Enfuse Group hosts Agile workshop for UK retail leaders

Leaders from across the UK’s retail and hospitality sectors have gathered for an event, helping them to explore the benefits of Agile working. The day-long workshop was hosted by consultants from Enfuse Group, and partners Stories Matter and The Practical Agile Company.

Working within the guidelines of a task, but without the boundaries of an organisation, Agile working is about bringing people, processes, and methods together to find the most appropriate and effective way of working to carry out a particular task. Enfuse Group is a consulting firm specialising in digital and business transformation – and has regularly helped clients realise the benefits of Agile working.

As Enfuse sought to offer up its best practices to clients in retail, food and hospitality, it partnered with Stories Matter and The Practical Agile Company – both of which work with many organisations in those spaced. The organisations hosted an event, drawing on the trio’s combined experiences, to provide unique insights on key themes emerging around the challenges that many companies in the sectors are facing.

In February 2023, this saw Enfuse welcome 40 delegates from a number of UK leading retail and hospitality organisations, including Sainsbury’s, JustEat, The Body Shop, and McDonalds, to explore the current state and the future of Agile at the firm’s ‘Agile, Food and Retail Workshop’. The interactive event held at the Royal Society of Arts featured presentations from experts, participative exercises with delegates, a panel discussion featuring sector digital and executive leaders, and a session on innovation using Enfuse’s own design-thinking inspired innovation accelerator, Accelerator.Works.    

Stuart Richards, Director of Engineering, Sainsbury’s Tech, said of the day, “A superbly curated event put together by the team at Enfuse with a tremendous cross-section of industries and domains within them present. The learning, sharing and problem-solving discussions were tremendously valuable and it was great (and I mean really great!), to do it face to face. Looking forward to the next one.”

Event partners Stories Matter and The Practical Agile Company London also saw respective founders Nick Jemetta and Ben Saich share their experience and guidance of Agile, explaining how these can drive value in organisations. Other panellists included Shona McGuire, Global Digital Product Manager, The Body Shop; Mark Williams, Director of Technology, David Lloyd Leisure; and Will Broome, CEO, UbaMarket.

Freya Finnerty, a Senior Consultant with Enfuse, said of the event, "As an Agilist working primarily in retail and hospitality, I noticed many common themes and challenges arising. At Enfuse, we are lucky enough to work with many clients in these sectors, so why not bring a group together to explore? It was great to see the overwhelmingly positive response we had to the workshop. Post-covid, people are welcoming face-to-face discussions and meet-ups. Yet, so often, we problem-solve internally and need to take the opportunity to explore external perspectives. My key takeaway from the workshop was lively, topical conversations filled with debate and alliance with those often in opposition on the high street, which was a unique opportunity."

Among the themes discussed, Enfuse covered the state of Agile today – and how it might have adapted since The Agile Manifesto was introduced back in 2001; and how to navigate the uncertainty by adopting a product mindset and to move past rigid project-first approaches to fluid and flexible product-first thinking. At the same time, attendees discussed the widespread impact of Covid-19, how this has impacted consumer behaviour, and how have businesses can use Agile to adapt to this rapid shift in digital offerings. 

A release from Enfuse added, “One key takeaway was that the Agile process must support maximising value for the business and its customers, the right approach is the one that achieves this – there's no one answer to this, especially in the ever-changing world of retail and hospitality! However, the attendees took home some approaches that we've seen work and we've already heard from many that they're using them.”