All articles by Stephen Robertson
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OpinionOpinion: Retailers must connect with their customers
There was some great conversation at the recent Squire Patton Boggs retail seminar, with Richard Lim presenting Retail Economics’ thoughts and data on the retail shopping experience.
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OpinionOpinion: Lessons from the legendary Feargal Quinn
Irish retail entrepreneur Feargal Quinn was ahead of his time – today he’d be called a ‘disruptor’.
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OpinionOpinion: What the rise of the robots means for retail jobs
As retail faces the living wage bill hike, could a robotic workforce become a reality, solving productivity and profit issues?
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OpinionComment: Why retail company directors must listen to their store managers
I’m sure it was Allan Leighton who first pointed out to me that indisputable truth that ‘feedback is the breakfast of champions’.
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OpinionData gurus must never forget that shopping is all about people
Worryingly, the ‘future of marketing is all about mathematics’ according to one successful data guru, whom I seriously hope has got it wrong.
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OpinionComment: Why it's right that retail buyers are tough customers
You never think that the buying team needs anyone to speak up for them, do you? Always pretty streetwise people who seem, well, just a bit more resilient than most.
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InterviewQ&A: Timpson Group's non-executive director Stephen Robertson
Stephen Robertson, non-executive director at Timpson Group, speaks to Retail Week about his life working in retail.
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OpinionComment: Fond farewell to the BRC
“You’ll need a very thick skin.” That’s what Kevin Hawkins, my predecessor as BRC director-general, told me as I took over from him five years ago.
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OpinionComment: Join our push for business rates freeze
There is nothing sexy about business rates. They don’t have much globe-trotting glamour and perhaps that is part of the problem.
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OpinionComment: UK retail needs help to succeed overseas
We talk a lot about great customer service. Well, this was a sight that would warm any retailer’s heart: the Megastore at the Olympic Park.
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OpinionComment: Time to overthrow card fee regime
I love self-service checkouts in the same way I love ATMs, ‘pay at the pump’ and airlines’ online check-ins.
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OpinionThere’s openness, then there’s overkill
“It is the next big scandal… the far too cosy relationship between politics, government, business and money.”
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OpinionTime to boost business, not bash it
Stephen Robertson is Director-General of the British Retail Consortium. His career spans 14 years on the boards of major UK retailers.
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OpinionRetail must not be taken for granted
My 23-year-old daughter has had three different employers since she graduated only 18 months ago and seen each of them run into trouble – a thoroughly unsettling experience.
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OpinionLevelling the European playing field
Premier League matches, a Greek TV decoder and a Portsmouth pub. It was the case Karen Murphy took to the European Court of Justice where she won a partial victory in her fight to cut the cost of screening football in her bar.
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OpinionDavey’s data demands are all wrong
“Our new ‘Mydata’ project aims both to enable you to access data firms hold on you in a digital form – and to foster new applications and markets, where at a click of a switch your personal consumption data can be analysed to help you make better buying decisions.”
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OpinionOpen for business
Watching the pockets of trouble break out across London and then England over the past few days has brought home to me the vulnerability of the retail sector in the face of mindless thuggery.
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OpinionOlympic logistics
On the day we heard that “the Games of the 30th Olympiad are awarded to the city of London”, I was visiting a Woolworths store – God rest its soul.
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OpinionKicking the red tape habit
“The Red Tape Challenge in a way has slightly backfired. People who want more regulation are bombarding the website… if you want to get your voice heard you’ve got to muck in because you’ll be drowned out if you don’t.”
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OpinionThe coalition’s first year report card
In Retail Week exactly a year ago I asked what would be different about lobbying a coalition.