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Digitalization is key for businesses to survive and thrive

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Hermann Simon

Hermann Simon is the Founder and Honorary Chairman of Simon-Kucher & Partners. He is an expert in strategy, marketing and pricing. He has an extensive global range of clients. He is the only German in the Thinkers50 list of the most influential international management thinkers in the world. In German-speaking countries he has been continuously voted the most influential living management thinker since 2005. In China, a business school has been named after him.

Before committing himself entirely to management consulting, Simon was a professor of business administration and marketing at the Universities of Mainz (1989-1995) and Bielefeld (1979-1989). He was also a visiting professor at Harvard Business School, Stanford, London Business School, INSEAD, Keio University in Tokyo and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1995 to 2009 he was CEO of Simon-Kucher & Partners. His Hirsch-Index is 49.

Professor Simon has published over 35 books in 26 languages, including the worldwide bestsellers Hidden Champions (Boston 1996, cover story of BusinessWeek in 2004) and Power Pricing (New York 1997), as well as Manage for Profit, Not for Market Share (Boston 2006). His book Hidden Champions of the 21st Century, Success Strategies of Unknown World Market Leaders (New York 2009) investigates the strategies of little known market leaders. His book Confessions of the Pricing Man was published by Springer, New York in October 2015. Price Management, the US version of his leading German textbook, will be published in 2018.

Simon was and is a member of the editorial boards of numerous business journals, including the International Journal of Research in Marketing, Management Science, Recherche et Applications en Marketing, Décisions Marketing, European Management Journal as well as several German journals. For several decades he regularly wrote columns for the German business monthly Manager Magazin. As a board member of numerous foundations and corporations, Professor Simon has gained substantial experience in corporate governance. From 1984 to 1986 he was the president of the European Marketing Academy (EMAC). Simon is co-founder of the first Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) listed on the German Stock Exchange in Frankfurt, which acquired Exceet Group S.E. in July 2011.

A native of Germany, he studied economics and business administration at the universities of Bonn and Cologne. He received his diploma (1973) and his doctorate (1976) from the University of Bonn. Simon has received numerous international awards and holds honorary doctorates from IEDC Business School of Bled (Slovenia), from the University of Siegen (Germany) and from Kozminski University Warsaw (Poland). He is a honorary professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.

Marc Oliver Opresnik

The German economist and professor at the Technische Hochschule Lübeck. He is a world-renown key note speaker an consultant and an inspiring guru of digital transformation and marketing.

Today’s Marketing world is influenced by trends such as digitalization, changing consumer behavior and also respective thinkers and researchers in this subject area. One of them is Marc Opresnik who is a known international marketing leader because of his meaningful contribution in the form of teaching, scientific articles, text books and many international conference contributions. He is a thoughtful leader in the business community who combines his relevant, real-world experience with modern academic knowledge. His command over marketing, management and innovative research is truly inspiring.

Marc Opresnik is a Professor of Marketing and Member of the Board of Directors at SGMI Management Institute St. Gallen, a leading international business school. He is also a Professor of Marketing and Management at the Technische Hochschule Lübeck. He is committed to to advance the understanding of sustainable marketing management and develop innovative and insightful leaders who make a difference in the world of 21st century business and marketing.

He has benefited many private institutions, governments and international corporations including Google, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Dräger, RWE, SAP, Porsche, Audi, VW, Shell International Petroleum Co Ltd., Procter & Gamble, Unilever, L’Oréal BASF and adidas. More than ¼ million people have benefited professionally and personally from his impulses and experienced him as a coach in seminars on marketing, sales and negotiation and as a speaker at conferences all over the world including locations such as St. Gallen, Davos, St. Moritz, Berlin, Houston, Moscow, London, Paris, Dubai and Tokyo.

