About 50 contacts to service providers, contractual suppliers, retail partners: the participation in the world's leading specialist trade fair brought new impulses to the investment needs of retail and boosted Markant's visibility among decision-makers in the IT industry. The Business Development / New Technologies department oversaw the coordination.
The EuroShop in Düsseldorf is considered the world's largest retail fair for investment and consumer goods and is organised by the EHI Retail Institute, Cologne. The five-day fair takes place in February every three years on a premises of approximately 124,000 square metres.
This year, there was a total of 2,300 exhibitors from 56 countries and 94,000 visitors participating at the fair. Due to the current circumstances with the coronavirus, this year's event saw about 19,000 fewer visitors than in the record-breaking event of 2017.
Energetic support from different departments of Markant
The Business Development / New Technologies (BDNT) team oversaw the organisation, overall coordination and management of the Markant booth. Romy Reiser and Beate Konerth were in charge of the coordination, and heads of division Pejo Iwanow, Michael Blust and Rene Clasani – the business consultants – kept the various appointments with customers and service providers. In addition, they gave information to booth visitors on the services provided by Markant. They were assisted by colleagues from the MSI units Markant Process Consulting (MGB), Central Services Goods and Sourcing Management. On the marketing side, Sebastian Wagner and Denise Remlinger offered professional support, in particular with regards to the booth design and the procurement of corresponding logos as well as the preparation of marketing materials – like flyers and videos – tailored to the target audience. "Numerous interested parties came to speak with us at our booth, which seems to indicate that the booth concept was a success", reports Michael Blust.
Increase visibility and make contacts at EuroShop
By participating, the hope was, above all, to achieve greater visibility vis-à-vis decision-makers and experts in the IT industry as well as to boost the emotions, sustainability, digitisation and ties relating to online and offline shopping. An additional priority was also making contact with current, new and interested technology & payment service providers as well as start-ups for stationary and online retail. In addition, meetings were held with retail partners, in particular with those from the project groups of the Markant IT board and Payment Services, contacts were made to an expanded specialist audience for recruiting purposes and new international target groups were made aware of Markant services that have yet to be defined.
"The focus was on the services of the Markant IT board and POS Payment Services. Central Services Goods was represented by Klaus Stigler, Sourcing Management by Dirk Scheuer and MGB by Lutz Endrikat and Thomas Schwendemann. Between two EHI and GS1 appointments, Mr Tkotz was also able to hold some conversations with retail partners at the booth", recounts Pejo Iwanow.
Conclusion of Markant's participation in the EuroShop
The participation results were, without exception, positive. Michael Blust summarises: "In addition to numerous discussions on the topics of omnichannel, POS payment services and cash register fiscalisation, retail partners were also able to chat with us at our booth on the topic of electronic shelf labels – a currently active project group of the MIB. This was valued as being quite beneficial."
The colleagues are now following up on the approximately 50 leads that were gathered and are contacting the people responsible for the relevant services in order to coordinate the following measures. "At present, we have a list of about 40 contacts with service providers and industry partners. Around ten of the Markant retail partners took the opportunity to have a personal exchange", shares Rene Clasani.
It will be some time yet before the next EuroShop – the next trade fair will take place from 26 February to 2 March 2023. That said, the EuroCIS is slated to take place in 2021. With 482 exhibitors from 39 countries and 13,000 visitors from 94 countries, it is the largest specialist trade fair for retail technology.