ReThink Productivity Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

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🚨 Podcast Reboot Alert! The ReThink Productivity Podcast is Back—and Smarter Than Ever! 🚀

We're thrilled to announce the official reboot of the ReThink Productivity Podcast with a brand-new format and a commitment to delivering high-impact, actionable insights twice a month

Our new focus is simple: Less Noise, More Intelligence

We’ll now be releasing two essential episodes per month—a mix of deep-dive interviews and actionable, data-driven insights—perfect for busy leaders who need to stay ahead of the curve

The Relaunch Lineup (Your First Two Episodes):

🎙️ Episode 1. The Productivity Pulse (Early Month)

• Data-Driven Action: Hear directly from our experts—Sue, Simon, & James—who share real-world trends, new data findings, and actionable productivity insights emerging from live projects
• Learn from Real-World Wins: Get tactical advice and success stories from organisations that have achieved transformative productivity across the board

💡Episode 2. Basket & Barometer (Late Month)

• Elevated Insights: In conversation with industry expert Diane Wehrle to move beyond surface-level metrics and tackle complex, data-driven metrics around customer shopping behaviour

For leaders in Operations, Strategy, and HR, this podcast provides the modern tools to build a smarter, more efficient, and ultimately more profitable business

 #theproductivityexperts
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We weigh the real trade‑offs of building AI in‑house versus buying and configuring proven tools, and map a practical route from pilot to production without blowing the budget. Clear steps on data, governance, ethics, and IP help you create value you can measure.

• Build vs buy decisions tied to strategy and IP 
• When generic problems justify off‑the‑shelf tools 
• Niche bottlenecks and owning differentiated capability 
• Real costs of talent, data architecture and compute 
• Governance, scope control and reliability expectations 
• Data quality, sourcing and security by design 
• Measurable pilots, baselines and explainability 
• EBITDA impact, inference costs and ROI discipline 
• Ethics beyond bias, oversight and customer impact 
• Partner contracts, IP protection and reuse limits 
• Scaling blockers across finance, compliance, HR and IT 
• Regulations to watch including EU AI Act and GDPR

 #theproductivityexperts
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Diane Wehrle CEO at Rendle Intelligence and Insights joins Simon for their monthly chat about footfall trends. July retail data shows positive signs with spending down only 1.4% compared to 8.5% in June, though footfall decreased by 1.7% as consumers remain cautious with their spending. The warm weather has encouraged more UK residents to holiday at home, redirecting spending into local economies rather than abroad.

• Five key retail sectors (fashion, food and drink, general retail, grocery, health and beauty) all showed improvement in July
• Fashion rebounded from being 10.8% down in June to just 3.2% down in July
• Employment is up 0.7% year-on-year to 4.7%, with youth unemployment rising 14.1%
• Interest rate reductions benefit mortgage holders but impact savers
• The approaching "Golden Quarter" (Halloween through Christmas) will be challenging but crucial
• Early and extended discounting is likely as retailers may over-order based on July's improved performance
• Weather continues to be a significant factor in retail performance

Looking ahead to August, if the good weather continues and staycations remain popular, we might see further improvements in retail spending figures

 #theproductivityexperts
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 Sue & Simon talk about the latest productivity trends. They discuss: 

• Consistent productivity lessons across other industries
• The Rethink Forum on 14th September 2023

 #theproductivityexperts
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Doug Field CEO of East of England Co-op talks to Simon about how you manage and modernise a convenience supermarket chain 

They Cover:

• Alignment of People/Processes and Technology
• Challenges
• Opportunities
• Change
• Future plans

 #theproductivityexperts
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Find us in the Top 50 Productivity Podcasts
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Sue & Simon talk about the latest productivity trends. They discuss: 

• Cost cutting
• The Rethink Forum on 14th September 2023
• New news part 1
• New news part 2

To find out more download the ReThink Whitepapers

 #theproductivityexperts
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Diane Wehrle Marketing & Insights Director at MRI-Springboard joins Simon for their monthly chat about footfall trends and shopping behaviours. 
They cover: 

• Footfall trends from May to June 2023
• The growing importance of Weekends and Saturdays in particular
• What we can expect in the summer months

 #theproductivityexperts
Register for the 2026 Productivity Forum
Find us in the Top 50 Productivity Podcasts
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Amy Bastow Managing Director of Cegid (formerly Store IQ) Retail Store Excellence talks to Simon about how they are helping Retailers to drive productivity 

They cover:

• The challenges of compliance in retail
• Retail Activity Planner
• How Task Management is making teams more productive
• The longest job title & product name we have seen to date !!

 #theproductivityexperts
Register for the 2026 Productivity Forum
Find us in the Top 50 Productivity Podcasts
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Michal Ukropec CEO of Twinzo joins Simon on the Podcast to discuss Digital Twin. An exact 3D Live Digital Twin of your facility, house, office, factory, coffee shop, retail store or even a whole city (perhaps a space station?) 

They cover:

• What is a digital Twin?
• What are the benefits?
• What things can you track?
• How do you create a 3D image easily?

 #theproductivityexperts
Register for the 2026 Productivity Forum
Find us in the Top 50 Productivity Podcasts
Connect to Simon on LinkedIn
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Dr Iain Price Neuroscientist, writer, coach, trainer, author, speaker and Founder of Think It Out joins Simon for the last episode in our series looking at the science of trust and challenge (Top Right Thinking) 

They Cover:

• Wicked Problems that leaders dealing with complexity face
• How do we stay in high challenge, high support (top right) for more of the time
• Neuro Pruning
• The impact of remote working and back-to-back meetings
• Top tips 
• Link to Dose as referenced in the conversation

 #theproductivityexperts
Register for the 2026 Productivity Forum
Find us in the Top 50 Productivity Podcasts
Connect to Simon on LinkedIn
Follow ReThink on LinkedIn