4TH FMCG & RETAIL ARENA

MK Group was a partner of “4th FMCG & RETAIL ARENA” held between 23 and 24 September2013 at Metropol Palace in Belgrade. Welcoming speeches were given by Srdjan Popov, executive director at Infoarena Group for Serbia and Karmen Majetić Pavic, Program Director at Infoarena Group for Croatia. Keynote speech on “Recent trends in the consumer goods industry and retail with a focus on growth opportunities”, was given by Srecko Debelak , Senior Director at AT Kearney from Slovenia.

Ljubisa Radenkovic, Managing Director at Sunoko, participated in the conference roundtable “Innovation and brands.” Moderator was Olivera Perkovic, Executive Director at McCann Group for Serbia, and the following topics were discussed: “Innovative research and marketing strategies in FMCG & Retail Market”, ” How to create a strong demand for your brands,” “New Media in retail and retail advertising”, “The innovative packaging and design as a marketing tool” and ” private labels”.
Apart from Ljubisa Radenkovic, the General Director of Sunokoa, other participants at the round table were Andrej Beslać, Business Development Director at Carlsberg Serbia, Srdjan Bogosavljević, Managing Director at IPSOS, Serbia, Dejan Damjanovic, Head of Sales at Atos IT Solutions and Services, Serbia Gojko Đošić, Managing Director at FRIKOM, Serbia, Manolis Karydakis, Chief Financial Officer at Delhaize Group Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Montenegro and Natasha Vuksic, Senior Manager at Ernest and Young, Serbia.

Ljubisa Radenkovic stressed the importance of continuous communication with customers and care about loyal customers. According to him, having in mind the fact that the required level of standards has already been reached, customers need to be constantly reminded that the goods are present always and everywhere. Taking into account that the consumer is generally saturated, drawing the attention of customers can be achieved by innovation in design and packaging, which do not serve as a purpose itself, but serve as means to achieve increase in sales.

Also, one of the topics for the discussion was the growing importance of modern communication channels, such as IT technology and social networks. In support of the thing that Sunoko is following the latest international trends speaks the fact that the number of visitors at Sunoko’s Facebook page grew to more than 20.000.

The general conclusion is that the market in Serbia narrowed, and the purchasing power has decreased, which means that the purchasing decisions are of a rational nature. Generally speaking, in Serbia, in the field of research has not been done a lot, because of the high pressure on retailers to win bigger market share. Many companies realize the importance of the application of “loyalty management” and “customer relation management tools”, and the company Sunoko is among the most innovative companies.

Karmen Majetic Pavic, Program Director of the conference concluded that the statistics show that buying decisions are made at the selling points in 80 % of cases. Other panelists agreed and once again highlighted the importance of the high level of cooperation between retailers and manufacturers.