Our team recently shared our pride about receiving 4 Vendors in Partnership (VIP) Award nominations for NRF 2025... Now, we couldn’t be more thrilled to share that we’ve been named a Finalist in 3 VIP Award categories—AI Innovation & Application, Best BI & Analytics Platform, and *cue drumroll* Partner of the Year!

VIP Award Finalists x3

We’re proud to be a technology partner and trusted advisor helping hundreds of leading retailers worldwide do more with their data. This prestigious awards program recognizes exceptional collaboration between vendors and retailers, and is co-sponsored by the National Retail Federation, the world’s largest retail trade association. NRF hosts Retail’s Big Show each year, the industry’s marquee conference where this year’s winners will be announced on Friday, January 10 at the exclusive NYC VIP Awards Event at Gotham Hall. 

In just under 1 month, we’ll learn if there’s even more reason to celebrate together at NRF. In the meantime, our deepest appreciation goes out to our incredible partners at leading retailers around the world—and everyone who cast their popular vote for us in November—who collectively helped us become a Finalist in 3 categories!

Here’s a sneak peek into some of the incredible customer stories that helped MicroStrategy be named a VIP Award Finalist in 3 categories for 2025.

Partner of the Year

MicroStrategy’s ongoing collaboration with The Warehouse Group is a testament to our commitment to be not just another vendor but a true partner in our customer’s success. “We’ve chosen MicroStrategy again and again for 20 years,” says Keryn McKenzie, Chapter Area Lead for Data, Insights & Services for The Warehouse Group, New Zealand's largest non-food retailer. “The reason is simple: they help us solve our business problems.”

Keryn presented about The Warehouse Group’s award-winning story at the event where she also accepted the coveted customer award for innovation. Expressing her pride in the collective team effort and noting that “we’re truly innovating to shape the future of AI in the BI world” together. Her team earned this coveted recognition in part due to our successful collaboration in launching a custom generative AI “Budget Bot” that gives traders the answers they need to shift strategies and hit at-risk sales targets “on-the-fly.”

The Warehouse Group’s success is among the many inspirational stories behind our Partner of the Year nomination. Long-time customer GUESS uses MicroStrategy to get the right information where and when they need it—on mobile apps, embedded in third-party systems, or as custom-built applications.

Often on the cutting-edge of technology innovation, GUESS is also among the many customers we’ve partnered with to launch GenAI bots this year. Using "game-changing" technology like MicroStrategy AI, they continue to break down the last remaining barriers between end users and access to data, allowing them to get data-backed answers to the questions they ask conversationally in natural language.

Two GUESS leaders are joining MicroStrategy Chief Product Officer Saurabh Abhyankar for our NRF 2025 Exhibitor Big Ideas session on Monday, January 13. Together, we’ll share how their embrace of continuous innovation with data analytics and AI helps accelerate access to meaningful insights for the business. No matter the need, retail employees and partners often “don’t know they’re using MicroStrategy, but they are,” as GUESS Retail Applications VP Bruce Yen notes in the video above.

VIP Challenge: AI Innovation & Application

This year’s VIP Challenge theme celebrates AI’s transformative impact on retail. Our nomination stems from the fact that data is the fuel powering AI—and no one knows data like MicroStrategy.

In October 2023, we became the first BI platform to offer fully integrated generative AI. Our comprehensive capabilities make insights from each company’s trusted data fabric available to everyone, with customers around the world reaping the benefits ever since. Since then, retailers like GUESS, The Warehouse Group, and Federated Co-operatives Limited (co-op)—a manufacturing and wholesale co-operative serving 160 Co-op associations and communities across Western Canada—have realized real benefits.

“Time-to-insight is another unlock with MicroStrategy AI. We're not digging around in data trying to get to a root cause—we can ask questions and get insight right away,” notes Nena Pidskalny Director of Supply Chain Strategy at Federated Co-Operatives, which used MicroStrategy as their enterprise BI platform.

After joining our NRF panel discussion in January 2024 about the promise of generative AI, Nena was among several customers who shared co-op's GenAI with data success story with improved supply chain service levels at our annual user conference in May.

Best Business Intelligence & Analytics Platform

Our last category likely won’t surprise any long-time customers… We’re also nominated for the Best BI & Analytics Platform award recognizing interactive, intuitive, real-time solutions equipping retailers with the insights needed to adapt swiftly to change.

Many technologists at leading retailers understand how MicroStrategy empowers pervasive insights for broad-ranging business value. Often, many more frontline workers don’t know they’re relying on MicroStrategy apps or embedded analytics solutions to understand and mobilize the data that runs their business each day.

Victoria’s Secret recently shared how they use MicroStrategy “to plan our promotions, deliver the best assortments, and ensure that the right product is in the right place at the right time for our customers” at our annual user conference. “MicroStrategy puts data at our fingertips—empowering frontline employees in stores to complete operational tasks quickly and spend more time helping customers,” says Carl Baxter, Senior Manager of Reporting & Analytics at Victoria's Secret.

During their event session, Carl demonstrated how Victoria's Secret uses MicroStrategy to seamlessly embed product images into custom iPad apps for store operations. Their solution accelerates assortment changeovers in-store by “allowing store associates to execute inventory updates quickly” so they can ultimately “spend more time helping customers.”

Our platform also empowers retailers at an unprecedented scale. Both Sainsbury’s and the Schwarz Group previously received customer awards because they exemplify how pervasive data analytics can be in partnership with MicroStrategy—whether spanning dozens of retail use cases or at the scale of tens of thousands.

Join Us at NRF 2025

We hope you’ll join us at Retail’s Big Show: NRF 2025 to learn more! We’re again proud to be an exhibitor and presenter at this year’s event, and we’ll have plenty of business leaders and solutions experts on-hand to help discuss how MicroStrategy can help you. You’re welcome to pre-book a meeting to ensure you get your preferred meeting slot.

Also, please mark your calendars for Monday, January 13 at 9:15 a.m. Our can’t miss Big Ideas co-presentation with long-time customer GUESS—Revolutionizing Retail with Data and AI That Helps You ‘Look Up!’—will explore how this premium brand empowers employees worldwide with instant answers: helping them "look up" from screens to focus on providing exceptional service.

GUESS leaders will share how they transform data and AI into real-time insights with MicroStrategy ONE. Plus, immediately after our session, they’ll join us at Booth #5467 to answer your questions about their successful partnership with MicroStrategy.