Ignite the magic in retail

Thursday, 14 August 2014 00:29 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Industry experts to generate valuable exposure for the country’s retail sector by creating connections and knowledge about how the world’s top retail companies operate in a fast paced environment. Retail Conference of The Chartered Institute of Marketing Sri Lanka Region (CIMSLR) titled ‘Ignite the Magic in Retail’ will be held on 15 August from 9 a.m. onwards at the Grand Ballroom, Hilton Colombo. The Conference will focus on how retailers engage with customers through their brands by enhancing the shopping experience through innovation, technology and techniques for meeting evolving consumer preferences. Ranjit Page, the Deputy Chairman/Managing Director of CT Holdings PLC and Deputy Chairman of Group subsidiary Cargills (Ceylon) PLC, in his keynote speech will address how the retail industry have helped the country for economic growth with the focus of forward and backward integration. His address will confront the audience with the need to abandon their comfort zones in a bid to meet the new realities of the fast changing business landscape.

Among the speakers are senior corporate executives such as Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC Executive Director/Chief Operating Officer S. Renganathan, Neilson Sri Lanka Managing Director Shaheen Carder, Quantum Consumer Solutions Ltd Chief Operating Officer Roshani Fernando, MAS Bodyline Director Innovation and Consumer Insight Ahmed Irfan, GlaxoSmithKline Director Sales Sri Lanka & Maldives Kumar De Silva, Dialog Digital Services Senior General Manager Digital Commerce & Advertising Sidath Chandrasena and Unilever Sri Lanka Head of Modern Trade Viranga Wickramaratne will be the speakers on board. As the world’s largest professional body for Marketing, CIMSLR constantly strives to achieve greater recognition and excellence in the marketing profession, whilst creating platforms for professionals to gain and exchange insights. In this context the objective of the Retail Conference is to address the current local retail market condition and gather the best practices within the retail sector to demonstrate the challenging and changing nature of the retail industry and its impact on marketers, thereby use the learning’s to transform the business in to a profitable and successful one. Hence the key objective is to share valuable strategic insights and add value to the participants through this retail conference. The Retail Conference this year will cover specific topics including ‘winning in the trenches: growing in a tough retail environment’, ‘what to expect in 2020’, ‘irrational shopper’, ‘bits and atoms’, ‘point of purchase – igniting the shoppers mind, heart and wallet in the retail space’, ‘retail banking landscape and the evolving customer service expectations’ and ‘capturing the attention shift’.

CIM Retail Conference Project Chair Sumudu Thanthirigoda said: “Ignite the Magic in Retail would be well worth the conference registration. As the Retail Conference offers participants a chance to interact with industry experts and make those professional connections to help your company grow. Whether you are an independent retailer, business executive, CEO, marketer, HR executive or a future retail leader, this conference brings together the most innovative business leaders who share best practices that attendees can apply to their own businesses.” Sampath Bank PLC and Stafford Motor Company PLC are the Corporate Sponsors. Gold Sponsor for the event is Multibond; Daily FT, TNL Radio and Lite FM and ART TV as official media partners; Sarva Integrated as the creative partner, zMessenger Ltd. as the official mobile marketing partner and Maxus as the communications partner. The Chartered Institute of Marketing is the largest community of professional marketers in the world with 100 years of heritage delivering education, membership and insight offerings to the marketing and sales profession. As the world’s largest Institute for professional marketers with over 35,000 members globally, CIM places great emphasis in maintaining high standards of quality and integrity and as such, develops and sets standards within marketing landscapes of UK and other regional countries in which it operates. The CIM qualification is the only international qualification recognised by the Royal Charter in United Kingdom. The CIM Sri Lanka Region is the first international branch of CIM UK and comprises of the largest number of members, both professional and students, of CIM outside the UK; 3,000 student members and over 1,500 professional members, respectively. The regional institute has always campaigned for greater recognition and excellence in the marketing profession in Sri Lanka, through education, training and development. For details and reservations for this program, please contact Manjula on 0773918577 or Malsha 0772990848 or the CIM Sri Lanka Regional Office on 2564860.