The Retail Conference

A total of 10 workshops will be offered at The Retail Conference 2010. 2 x 50 minute sessions will be offered in the break-out rooms and will run concurrently to 2 x main auditorium seminars - meaning as a delegate you are spoilt for choice and you can personalise your agenda based on the topics that are most relevant to you.

As a delegate if you are torn between joining a workshop or hearing a seminar we would encourage you to choose the workshop. All of the seminar presentations are made available to attendes via a secure area of this website the day after the event, but we can't ever recreate the content, learning and interaction that comes from the discussion, debate and ideas in a workshop - hence why if the topic is of interest to you we suggest you attend a workshop in favour of a seminar.

Full details of the 2010 workshops will be avaiable in due course, so as an example of the kind of workshops you can expect at the event details of some of the 2009 sessions are below. Please click the links to find out more.

Range and Space: What came first - Chicken or Egg? How to identify £millions in bottom line opportunity!

Planning for a Multi-Channel Business

Optimising your margin in an ever changing market

Maximising Customer Loyalty through Social Networking and e-PR

Customer Centric Retailing - Strategies for winning in a multi-channel world

In this workshop you will get the opportunity to identify where changes in the range and space processes could enable you to deliver significant bottom line benefit.

Retail Acumen will explore this issues arising when space allocated to categories, ranges or skus is related to past sales performance thereby directly affecting the future potential. This self-fulfilling prophecy leads to the question 'What Came First - Chicken or Egg?'

The session then goes on to ask do you know which products and which stores deliver most profit for your business?

Focusing on a real case study, Retail Acumen will walk through how one retailer discovered that:

• A number of stores were so over spaced that if this space were better utilised it would equate to adding 28% more productive space to the total space!
• There was considerable opportunity to intensify trading of existing ranges and deploy additional ranges to deliver incremental margin.
• A number of stores were under spaced for the number of products ranged. By determining an optimal range for these stores (considering range credibility and profitability) the overall return on space for these stores would be almost doubled!
• The stores which were an optimal size were carrying a sub-optimal range based on their sales profiles. Clustering the stores and adopting a more appropriate assortment by cluster would unlock £26million p.a. increase in margin.

This workshop is a must attend for all those who want to focus on ways to intensify their space productivity delivering greater profit return on space across their store estate.

For more thoughts on this subject please visit www.retailacumen.com/space_assortment_planning/

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Retailers know that in order to reach a broader customer base they need to embrace multiple sales channels. A cost-effective way of increasing profit and reputation is to have a successful multi-channel offering that can grow and develop. However, the results can be disastrous if any of these channels do not meet customers' increasingly high expectations. Customers expect a seamless experience between channels and to be offered similar products and services with a consistent brand experience at every level.

Multi-channel operation is a key reality of modern-day business, making effective planning even more important for profitable merchandising. Good merchandise and assortment planning has been used for many years to put the right goods in the right stores at the right time - but customers now also buy online, through mail-order and call centres. However, this complexity means that merchandise and assortment planning systems also have to be capable of working with and providing critical information across multiple channels.

In order to compete, retailers must have an integrated retail software solution that provides insight into customer data across multiple sales channels, uncovers new revenue and growth opportunities, and increases profitability. However; many retailers today are still facing two major obstacles - a lack of cross-channel operational efficiencies and lingering technical shortfalls.

This workshop will look at the issues facing retailers in devising, sourcing and executing a multi-channel strategy. It will look at the role of technology and how it can work with retailers to enhance profitability, process and customer experience using a multi-channel strategy.

This workshop is sponsored by platinum sponsor, TXT e-Solutions. It will be lead by Simone Pozzi who joined TXT e-Solutions in June 2009 as EMEA Sales Director. Simone Pozzi comes with an outstanding track record in Supply Chain technology and has recently enriched this with several years at Geox, a much valued TXT customer and one of today's most successful brands in the Fashion and Retail industry.

Reporting directly to the Corporate Director, Simone Pozzi was Director of Business Process Reengineering and Program Officer, leading IT strategy and key projects.

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Pricing is a core, fundamental activity for any retailer and yet few retailers believe they have their pricing absolutely nailed.

In these times, perhaps more than ever before, retailers must carefully analyse their pricing and markdown strategy, react to a changing environment, and position themselves properly in the eye of the consumer.

This workshop will show you how insightful pricing is helping retailers around the world deal with the margin squeeze, improve financial performance, and improve their price image.

We will dispell the old myths about price optimisation being just about about increasing prices and inform on how finding the right mix of prices across the whole category combined with understanding the role of the category delivers real incremental value.

This session is a must attend for anyone who wants to find out how, when the price is right, you can achieve the sales rates and customer loyalty you need, at a margin you'll be proud of!

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Following on from the engaging seminar delivered by Gillian Berkmen of Mothercare, E-mphasis explore how retailers can engage with the opportunity presented by social media to get closer to their customers.

Not only does social media and e-PR (electronic PR also known as online PR) offer a highly flexible and immediate interaction with customers but it provides a great forum for customers to recommend and refer retailers from whom they have experienced excellent service or great value.

In this interactive discussion delegates will be asked to consider their own experienced of social media, and, what they have witnessed through the behaviours of their close family and friends... all of whom are customers of a number of retailers. Then they will be asked to consider, for your retail business, is this something you can afford to ignore? Finally E-mphasis will look across the types of retail businesses represented in the session and identify opportunities where they may not already be taking advantage of the diverse (and confusing) range of options available.

This session supports the chairman's opening address and also aims to get your grey-cells working harder and to get you thinking about how traditional networking can be harnessed through online media to the benefit of your bottom line.

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Customer centric retailing is emerging as a critical differentiator in today's increasingly competitive retail market, however it is easy to say but much misunderstood.

At Charteris we define customer centric retailing as, "The alignment of retail systems, processes and people to deliver products and services to internal and external customers in the most agile way."

With consumer shopping habits continually evolving innovative companies are implementing customer-centric growth strategies based on deepening relationships with the customer and looking at ways to eliminate activities and processes that don't deliver an exceptional customer experience.

Join us at this interactive workshop to learn and discuss with like minded colleagues about:

• The four key enablers to delivering the next level of customer centric retailing
• Assess what customer centricity means to your business and where you are today using our simple mapping questionnaire
• Gain insight as to how other retailers are approaching these challenges
• Be the first to receive initial findings from our latest survey on Customer Centric Retailing conducted by Martec International.

This session is a must-attend for delegates who want to learn more and gain insight about key trends, best practice and ideas on taking the next step towards becoming more customer centric.

For more thoughts on this subject please click on the link below.

www.charteris.com/what_we_do/customer_centricity

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