Marc Opresnik has a proven global track record of achievements, empowering organizations, institutions and people to unlock the value of their time, skills, talents and assets to sustainably grow their business and develop their potential. . He is the author of numerous articles and books, including the German edition of “Marketing Management”, the “Bible of Marketing”. Marc also is the co-author with Phil Kotler (Father Of Marketing) and Gary Armstrong of the Global edition of “Marketing: An Introduction”, which is one of the world’s most widely used marketing text books, inspiring miscellaneous people at global level.

With his many years of international experience as a coach, keynote speaker, researcher and consultant, Marc Opresnik is one of the world’s most renowned marketing, management and negotiation experts and continues to shape the world of 21st century marketing management.

Kozo Takaoka

In the corporate world only few marketing executives have become the CEO’s of their firm. However, now, it is believed that this will now change as marketing is becoming core process of any firm, to embraces more elements critical to driving business growth.

Kozo Takoaka has always been ahead of trends, which is significant in his long career at Nestlé. He is not only considered as a legend in Japan but also in world of Marketing. He is among the world’s most innovative marketing leaders. His career started with assignments in marketing division of various beverage brands, including Nescafé.

He became an early pioneer of the Barista Coffee Maker in 2009, a machine that offered instant coffee solution, as Takoaka believed that Japan need a special machine to meet this demand and time proved him right. He then joined confectionary division of Nestle. His era at KitKat was revolutionary, Kitkat became the leading candy bar in Japan. Kitkat was produced is limited edition flavours preferred by Japanese which made the bars huge collector items with tourists and expatriates who knew the iconic candy only in its “original” flavour. More than 200 different KitKat varieties was produced. KitKat bars became a token of “Well Wishing” and “Good Luck” in Japan and soon became tradition. His work with KitKat was indeed the stuff of legend. Takoaka showed how important is marketing in embracing higher brand growth and soon became the CEO of Nestlé Japan. As we are moving forward Marketing world is expected to face tremendous new challenges but with a marketers like Kozo Takoaka at the helm, we have no doubt those challenges will indeed be met.

Al Ries

Proposed the concept of positioning theory, which is one of the world’s most distinguished marketing strategies. He was noted with the “Arrival of the Positioning Era” along with Jack Trout, which was serialized in “Advertising Age” magazine. In 1994, he established a consulting firm Ries & Ries along with his daughter; Laura Rise. Ries was selected as one of the most influential people in the field of public relations in the 20th century by PR Week magazine in 1999. Ries has also written a number of books that have made the BusinessWeek best seller list on a number of occasions. He graduated from DePauw University in Indiana.

Martha Rogers

Martha Rogers, Ph.D is a best-selling business author and founding partner of Peppers & Rogers Group. Founded in 1993, the firm is now a network of offices on six continents, serving Fortune 500 clients across all vertical segments. In 2003, Peppers Rogers Group joined Carlson Marketing to provide clients with world-class customer strategy in an enterprise consumed by their commitment to relationships and results. The goal of the combined companies is to offer “one-to-one, end-to-end.”

Peppers and Rogers have co-authored seven best-selling books to date, which focus on customer strategy, building the value of the customer, and related subjects. These include The One to One Future, which Inc. magazine called “one of the two or three most important business books ever written,” and Enterprise One to One, which received a five-star rating from The Wall Street Journal.

The global demand for Peppers and Rogers’ books and presentations has resulted in translation to 15 languages, with over a million copies in print. In 2004, the authors published the first-ever CRM textbook for use in graduate-level academics, Managing Customer Relationships. This publication hit the “top 10” business book list on Amazon.com the first day it was announced, a first for such academic texts.

Peppers’ and Rogers’ most innovative strategic thinking is embodied in Return On Customer (or ROC), released in June 2005. This breakthrough publication advances the concepts and tenets of business valuation to the next evolutionary stage, documenting the customer base as a revenue-producing asset for businesses, capable of driving a company’s long-term economic worth. It climbed to the top 20 business books on Amazon.com, was ranked #1 in business book sales with 800-CEO-Read, and was cited by Fast Company magazine as one of the 15 “most important reads” of the year. The book was released as an international edition in September 2005. Processes are underway for translations in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Turkish and Russian.

