During two days the participants from industry and distribution had – apart from an exciting store tour at K-Rauta and Onninen – the possibility to get some inspiring and innovative ideas for their own local business and feel how important it is to join forces in a new digital environment.

After Mr P. Niemi exposed the full spectrum of Kesko’s international activities in Europe, Mrs Vakkilainen (Head of Analytics and Customer Data at Kesko) and Prof. Lasse Mitronen (Aalto University) resumed in an excellent way the blurring market environment:

• new power of consumers
• customer is more mobile and always online
• data and mobile phones are changing our business
• competition landscape is in quick move
• everything and everywhere is data driven
• marketing technologies are changing rapidly
• globalisation is changing the customer and his expectations
• value co-creation by customers and providers

→ necessity of new service platforms, but

• how is service defined in the 21st century?

In resume, the slogan from the first Executive Exchange at tesa in Hamburg is more than valid

‚Today is the slowest day of our life‘

Both Prof. Mitronen and the moderator André Noël Chaker outlined that other branches have been preparing and acting earlier and much more consequently to the fact that the customer has got the remote control in his hands and that joining forces between producers and distributors is thus not only a possibility but a must.

Next meetings for Executive Exchanges are fixed as follows

• 23.-24.10.2018 in Brussels on invitation of Katoen Natie and Menogroup
• 10.-11.04.2019 in Krakow on invitation of Siec Budowlana