Welcome to the Retail Congress 2008!

Alexey Filatov
Managing Director BBCG part of Expomedia Group:
 

Welcome to the Retail Congress 2008!

For the first time in 8 years Retail Director hosts 1000 Chief Executives – the most influential people in the market. While preparing this project, my colleagues and I have noted several trends, which probably will have the most fundamental impact on the market. Today I would like to share our vision with you and invite you to discuss the ideas.
European and American companies are becoming more and more represented in our national consumer market. Our simple indicators show a qualitative increase in the number of new players. We expect large changes in the structure of businesses involved, and most importantly, in the infrastructure of the market. It is very important that, unlike in 1990s, nowadays national business is prepared to adapt to benefit from this tendency.
Retail chains are beginning to experience larger debt load, and therefore fewer new stores are set up. This tendency identified itself at the beginning of the year., Today we witness significant decline in the number of new facilities constructing/leasing projects in some regions. Due to the growing pressure of the financial sector, quantitative expansion has stopped to be an end in itself long before the market is fully saturated. There is a fundamental and a very positive factor – certain circumstances make us focus on business efficiency today, at a very early stage of competition.
Unpredictable expenses. This is the most frequent thesis set out in your interviews. High-quality expenses management (procurement, facilities management, logistics and development) begins to have a decisive impact on profitability of businesses. Some companies have already received large benefits from investment into these areas. In this respect realization of investment potential of foreign partners becomes a matter of the highest priority.
The main objective of the annual retail congress for CEOs is to conduct strategic analysis of all these factors. I am confident that subsequent decisions could become crucial for your business.
The unprecedented scale of the forthcoming event, introduction of ground-breaking innovations and 1000 delegates make Retail Director 2008 a must-attend event. . Registration of participants has started, and our predictions have already been confirmed – I am afraid that soon it will be necessary to post the “SOLD” sign at the entrance. Please do not put off the important decisions to attend till tomorrow! Register now and be confident that you can be part of the discussion.