In 2006, the American Marketing Association Foundation recognized Return on Customer as a finalist for their Berry-AMA Book Prize. This prestigious award is given annually to the single business publication that exemplifies excellence in marketing and related fields, recognizing the author’s contribution of innovative ideas and their worldwide impact.

Peppers and Rogers are poised to publish their eighth book in 2007, which will focus on the competitive differentiation and long-term viability of businesses that successfully harness the power of their core constituencies – their customer-, colleague-, and channel-relationships.

Mohan Sawhney

He is the McCormick Tribune Professor of Technology at the Kellogg School of Management. He is an adviser to several large organizations on e-commerce strategies.

He holds a Ph.D. in marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta; and a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.

Sawhney has two children Asha, and Bundev, both of whom attended NorthWestern University.

Sawhney is a professor at Northwestern University. He became popular after publishing a seminal article, Let’s get vertical published in Business 2.0 Magazine.

He co-authored Innovation Capitalist, an innovation intermediary.

He gives talks around the world, advising companies on their online strategies.

Jagdish Seth

Jagdish is known nationally and internationally for his scholarly contributions in consumer behavior, relationship marketing, competitive strategy, and geopolitical analysis. When he joined Emory’s faculty in 1991, Professor Sheth had nearly 30 years of combined experience in marketing from the University of Southern California, the University of Illinois, Columbia University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also an international business consultant, whose client list includes AT&T, BellSouth, Ford, GE, Motorola, Square D, Whirlpool and Sprint. Professor Sheth’s timely advice aids business leaders, and policymakers looking to develop long-term strategies for positioning for the future.

Walter Vieira

Walter is a Certified Management Consultant; and a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants of India. He has been in the practice of management consultancy since 1975 when he set up the first marketing consultancy company in India. He was awarded the Life Time Achievement Award for Consulting in 2005 and Life Time Achievement Award for Marketing in 2009. He earlier worked at senior positions in Glaxo, Warner Lambert & Boots for 14 years, when he left as Marketing Head for India – and concurrently General Manager for Boots, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. He was responsible for some of the most successful launches in the pharmaceutical industry.

Rob C Wolcott

Dominique Hanssens

Dominique Hanssens is an expert in competitive and strategic issues in marketing. His academic research focuses on the impact of marketing on business performance, to which he applies his expertise in data-analytic methods such as econometrics and time-series analysis.

Hermawan Kartajaya

Hermawan is President of World Marketing Association and Co-founder of Asia Marketing Federation.He is also an internationally acknowledged speaker and lecturer. He has been introduced as one of the 50 Gurus Who Have Shaped The Future of Marketing” appointed by The Chartered Institute of Marketing, United Kingdom (CIM-UK). He has co-authored with Professor Philip Kotler as well. A Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), he was President of the Asia-Pacific Marketing Federation between 1998 and 2000. He is the first Indonesian to enter the international league in marketing with his own models and received an acknowledgement from Prof. Philip Kotler, the world’s guru of marketing. He is also the one the few Asians who has been invited to give a speech in the American Marketing Association (AMA) Educators Conference

Dr. Ira Kaufman

Ira’s 40 years of management experience spans three worlds: business, nonprofit and education. Earning his PhD in Marketing and MA in Sociology under the mentorship of Dr. Philip Kotler at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, Ira worked with Dr. Kotler to advance early initiatives in social marketing.

Since then, his work has focused on crafting branding, and Integrated Digital Transformation and Marketing plans for SMEs and nonprofits. Visiting 40+ countries, Ira developed a cultural sensitivity integrating values and sustainability into workshops on purposeful leadership, marketing strategy and digital transformation in the US, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

He taught digital marketing at the senior executive programs at Kellogg and Virginia Tech. Currently, at Lynchburg College School of Business and Economics he is designing innovative courses on leadership, digital marketing and social entrepreneurship while directing their new Institute for Transformative Leadership. As a digital strategist, he guides companies ranging from start-ups to multinationals with their innovation, social branding, integrated digital marketing and transformation strategies.

