Exciting and topical: Lectures and talks in the Garden Café Forum

spoga+gafa is also being accompanied by a diversified supporting programme in 2019. In the Garden Café Forum, exciting lectures and discussion rounds on current themes and issues of the green industry await the trade fair visitors.

Here is an overview of the programme organised jointly by the TASPO GartenMarkt and Koelnmesse. The lectures are mostly held in German, a simultaneous translation into English will usually be offered:

Trade fair Sunday, 1 September 2019

11:00 - 11:45 a.m.
Lecture: Communications of the future – Chatbots, Instagram & co.
The networking of experiences determines the success of tomorrow! Only companies, who are present where their customers are, can survive against their fellow competitors.
Speaker: Florian Topf (Team Leader B2C at Opus Marketing)

12:00 noon – 12:45 p.m.
Lecture: New retaility – how the digitalisation is changing the POS
The digitalisation is changing the buying behaviour. This means the bricks and mortar trade has to think things over: Instead of purely providing goods, it also has to offer attractive leisure options.
Speaker: Heike Scholz, (Co-founder of Zukunft des Einkaufens / Future of Shopping)

1:00 – 1:45 p.m.
TASPO Talk: Quo vadis POS?
What to do with the superfluous salesroom in the face of the increasing E-Commerce? Which local concepts exist? What is already being implemented in other industries?
Panel of experts:
Karl-Heinz Dautz (Consultant and target coach)
Ursula Lindl (Board of Directors, SAGAFLOR AG)
Heike Scholz, (Co-founder of the Future of Shopping)
Dr. Peter Wüst (Chief Executive Director BHB – Trade Association for Home Improvement, Construction and Gardening e.V.)

2:15 – 2:45 p.m.
Presentation: International urban gardening
From the USA to Japan - in which direction is the green urban space developing in the countries all over the globe?
Speaker: Michael Perry (Owner of Mr Plant Geek)

3:00 – 3:30 p.m.
Lecture: Moving Away from General Stores
How to distinguish oneself from one's competitors in the era of the digitalisation? How does one enhance one's profile? How does one find a strategically clever niche?
Speaker: Karl-Heinz Dautz (Consultant and target coach)

4:00 – 4:30 p.m.
Lecture: The best cross-channel strategies in the retail trade and in which direction E-Commerce is developing
How can products or services be ideally marketed via different media, telecommunication or institutional channels?
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Thomas Vogler (Chairman of GermanRetailLab e.V.)

Trade fair Montag, 2 September, 2019

10:30 - 11:00 a.m.
Lecture: The best cross-channel strategies in the retail trade and in which direction E-Commerce is developing
How can products or services be ideally marketed via different media, telecommunication or institutional channels?
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Thomas Vogler (Chairman of GermanRetailLab e.V.)

11:00 - 11:45 a.m.
Presentation: Gardening without a Garden – Small Spaces for Green Places
What form does garden work take on in a densely populated district like Brooklyn? What does it take to create a garden here?
Speaker: Joe Franquinha (Owner of the Crest Hardware garden centre in New York)

12:00 noon – 12:45 p.m.
TASPO Talk: Chatbots & voice recognition - the new revolution within the trade
Empathy of the salesperson vs. self-learning algorithms. Especially in the case of personalised offers the strengths of artificial intelligence are to come into their own in future. Where is the journey headed and how can the trade gear itself up?
Panel of experts:
Lutz Schnalke (Corporate consultant, co-owner LIDIS-Team)
Dr. Eva Stüber (Executive Board Member of IFH Cologne)
Prof. Dr. Thomas Vogler (Chairman of GermanRetailLab e.V.)
Dr. Gerd Wolfram (Executive Director, IoT Innovation & Consult)

1:00 – 1:30 p.m.
Lecture: Moving Away from General Stores
How to distinguish oneself from one's competitors in the era of the digitalisation? How does one enhance one's profile? How does one find a strategically clever niche?
Speaker: Karl-Heinz Dautz (Consultant and target coach)

1:45 – 2:15 p.m.
Lecture: Social Shopping
The business of tomorrow will primarily offer adventures and experiences, products will only be of secondary importance. Here, a technology that is seamlessly integrated into the infrastructure is to form a core aspect of the physical trade of the future.
Speaker: Dr. Gerd Wolfram (Executive Director, IoT Innovation & Consult)

2.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.
Lecture: Successfully introducing plant brands onto the market
Taking brands from the green industry as an example, the lecture shows how one can create relevance among the users and the trade.
Speaker: Richard Petri (Executive Director RiPlant AG)

3:15 – 3:45 p.m.
Presentation: International urban gardening From the USA to Japan - in which direction is the green urban space developing in the countries all over the globe?
Speaker: Michael Perry (Owner of Mr Plant Geek)

4:00 – 4:30 p.m.
Lecture: Artificial intelligence in the trade
Tangible examples from the green industry are used here to demonstrate why we need artificial intelligence in the trade.
Speaker: Lutz Schnalke (Corporate consultant, co-owner LIDIS-Team)

Trade fair Tuesday, 3 September 2019

10:30 - 11:00 a.m.
Lecture: Be social, not digital" - On the road to success with events & emotion
Topical, award-winning store openings are to be used to demonstrate how the trade can continually reinvent itself and become the highly-estimated "third place". Furthermore, the eight success factors in the retail trade will be outlined.
Speaker: Daniel Schnödt (Executive Board, TEAMSCIO Steinheim)

11:15 - 11:45 a.m.
Lecture: Generation change - employer branding as a success factor
The competition for talented employees is also tough within the companies of the green industry. Employer branding should thus not just be a project, but indeed a process.
Speaker: Philipp Hoog (Senior Consultant at the Marketing Competence Centre of Dr. Wieselhuber & Partner)

12:00 noon – 12:45 p.m.
TASPO Talk: Quo vadis garden? Urbanisation & its consequences
What standing will the garden have for the population of tomorrow and how will they use it? How attached to plants will the future generations be? And which consequences will these developments have for the dealers and manufacturers?
Panel of experts:
Dr Johannes Berentzen (Senior Vice President, Dr. Wieselhuber & Partner)
Manfred Eckermeier (Expert for user experience in the garden technology segment)
Dr. Hermann Steinhauser (Managing Partner of the RÖSLE Group)
Prof. Dr. Ulrich Reinhardt (Scientific Director of the Foundation for Future Questions - an initiative of British American Tobacco)

1:00 – 1:30 p.m.
Lecture: Sustainability as a sales argument
Sustainability is becoming an increasingly more important theme within the society. How can one take advantage of this mega trend for one's own garden centre? How can it be used to win over (new) customers and generate turnover?
Speaker: Thomas Buchenau (Intratuin Regional Manager Germany)

1:45 – 2:15 p.m.
Lecture: The future of consumption
Our world is changing constantly. For the green industry this raises the questions: How will people consume in the future and how will they spend their leisure time? And what role does the theme gardening play here?
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Ulrich Reinhardt (Scientific Director of the Foundation for Future Questions - an initiative of British American Tobacco)