the business development director, had a quick chat about the RW Prospect product which looked very extensive.
The only critique we have of the RW Prospect service is that it felt a bit limited. The author of this blog has some experience from BD and would probably have exhausted up the database within a week. After this there does not seem to be much more of interest...
We would recommend expanding this very useful resource to include other countries. If this is not possible, perhaps a bit more about the supplier ecosystem, such as events, which events the CIO's in the companies typically attend, if they invest in startups, their accelerators, etc.
Great event overall 4/5 for us. Well worth a visit.