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Retail

IGD Convention Sets Out To Tackle Tough Questions

By square1
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IGD Convention Sets Out To Tackle Tough Questions

At 8am tomorrow morning (9 Oct), on the west side of London’s Hyde Park, the top players - retailers and brand owners - in the UK grocery business will be signing in for this year’s sold-out IGD convention. There are many industry events across Europe but few, if any, can compete with the quality of the speakers and the attendees who will be heading for the Lancaster Hotel in Bayswater.

Together with the Consumer Goods Forum, IGD is recognised as one of the truly great industry organisations, headed up by the formidable Joanne Denny-Finch. Finch, as usual, has delivered top calibre speakers for the event. The event will open with IGD’s James Walton on ‘Tough Questions For 2013 And Beyond’. The first session of the day will see Finch, Philip Clarke of Tesco and Andrew Morgan, the European boss of Diageo (the stand-out performer in our How The Big Boys Rate performance report), discuss ‘Is Our Industry Still Playing By Yesterday’s Rule?’ with Justin King of Sainsbury’s next in line on ‘Why Should Customers Trust The Grocery Industry?’. King is well qualified to speak on this subject, Sainsbury’s sponsorship of the Paralympics was a brave but brilliant idea. Such is the feeling of goodwill in the UK following the outstanding success of the Olympics and the Paralympics that Sainsbury’s is sure to have significantly reinforced the trust of British shoppers. Then follows Unilever’s Jan Zijderveld and Marc Boland of M&S, followed by a networking lunch. Kicking off the third session is Dan Cobley of Google, with Richard Hodgson of Wm Morrison up next on ‘How Can We Still Deliver Customer Loyalty With Heightened Price Sensitivity, More Transparency And Increased Information Awareness?’.

‘Is This The Time To Invest Or To Save?’ is the subject played out by Matt Hill from HJ Heinz. The final session sees two speakers, Gill Barr from the Co-operative and Judith McKenna of Asda, on, ‘Where’s Your Next Loyal Customer Coming From? Who Can You Rely On In Such Turbulent Times?’. The problem in the saturated UK market is that your new loyal customer is somebody else’s old customer so it will be interesting to see how these talented senior executives address the issue.

© 2012 - ESM: European Supermarket

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