Spotlight Retail 2026

Move from explaining last month to actively steering next week.

Turn two reactive outcomes into the proactive tools they should be.

Three concrete AI roles already doing the work, built for retail finance

Present:

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13:00 - 15:30

Online

Your finance team isn't the problem. The architecture is. Retail doesn't slow down for month-end close. Margins shift before the dashboard refreshes. Inventory decisions made last week are already affecting cash positions today and finance is still explaining what happened, not steering what's next. The pressure is real. The effort is high. But working harder inside a system that's structurally one step behind the business doesn't close the gap. It just makes the gap more exhausting. Something needs to change. Not the people. The setup.

The problem isn't your team. It's the setup.

Margins shift before the dashboard refreshes. Inventory decisions made last week are already affecting cash positions today. And finance is still explaining what happened instead of looking at what's next.

The effort is high. The impact feels low. That gap isn't a people problem. It's an architecture problem.

Working harder inside a system that's structurally one step behind the business doesn't close the gap. It just makes the gap more exhausting. Something needs to change. Not the people. The setup.

What you'll leave with

This isn't a session where you sit back and watch slides. It's a working session built around three things you can actually use.

‍A clear picture of where your finance function stands today: We'll map the gap between your current setup and what real-time retail finance looks like in practice — so you leave with a concrete view of what needs to change, not just a vague sense that it should.‍
Sharper thinking on the three pressure points that keep coming back: Margin steering. Cash and inventory management. AI as a structural part of the team — not as a concept, but as a daily operational reality.‍
A roadmap you can take into the business: Not a whitepaper. A concrete picture of the next steps and what it looks like to actually close the gap.

What we'll cover

Three pressure points keep coming back for retail finance leaders. We tackle all three.

The first takes on the buy vs. build decision for AI cashflow forecasting, specifically for cash visibility and treasury. A finance professional demos a tool they built over a weekend, without a development team. Real-time scenario modelling, anomaly detection, natural-language cash queries. The honest debate follows: buy a solution like Palm, or build something your business owns? Both sides get a fair hearing, and the session closes with a framework you can take into the business the following week.

The other two sessions cover the pressure points that sit alongside it:

Margin in real time: Finance teams spending time explaining last month's numbers instead of steering next week's will recognise this one. Continuous close, channel-level visibility, and AI that catches anomalies before they reach the P&L.
Cash & inventory as strategic levers: Both have been treated as outcomes for too long. Scenario-based planning and smarter working capital management turn them into tools finance can actively steer.

Retail finance leaders share what broke, what changed, and what they'd do differently across all sessions.

Built for finance leaders in retail

This event is for CFOs, Finance Directors, Heads of FP&A, and Directors Business Control who are accountable for margin, cash, and forecasting accuracy. And those who are done accepting that finance is always one step behind the business.

If you've ever felt like effort is high and impact feels low, this session was built for you.