Including Red Ant and Riskified: 2025 RTIH Innovation Awards tech vendor finalists announced

We’re pleased to announce the shortlists for the 2025 RTIH Innovation Awards Technology Vendor of the Year UK and Rest of World categories.

We received a record number of entries this year and many fantastic examples of the continued resilience and dynamism of the retail space during hugely challenging times.

Congratulations to all those who made it through the initial submission process!

It’s now over to our judging panel who will decide the winners to be announced at the 2025 RTIH Innovation Awards ceremony, taking place  at The HAC in Central London.

The event will be held on Thursday, 16th October and consist of a drinks reception, three course meal, and awards ceremony presided over by award winning comedian, actress and writer Tiff Stevenson.

Book your place at the 2025 RTIH Innovation Awards ceremony on Thursday, 16th October here.

Our 2025 runners and riders as follows:

UK

Barron McCann and Retail Assist

Papa Johns partnered with Barron McCann and Retail Assist to transform technology support across 400+ UK stores, addressing franchisee frustrations and system downtime. The partnership introduced a proactive, data driven support model, combining Retail Assist’s best-in-class helpdesk with Barron McCann’s rapid on-site response.

This ensured greater reliability, reduced disruptions, and built franchisee confidence in technology as a driver of growth. With average call response times of 20 seconds, a 92% SLA, and dramatically reduced downtime, the initiative has delivered measurable operational resilience. More than a vendor relationship, it is a blueprint for global best practice in retail.

PMC

WHSmith, one of the UK’s most established retailers, faced the critical challenge of retiring its legacy PoS solution without disrupting operations across its global store estate. PMC delivered a unified managed services solution, consolidating support for over 4,600 store devices under a single, always-on service desk.

This model blended legacy system expertise with future-ready support, ensuring business continuity while laying the foundations for future transformation. The seamless transition, delivered without disruption, exceeded expectations and was hailed by WHSmith leadership as “the biggest non-event of the year” - a flawless transformation that reinforced operational resilience and trust.

Red Ant

Red Ant is consistently at the forefront of evolving retail technology to meet the needs of its clients. RetailOS is the store associate app for increased sales and exceptional experiences. It’s a complete technical ecosystem which brings everything together into one simple app, making data work for clients in new, profitable and cost-efficient ways.

Several leading beauty brands use RetailOS around the world, as well as leading retailers across key sectors. Clients include Coty, Charlotte Tilbury, Chalhoub Group, Partridge Jewellers, Furniture Village and Office Shoes.

Trust Retail

Trust Retail's Analytics platform democratises advanced data analysis for retailers of all sizes, transforming how businesses understand their customers and operations. Launched in 2024, this solution breaks down traditional barriers by offering flexible, customisable analytics previously accessible only to large enterprises.

Through AI powered data formatting, modular architecture, and a 'Bring Your Own Data' approach, we've enabled retailers to unlock valuable insights regardless of their existing systems. The platform delivers comprehensive sales dashboarding, market basket analysis, and customer segmentation, empowering data driven decisions that drive growth whilst promoting sustainability through tailored, pay-for-what-you-need packages.

Yocuda

Longchamp transformed its traditional paper receipts into a powerful post-purchase marketing channel using Yocuda’s highly personalised digital receipts. The project was implemented across 135 stores in 23 countries and delivered 590,000 digital receipts in 2024. 

Each mobile optimised receipt is branded, localised, and tailored with product recommendations, content, and store info. In 2024, 590,000 were sent with a 73% open rate and a 5.5% click-through rate. In total, the project has saved 1.4 tonnes of carbon by sending 2.3 million receipts. Controlled via a central CMS, it has turned receipts into a scalable, high performing channel that enhances the customer journey and drives omnichannel behaviour.

ZigZag

As returns have started to take centre stage, customers have redefined what a good returns experience looks like. Faster refunds, quicker collections or convenient drop-off locations, low cost or free options, tracking capabilities, and more, the list of expectations grows each year. 

It all begins with an efficient warehouse. A warehouse where everything runs smoothly. Parcels are identified instantly, shipments fly out the door on time, and you have complete control over every aspect of your operation. That’s the power of ZigZag’s Warehouse Management System.

