Future Retail Challenge Portal

Friday 28th February 2025 - Team Details 

Please send the following to Natalie Wilkins by Friday 28th February 2025

Team names: please email your full team names and email address of your team members

College Logo: Please email your college logo in high resolution PNG and EPS format

Team Photograph: Please email a photograph of your team which will go on the World Retail Congress website. 

​​​Wednesday 14th April 2025 - Artwork 

Please send the following to Natalie Wilkins by Wednesday 14th April 2025

Artwork: Please email a high res PDF version of your artwork which will be displayed onsite at the Hilton Hotel close to entrance when guests arrive.

Friday 25th April 2025 - 10 Page report 

Please send the following to Natalie Wilkins by Friday 25th April 2025

10-page Report: Please email a PDF version of your 10 page report

Monday 5th May 2025 - Presentation 

Please send the following to Natalie Wilkins by Monday 5th May

Presentation: Please email your presentation in a PPT format (NOT PDF) which will be shared with the judges ahead of time, and reviewed by the AV team to confirm the formats are all correct. 

2025 Future Retail Brief

I want a good Job but not in retail!! 

Generation Z refers to the demographic cohort born between 1996 and 2010. They're the second-youngest generation, between millennials and Generation Alpha. Gen Z identity has been shaped by the digital age, climate anxiety, a shifting financial landscape, and COVID-19 

Attracting and retaining Gen Z to retail is reported by retailers to be one of their single biggest business challenges. Gen Z seek many different things and have different priorities and beliefs. And increasingly, many of Gen Z in colleges and business schools state that their ambition is in fact to start their own businesses and to take an entrepreneurial path rather than to build a career with a company. 

The retail industry has for years struggled to attract talent when set against the appeal of other business sectors such as technology, banking or financial services for example. This is now being exacerbated by the changing demands of the new, younger workforce cohort. With retail having to also embrace and invest in new technologies and new channels, the requirement to attract and retain people with these skills grows ever more important.  

Gen Z, more than any other previous generation, has vastly different expectations around the working environment, career development and the kinds of businesses and brand values that they would want to work for.  

It is forcing many retailers to recognise this by promoting and strengthening their values, emphasising diversity in all areas, supporting a different work/life balance, offering better training and support, a recognition of the importance of mental health support and attractive, fair pay.  

This year’s Future Retail Challenge therefore has the opportunity to ask those in the spotlight of this recruitment crisis for the retail industry – Gen Z - what will it take to make retailing your career destination of choice? It is also an opportunity for all those participating in the Challenge to help the global retail industry understand better how they should focus on the critical next generation employees and future leaders.  

THE CHALLENGE 

The 2025 Future Retail Challenge seeks to learn from you as important representatives of Gen Z about how you view the career opportunities of the global retail industry.  

As research shows, there is a strong entrepreneurial ambition amongst this generation which conflicts with traditional career development at established retail businesses. This Challenge seeks to blend the best of retail start-up businesses with the recruitment needs of retailers targeting Gen Z. 

• We are therefore asking each team to imagine that you are a retail start-up. It is not necessary to provide extensive detail on your business except to provide a quick outline for the judges of the retail sector you are focused on, who the brand is aimed at, the country or countries you are operating in and the channel or channels that you have chosen to reach your target consumer.  

• Your business is now at a critical growth phase which requires you to recruit new people to help deliver and manage this. In particular you need skilled people with knowledge around technology, AI, ecommerce, marketing and operations. You have instructed your newly recruited Human Resources team to begin recruitment but with a particular emphasis on Generation Z.  

• You have asked the HR team to review what established retailers are currently doing in your chosen sector to recruit Gen Z in order to find new, competitive ways to beat them to the best people. 

• You require the HR team to come up with an approach, a package of benefits and measures that matches your brand values and business requirements as a Gen Z founded and led retailer.  

• How will your HR team develop strategies for each of your new employees that ensures they stay and grow with your business? 

WHAT THE JUDGES ARE LOOKING FOR 

An understanding of your start-up business 

A detailed review of your competitive landscape in terms of how other retailers are targeting and recruiting Gen Z talent that you would like in your business 

A strong, detailed and robust plan for how you would go about recruiting Gen Z talent with the specific skills listed in point (2) above.  

How will this differ from the competition and how is it more targeted at the career needs of Gen Z?  

How will your approach and offer line-up with the brand values of your business? 

What is the business case and financial implications of the range of ideas you will use to entice people to your business and not to the competition? 

What is the plan to retain people in your business? 

To demonstrate a robustness to your recruitment strategy that other competitor retailers would struggle to copy or beat 

WHAT WE NEED YOU TO DO  

Produce a 10-page report that sets out your plans to meet the challenge. This should be submitted 10 days before the World Retail Congress which takes place on May 12th to 14th.  

The final of the Future Retail Challenge will be held at the World Retail Congress in London on May12th, and each team will give a presentation covering their ideas about how they will achieve the targets and goals set in the brief. The presentations will be given to a panel of judges and an audience of Congress retail delegates.  

The presentations will be no longer than 8 minutes with 6 minutes for questions from the panel of 4 senior retail industry judges. All four members of the team should be involved in giving the presentation. 

Presentations should seek to be informative and entertaining. 

