Meet the teams who have been shortlisted to participate in the 24-hour Tech Sprint taking place during Retail Week Live.

Seven teams have been selected by an expert panel of judges to take part in the Retail Week Tech Sprint in association with On The Dot.

Tech sprint

The Tech Sprint will be held alongside Retail Week Live on March 16 and 17

The teams - consisting of retailers, start-ups and service providers – will have just 24 hours to build a solution that integrates convenient delivery into consumers’ everyday lives.

Teams participating in the Tech Sprint will have the freedom to develop any innovation they want using any application program interface (API) they like, as long as the delivery part of the concept uses one of On the Dot’s APIs.

The Tech Sprint will be held alongside Retail Week Live on March 16 and 17. Follow the action on Twitter by searching for the hashtag #RWTechSprint.

Find out more about the eight teams taking part:

Asos Code a la Mode

Company Asos

Team members Rob Bell, Alienor Davies, Timur Hasan, Tom Pereira, Hugh Woods

What they say ”Asos is the UK’s number one fashion and beauty destination, expanding globally at a rapid pace. With 80,000 product lines across womenswear, menswear, footwear, accessories, jewellery and beauty, we’re setting the pace in a worldwide fashion revolution.

“Bridging the gap between the instant gratification of buying in-store and the convenience of buying online is becoming an increasingly vital aspect of keeping our customers happy and engaged”

Asos

“At Asos, we totally get that customers want convenient delivery as part of everyday life, which is why we deliver for free to 237 countries, next day in many and we even offer free returns in some.

“Bridging the gap between the instant gratification of buying in-store and the convenience of buying online is becoming an increasingly vital aspect of keeping our customers happy and engaged.”

Team Red Ant

Company Red Ant

Team members Stephen Keep, Richard Fitzjohn, Alex Sbardella, James Smith

What they say: “Red Ant is a technology partner for retailers, delivering smarter ways to drive innovation and engage customers through connected experiences.

“Our RetailOS App Accelerators provide connected customer, commerce and knowledge capabilities for any device, all fully integrated with your existing systems and data. RetailOS apps combine pre-built integrations, cloud services, and best practice interfaces for customer, staff and self-service applications.

“An ‘always on’ world needs ‘always on’ delivery – it hasn’t kept up with the times – and we want to help fix that”

Red Ant

“Modular, branded and future-proof, our managed service delivers results quickly, scales with your business, and minimises change. RedConnect is the enterprise development platform-as-a-service for creating the next generation of connected customer experiences. 

“An ‘always on’ world needs ‘always on’ delivery – it hasn’t kept up with the times – and we want to help fix that. The team has more than 20 years combined experience in helping retailers deliver creative tech solutions to customer problems.”

 

DDRetailers

Company Deloitte Digital

Team members Richard Ankers, Sam Bass, Pete Cornish, Richard North, Eileen Valera

What they say “Deloitte is a major professional services provider and has around 12,000 partners and staff in the UK.

“Our team is complemented with a solid knowledge of consumer ownership and their engagement with digital technology and digital lives”

Deloitte Digital

“Deloitte has the winning team as we have both design and development skills.

“Our team is composed of the hacker who is our technical developer, familiar with internet of things concept and interactive technology. A ‘hustler’ who is able to create a business and architectural model and the designer who is able to bring empathy into the design.

“Our team is complemented with a solid knowledge of consumer ownership and their engagement with digital technology and digital lives.”

Augmented Ecommerce

Company Flubit

Team members Michael Burton, Danny Friar, Olatunji Gbadamos, Domenico Salvia, Ahmet Soormally

What they say “Flubit is the UK’s largest independent marketplace for products, with around 48 million products available through the site. By the end of 2015, Flubit had saved its users over £7.3m on items they were about to buy from elsewhere.

“Our interdisciplinary team are looking forward to showing how quickly and easily we can integrate the Flubit Ecosystem with On The Dot to demonstrate something really special”

Flubit

“Flubit not only creates lower prices for its users on almost any item they want to buy online, but in addition, its market-leading commerce technology powers the ecommerce propositions for some of the biggest brands in the country. 

“Consumers expect modern-day tech to facilitate convenience and our highly skilled, interdisciplinary team are looking forward to showing how quickly and easily we can integrate the Flubit Ecosystem with On The Dot to demonstrate something really special.”

Kurt Salmon Digital

Company Kurt Salmon Digital

Team members Robert Howard, Eric Shea, Andrew Wong

What they say “Kurt Salmon Digital works with leading consumer brands like Dick’s Sporting Goods, Bloomingdale’s and Lowe’s to create engaging in-store experiences.

“Kurt Salmon Digital delivers a blend of services and products, focusing on innovative mobile, web and in-store technologies. Its connected store platform enables improved interactions between shoppers and store associates to meet the evolving needs of customers.

“The Kurt Salmon Digital team has the know-how, expertise and ability to dream up and implement an innovative delivery solution”

Kurt Salmon

“The Kurt Salmon Digital team has the know-how, expertise and ability to dream up and implement an innovative delivery solution.

“We have the background and experiences in ecommerce, omnichannel, fulfillment and customer experience that will enable us to develop and deliver on a delivery system that meets the needs of both today’s customers and retailers.

“Kurt Salmon Digital performs best under tight deadlines and high-pressure situations. The Retail Week Tech Sprint 2016 is the perfect creative environment and stage for us to develop our next solution, alongside the industry’s best and brightest.”

Qubit

Company Qubit

Team members Matt Ball, Aleks Procyszyn, Suganya Sivaskantharajah, Polly Stoyanova, Rae Valters

What they say “Qubit is the pioneer in delivering data-first customer experiences. Qubit offers a blank canvas for businesses to deliver their big ideas.

“Our digital experience hub brings together analytics, segmentation, A/B testing, and web personalisation into an integrated workflow, so that intelligent customer experiences can be delivered across every brand touchpoint. 

“With the constant development of ecommerce and technology, people are getting increasingly used to getting what they want when they want it. Today, we no longer want to stay at home to wait for our packages to arrive, but instead we expect delivery solutions to work around us.

“In the race to fulfil this omnichannel experience that consumers now expect retailers are seeing costs rise faster than revenue.

“71% of chief executives surveyed by PwC said handling returns from online orders is their highest cost associated with fulfilling orders. As such, there is both a want for convenient delivery from the consumer side, but also a need to ensure efficiency from the ecommerce perspective.”