Rest of World

Cust2Mate

Cust2Mate, a subsidiary of A2Z Cust2Mate Solutions Corp., is transforming the in-store shopping experience with AI-powered smart shopping carts, bridging online and in-store shopping through interactive technology that guides and engages customers.

The smart carts streamline checkout, personalise every shopping visit, collect actionable shopper insights, and mitigate shrinkage. Retailers benefit from higher operational efficiency, increased revenue, and new retail media revenue streams.

Backed by award winning technology, deployed globally and trusted by leading retailers like FranPrix, MiGros, Yochananof, and Morton Williams, Cust2Mate is redefining retail technology - one cart at a time.

Hanshow Technology

Hanshow’s shelf marketing solution transforms the shopping journey by integrating NFC-enabled ESLs with mobile engagement. By simply tapping their smartphones on an ESL, shoppers are seamlessly connected to a brand landing page offering exclusive coupons, detailed product information, or promotional content.

This intuitive, contactless interaction enhances transparency, boosts convenience, and creates a personalised customer experience directly at the shelf. In a pilot project with Suntory and China Resources Vanguard, the solution was deployed across four stores, activating NFC touchpoints in tea and alcohol sections to drive engagement and elevate in-store brand interaction.

Kevel

Kevel’s Retail Media Cloud is an API first platform that empowers retailers, ecommerce, and marketplaces to launch and scale bespoke retail media networks with full control over data, formats, and customer experience.

With advanced AI capabilities, including predictive segmentation and yield forecasting, Kevel enables personalised, revenue-driving campaigns at scale. This is why MC Sonae, Portugal’s leading grocery retailer, turned to Kevel to fuel its retail media vision. Embedding RMC at its core, MC Sonae launched ENDLESS and transformed loyalty data from 4.5 million households into a market leading media business.

Legion Technologies

Legion Technologies is transforming workforce management for hourly workers through an AI native platform that integrates cutting-edge AI technologies and robust data pipelines to enable intelligent automation across every workforce function.

Legion AI revolutionises labour planning by calculating and injecting real-time employee productivity data into the optimisation process before generating schedules. Legion’s optimisation engine, backed by machine learning, crafts compliant, budget-conscious schedules that meet the business's needs, employee preferences, skills, and incorporate employee productivity.

Legion WFM automates over 70 workforce use cases using AI, supporting operations in 25+ countries and 28 languages, and is proven to deliver up to 13x ROI.

Logile

Logile is redefining retail operations globally with its AI powered Connected Workforce Platform, which unifies forecasting, labour planning, workforce management, task execution, inventory, food safety, and fresh item management into one intelligent system.

Trusted by leading retailers worldwide, Logile delivers measurable results: higher productivity, reduced waste, greater compliance, and improved customer experience. In 2024, the company achieved over 40% ARR growth, underscoring its role as a transformational partner beyond proof of concept.

Logile continues to set the benchmark for operational excellence, enabling retailers to scale with agility and confidence across markets.

Onebeat

Onebeat is a dynamic inventory optimisation and execution platform helping retailers align stock with real-time demand daily, by SKU, style and store. Built on the Theory of Constraints and powered by AI, Onebeat replaces static forecasts with actionable daily recommendations that improve availability, reduce waste, and boost margins.

The platform enables retailers to respond to shifting demand instantly, achieving measurable results within 90 days. With deployments across more than 220 retailers globally, including Calvin Klein and Panasonic, Onebeat is redefining inventory as a strategic asset - turning a major cost centre into a growth engine for the modern retail era.

Riskified

Riskified is a leading global tech vendor that’s completely transforming how retailers operate and serve customers. Its AI powered fraud and risk intelligence platform uses real-time insights to fight chargebacks, policy abuse, and new threats all over the world.

In 2024, its platform reviewed over $140 billion in GMV across 185 countries, helping hundreds of major brands turn their fraud prevention from a regrettable cost of doing business into a powerful engine for profitable growth.

VTEX

VTEX has reset the standard in enterprise commerce digital infrastructure by rejecting rigid composable frameworks and championing pragmatic composability.