At the Congress, each team will be given a display area with panels setting out the key ideas that show how your plan  can meet the targets set by the challenge. The Congress will produce the display panels and construct the display area, but each team should provide us with the images and graphics that will be shown on the display panels. 

The winners of the 2025Future Retail Challenge will be announced on the afternoon of May 14TH. 

Judging Criteria and Scoring Allocations 

Submission of paper: 30% of the scores 

Presentation at the Congress 50% of the score based on. 

Content of presentation (Proposed ideas, Execution, originality, effectiveness and communication to target consumer) 20% 

Quality of presentation (presentation AV, messaging, audience engagement and quality of delegate presentation) 10% 

Relevance to brief (questions above) 10% 

Response to Judges questions (on the day) 10% 

Audience votes 20% 

Timelines: 

• All colleges to provide to the World Retail Congress the names of the maximum of 4 students in the team with team photograph, college logo by end of February 2025 

• Submissions for the judges (10-page papers, additional pages of illustrations) to be received by World Retail Congress no later than March 25th, 2025 

• Teams should arrive at the Congress venue on the afternoon of 12th May 2025 for briefing and orientation and to rehearse for final presentations  

• May 12-14: students able to attend all sessions of the World Retail Congress but should attend the Future Retail Challenge display area and the team’s own display 

• Submission of paper: 30% of the scores
• Presentation at the Congress 50% of the score based on:
• Content of presentation (Proposed ideas, Execution, originality, effectiveness and communication to target consumer) 20%
• Quality of presentation (presentation AV, messaging, audience engagement and quality of delegate presentation) 10%
• Relevance to brief (questions above) 10%
• Response to Judges questions (on the day) 10%

Timelines: 

• All colleges to provide to the World Retail Congress the names of the maximum of 4 students in the team with team photograph, college logo by end of February 2025 

• Submissions for the judges (10-page papers, additional pages of illustrations) to be received by World Retail Congress no later than March 25th, 2025 

• Teams should arrive at the Congress venue on the afternoon or evening of 11th May 2025 for briefing and orientation and to rehearse for final presentations  

• May 12-14: students able to attend all sessions of the World Retail Congress but should attend the Future Retail Challenge display area and the team’s own display 

Rehearsal Schedule 

Monday 12th May

15:00 - 15:30 EDHEC Business School, France 

15:30 - 16:00 University of Amsterdam 

16:00 - 16:30 London College of Fashion

16:30 - 17:00 Hong Kong Polytechnic, Hong Kong 

17:00 - 17:30 ESCP Business School, Turin

Presentation Schedule

Tuesday 13th May

12:30 - 12:35 = Welcome & Introduction from Bernie Brooks

12:40 - 13:00 = EDHEC Business School, France 

13:00  -13:20 = University of Amsterdam 

13:20 -13:40 = London College of Fashion, London

13:40 - -14:00 = Hong Kong Polytechnic, Hong Kong 

14:00 - 14:20 = ESCP Business School, Turin

14:20 - 14:40 = Team 6

The winner will be announced Wednesday 14th May on the Congress main stage at 10:40 - 11:00.  This session will open with a representative from each team on the main stage talking about what they have taken from the competition and the key lessons. At the end of this discussion the chair of the judges will announce the winning team.

CONGRESS TIMINGS

Please see here for an over view of the congress agenda

Submit your Presentation

Please send your 16:9 widescreen PowerPoint presentation to Natalie Wilkins

This must be submitted in a PowerPoint format, please do not submit as a PDF file.

Presentation Requirements

The presentation requirements below must be adhered to. Kindly note that you will need to make changes to your presentation if the requirements are not adhered to. Our AV team is not able to make any amendments to your presentation.

• The presentation ratio must be 16:9 widescreen
• Video format MP4 H264 Codec
• Font size – 36Pts Bold for headings, 32 pts for content
• Videos must be embedded in PowerPoint on automatic start. We also require the original video in the format mentioned above, as backup 

Key Points to Remember

• All presentations should be Power Point.
• Any videos embedded in the presentation should also be provided as separate files.
• Any weblinks or online content contained in the presentation should be highlighted in advance to ensure a suitable internet connection is available. If an upgrade is required, this will need to be arranged directly with the venue
• All content will be run from the technical desk, onstage presenter will be provided with a slide advance controller.
• Please advise asap if any presenter is likely to want to use their own laptop, preference is that all presentations are included within one deck.
• All presentations need to be 16:9 and 1920x1080
• Images and graphics can maximize the impact of your presentation
• Try to keep to 10 slides for a 20-minute presentation
• Slides should be visual rather than text-heavy
• If you are using Prezzi or Keynote, please let us know as soon as possible
• If you are using your own Macbook or iPad you will need to provide individual adaptors for the DVIconnector
• If you are using your own computer you will need to use this from the lectern so please let us know as soon as possible

To register for the event, you will need a unique registration link which will have been sent to you from Natalie Wilkins. If you have not received this link, please contact natalie.wilkins@worldretailcongress.com 

Your registration link will be limited to the amount of attendees agreed in your contract.

You will not need to bring a physical print out or ticket onsite with you, you can just state your name when you arrive onsite at the Hilton and we will have all your details to complete your badge. We look forward to welcoming you at the World Retail Congress 2025!