Babson College’s Retail Supply Chain Institute and the ING Center for Financial Services at the School of Business, University of Connecticut, recently co-hosted a Thought Leadership Conference, Customer Experience Management in Retailing on the Babson College campus.
Fifty academicians and practitioners attended the two-and-a-half-day conference. The speaker series was open to all members of the Babson community; an additional 68 participants, including 25 alumni and 22 students attended the speaker presentations. Speakers included:
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Leonard Schlesinger, President-Elect, Babson College (Former Chief Operating Officer, The Limited Brands) -- Designing a 21st Century Retail Operating System: The Case of LBOS (Limited Brands Operating System)
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Robert L. Price, Chief Marketing Officer, CVS -- Retail Cold Fusion
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William Dankworth, Vice-President Grocery Merchandising/DSD, Kroger -- The Kroger Co.: Winning Through Customer First Approaches to Grocery Retailing
Geoff Atkinson, Vice-President Tactical Marketing, Overstock.com -- Customer Experience and Its Impact on Metrics
Forty marketing scholars and several industry experts worked in small groups to develop papers that will be published later this year in a special issue of Journal of Retailing. Topics include:
Promotions & Communications
Managing Brands, Categories, Assortment and SKUs
Supply Chain, Channel Mix and Multi-Channel Management
Managing Loyalty & Profitability
Price & Competitive Effects
The Babson Consumer Products & Retail Career Affinity Group (CAG) sponsored a breakfast reception for speaker presentation attendees. CAG Committee Member Arthur Barrett M ’91, President, Barrett Distribution Centers, greeted speaker session attendees and responded to questions regarding the Consumer Products & Retail CAG. Additional Consumer Products & Retail CAG members also in attendance were Jill Cartwright M’07, Bryan Gildenberg M’96, Eric Klein M’02, Jon Weisberg M’83. Babson maintains seven industry-specific Career Affinity Groups.
The Thought Leadership Conference was co-sponsored by the American Marketing Association; ING Center for Financial Services at School of Business, UCONN; the Marketing Science Institute; and Elsevier Publishing.
Conference Chairs:
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Dhruv Grewal, Toyota Chair of Commerce and Electronic Business Professor of Marketing -
Michael Levy, Charles Clarke Reynolds Chair Professor of Marketing, and Director, Retail Supply Chain Institute -
V. Kumar, ING Chair Professor of Marketing, and Executive Director, ING Center, UCONN
