Boosting Efficiency & Empowering Retail Employees through Smart Solutions

Wanzl is a global leader in retail solutions, with a presence in over 50 countries. Founded in 1947, the company has become a key partner for retailers worldwide, providing high-quality products that enhance customer experience and operational efficiency.

Wanzl’s product offerings include shopping trolleys, shelving systems, customer guidance technologies, and logistics solutions. These products are designed to meet the functional needs of retailers while improving the overall shopping experience.

Innovation is at the core of Wanzl’s strategy. The company continuously develops intelligent (hardware) solutions to address the evolving challenges of the retail industry. Through collaborations with startups, tech innovators, and researchers, Wanzl wants to further push their market leadership at the forefront of retail innovation.

Wanzl Innovation Hub

The Wanzl Innovation Hub is dedicated to driving forward new ideas and solutions in retail technology. It serves as a platform for interdisciplinary collaboration, where startups, researchers, and innovators come together to develop and test cutting-edge concepts. The Innovation Hub provides a fertile ground for developing scalable solutions that align with Wanzl’s product portfolio and vision for the future of retail. Learn more about the Wanzl Innovation Hub here.

This challenge presents a rare opportunity especially for startups, innovative companies, researchers, retail professionals and all other innovators with expertise in retail and smart hardware development to not only demonstrate their innovative capabilities but also to form lasting partnerships and potentially see their solutions adopted and valued by a leading organization in the industry.

Check out our tutorial: Get started! 

Check out our tutorial: Join a Challenge!

After the end of the deadline, the submissions will be reviewed by the challenge provider. The final teams of every challenge will be selected and invited to participate in the Collaborarion KickOffs. We will inform you via mail. Check the timeline.

To ensure the selection of the most suitable partner, we've structured our process into two comprehensive phases. These phases are designed to evaluate both the expertise and personal compatibility vital for a project of this magnitude. This approach not only empowers the challenge provider to assess the ability and synergy of potential partners for such a pivotal endeavor but also affords you a unique opportunity to gain insights from established corporate entities and evaluate your direction for a lasting collaboration.

Your participation is not binding until you submit the Submission Template, and the submission phase ends. You can always withdraw your submission before the deadline. Once you have uploaded your submission and you want to take part, please consider the timeline and be aware that you should be able to participate in every further step.

Get in contact with us!
If you want to talk to someone from our team about your approaches, you need more information or if questions arise, just join one of our Q&A calls every Tuesday from 11:00am-11:30am and Thursday from 4:00pm-4:30pm. It is a group call and you also get the chance to meet other innovators!
Simply register here

If you are looking for a team, make sure to register on our platform to join an existing team. Here you can find all the teams for every ongoing project. Or simply click on the link "Looking for team members?" in the info box on top in order to access our Slack Team Matching channel.

The legal process within the Challenge is as follows

All final teams agree to enter into discussions with the Challenge provider within three months of the programs completion regarding possible further use of the solution. During this period, the final teams also agree not to enter into discussions with third parties regarding further use of the solutions

Background IP, i.e. IP that already exists and is brought into the Challenge by participants, is not affected and will not be transferred or granted. 

Foreground IP, i.e. potential rights that are created during the challenge and in the cooperation with the challenge provider in the collaboratiob phase, will be "shared" with the challenge provider and thus non-exclusively transferred or granted against payment of the prize money.

At the start of the collab phase or during the Collaboration kickoff an obligatory coordination meeting between the qualified participants and the client will take place. Here a binding agreement on what is to be understood as a Foreground IP needs to take place.

If wished for from both parties different, individual agreements can be reached on the handling of Foreground IP, Background IP and blocking period.

Important: If the parties (Challenge-provider and participants) cannot agree on a procedure, the Challenge-provider is entitled to appoint a successor and to exclude the team concerned without compensation.

If you don’t belong to the finalists of our challenge no rights will be transferred or granted.