Events

CMG attends the 2009  NHS Confederation Annual Conference in Liverpool Arena & Convention Centre from 10 – 12 June, many thanks to all who took the time to come to our stand and speak with us.

CMG 2009 NHS Information Technology Survey.

Whilst at the conference CMG completed our NHS IT survey. Our interim results show some clear trends, and identify areas in which Trusts can link their existing information technology and the data it provides more closely to operational performance initiatives.

Click here for the survey results.

CMG attends the 5th annual Retail Technology Conclave, organised by the Retailers Association of India (rai) and held at the Renaissance Hotel & Convention Centre in Mumbai from May 14th-16th. The event is a much sought after platform for retailers to meet, interact, and network with technology vendors/service providers, industry experts, and retail professionals.

 At a power dining session on the first day of the conclave, Julia Cook, Managing Partner of Change Management Group and Shanawaz Babu, Change Consultant,  gave a thought provoking presentation on Change Management: The Essential Ingredient in Any Successful IT Project.

On the final day of the conclave, Julia Cook participated in a panel discussion on the topic, Has ERP benefited the Retailers?

Change Management Group also had a stand at the event. Many thanks to all who took the time to come and talk with us.

[youtube Nl0wdi69_Pk nolink]

CMG hosted an associate evening in our Hammersmith offices to bring together all of our consultants who are currently working on projects. The event was a great opportunity to chat with CMG associates from our ever-growing network, and catch up with new/old members of the CMG team.

Topic: How is social networking changing the way that people do business?

The Management Consultancies Association (MCA) is pleased to announce that Change Management Group (CMG), a leading independent management consultancy, has joined the Association. CMG specialises in consulting to clients in the retail, transport and distribution, fast moving consumer goods and healthcare sectors, helping to improve their business performance and effectiveness. In the current economic climate, CMG is in high demand to enable client organisations to make rapid change that leads to improved efficiency, customer satisfaction, and profitability.

Julia Cook, Managing Partner of CMG said:

“We have been impressed with the role MCA performs. Our membership with the Association enhances our prominence in the industry, where we are already in the top 10 of consulting firms in our field by consultants deployed.”

For full press release please click on MCA logo

Topic: Putting People First

  
CMG attended the Retail Solutions exhibition in London’s ExCel Centre in June. This is the UK’s largest event for suppliers to sell, market, and promote hardware, software and services to thousands of key decisions makers from the retail, hospitality and leisure industries.  We felt it was a perfect opportunity to promote our solutions. It was an insightful experience; a great opportunity to speak face to face with retailers, and to network with other retail solution providers.

In order to help encourage visitors to our stand, we also decided to run a short survey, with a competition prize draw for those who completed the questions. We’ve given a summary of these results in the article below.

Thank you to those of you who visited us on our stand, as it is always great to see familiar faces. We will keep you updated on where you can see us next.

 
 
When deciding the questions, we knew they had to be short and relevant to our target audience. We decided to focus on the future of the retail sector, and settled on the following questions: 

• What do you think will create the greatest change in the traditional high street over the next 12 months?
• Which technology do you think will take off and transform our retail experience within the next two years?
• What is the most important factor in coping with the present consumer downturn?
• Which retailer do you think will receive the next Knighthood?

Growth of online retailing and a lack of general consumer confidence were seen to be the two key areas which will change our traditional high streets the most over the coming year.

Very few respondents felt that shopping using mobile phones or televisions would significantly affect sales.

When it came to the question of which new, emerging technology would most affect the retail environment, opinions became much more evenly spread. 38% felt that multi-media shopping in store with hand-held devices will become far more important and popular, closely followed by interactive help terminals in stores and multi-channel ERP solutions.

Interestingly, no dominant themes emerged when we asked the question around what factors are the most important in coping with the current consumer slowdown. Respondents admitted that they need to maintain focus on traditional methods such as ensuring they better understand their customers, but also felt areas such as process improvement, tighter stock management and better sourcing will all have to their part to play.

We decided to end the survey with a light-hearted question, and asked who from the retail industry they thought would receive the next Knighthood. The winner with 32% of the vote was Charlie Mayfield, the Chairman of the John Lewis Partnership. We will have to wait for the Queen to release her New Year’s Honours list to find out if our survey has the forecasting abilities of a crystal ball!

Topic: What will the high street look like 5 years from now?

Change Management Group hosts informal drinks for forty of our associates and employees at our new offices in Hammersmith.