He has co-authored Digital Marketing: Integrating Strategy, Tactics with Values(now in 2nd edition with Digital Strategist, Chris Horton). Outside of his professional life, his true passions are his two children, organic gardening, basketball and meditation.

Nancy Lee

Nancy has more than 30 years of professional marketing experience in the private, nonprofit and public sectors. She is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Washington, Evans School of Public Affairs. She conducts seminars and workshops and has had many speaking engagements on social marketing and marketing in the public sector at conferences, coalition meetings and workshops.

Linden Brown

MarketCulture Strategies works with corporations around the world to improve competitiveness through the adoption of market-centric values, practices and skills. We offer benchmarking, strategic planning and skills assessment for your team. Our training and transformation services will result in measurable improvements in your sales growth, profitability and customer satisfaction.

Our Market Responsiveness Index™ measures your organization’s capacity to respond to customer needs, competitive threats and external factors. Then, we work closely with your corporate leaders to create a road map that will make you market-driven. Our research shows that for every 10% improvement in MRI™ score you can expect a 4% improvement in profitability.

Contact me. I am happy to share our research that has revealed The DNA of Profitable Companies.

Specialties: Improve client profitability through:

1) Benchmarking client’s corporate cultures and recommending priority improvements that will impact business growth and profitability

2) Designing and implementing customized culture enhancing programs (internet-based and instructor led)

3) Designing and embedding best-practices into client’s business systems

Jeff French

Professor Jeff French is a global thought leader in the fields of behavioural influence, Social Marketing, social communication and programme planning and evaluation. Jeff has published over 90 academic papers and five books and numerous guides and tool kits on these subjects.

Philip Kotler

Millions around the world claim that there is only one name in marketing and that is Philip Kotler, also known as “Father of Marketing”. Philip Kotler is an inspiration to many worldwide. Kotler has written over 60 books particularly in marketing field, which includes Marketing Management, Principles of Marketing, Kotler on Marketing, Marketing 4.0, Marketing Places, Marketing of Nations, Market Your Way to Growth, Winning Global Markets, Strategic Marketing for Health Care Organizations, Social Marketing, and Winning at Innovation. He has influenced the marketing field tremendously and has shaped the minds of management students and business leaders worldwide.

Philip Kotler is widely recognized as the “Dean of America’s marketing professors”. Kotler is a professor of international marketing at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois. His burning desire to succeed not only gave seeds to his career but also foster the growth of many businesses and mind of many young entrepreneurs. He has consulted for organizations ranging from AT&T and IBM to Bank of America and Merck.

Based on his relentless grapple Prof. Kotler has received many prestigious awards. He has received the Badge of Honor of Officer of the Order of Academic Palms established in France in the 19th Century in 2013. He was inducted into the Management Hall of Fame, along with 10 other management gurus in 2013. Philip was number 16 in the list of the 30 World’s Top Management Professionals and the only marketer in 2014. He was included in the Marketing Hall of Fame in New York City in 2014. He received Lifetime Achievement Award from the Leaders International at the 6th Global Leadership Awards.

His work reflected his intellectual mind and education background as Philip Kotler graduated with a Master’s degree from the University of Chicago and earned a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both in economics. Later, he did post doctoral work in mathematics at Harvard University and in behavioral science at the University of Chicago. He broke the stereotype that finance is the backbone of any business; rather proved that marketing has direct impact on the success and growth of any business, through the rapid sales and different marketing strategies. He firmly believes that marketing decides fortune of a company

Through his organization Kotler Impact Inc., Philip Kotler has boosted enthusiasm and ardor of marketing and entrepreneurial skills to many individuals and businesses all around the globe. Recently Kotler Impact Inc. has presented Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the first ever Kotler Presidential Award. The award was the symbol of honor and respect to a major public leader who has given new life to democracy and economic growth in the nation.