According to Paul Douay, Director of Retail Operations Germany and Austria at Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, the question of whether bricks-and-mortar retail has a future is the wrong one. It's more about what this future can look like in a world in which digitalization and sustainability are playing an increasingly important role.

In his presentation at the Praxisdialog Handel und Marketing at the Institute for Retailing and Data Science at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, Paul made us aware of how much resilience brick-and-mortar retail has shown in the face of the multiple crises (Covid with 5 lockdowns in Austria, the energy crisis, inflation) in recent years, but also clearly showed that brick-and-mortar retail needs to innovate in order to remain relevant. Community building, omni-channel integration, sustainability tracking... there are some challenges ahead. Thanks for the great talk and the interesting insight into Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield's strategy.