Venue: The New Cooperative Group HQ, The Auditorium, 1 Angel Square, Manchester, M60 0AF
Download: Manchester Campus Visitor Guide
Date: Tuesday, 3rd September 2013
Time: 6.00 for 6.30pm
Refreshments will be provided.

Thanks to everyone for attending this event. With over 45 attending and 50 booked it was yet another successful SLA event with some really thought provoking presentations and interesting debates, not to mention excellent catering from The Cooperative Group. Special thanks to our excellent speakers and The Coop for hosting.

Download presentations.

Download “What does convenience mean?” (659 KB) by Blair Freebairn.

Download em>”Market factors & business opportunities in international convenience retailing” (2,581 KB) by Dr Jonathan Reynolds.

Download “The evolving convenience market: a retailers perspective” (1,564 KB) by Mark Harlow.

Introduction

Our next event it taking place at The Cooperative Group’s new headquarters in Manchester on Tuesday 3rd September.
Registration will be from 6pm and the presentations will begin at 6.30pm.

We have an excellent line-up for this event. Joining Mark Harlow, Senior Location Analysis Manager from The Cooperative Group will be Blair Freebairn, Founder and Principle of GeoLytix and Dr Jonathan Reynolds, Director of the Oxford Institute of Retail Management. Blair will be sharing his thoughts on what convenience means to different customers in a multi-channel, multi-format world and Jonathan will be talking about the market factors and business opportunities in international convenience retailing.

The Co-operative Group will be sharing their experiences in the convenience market, looking at how the convenience market has evolved from a retailers perspective and what challenges remain.

Speakers

• Jonathan Reynolds – Market factors & business opportunities in international convenience retailing
• Blair Freebairn – What does convenience mean to different customers in a multi-channel, multi-format world
• Mark Harlow, Senior Location Analysis Manager, Co-Op – The evolving convenience market: a retailers perspective

Speaker biographies

Dr Jonathan Reynolds, Academic Director of the Oxford Institute of Retail Management and Associate Dean at the University of Oxford’s Said Business School

Jonathan Reynolds is Academic Director of the Oxford Institute of Retail Management and Associate Dean at the University of Oxford’s Said Business School.

A geographer and planner by background, he now works with students of marketing and retailing of all ages and leads applied research projects on the sector internationally.

He is the current director of the longstanding Oxford Retail Location Analysis workshop.

Blair Freebairn, Founder and Principal Geolytix
o Founded Geolytix 2011 to present
o Global head of analytical data and routing at PB MapInfo – 2011
o Manager of the MapInfo UK predictive analytics (PA) business 2009-2011
o Principal architect and methodologist for EMEA PA 2005-2009
o Modeller working in UK retail 2001-2005
o Head of Site Research at UK largest leisure retailer 1997-2001
o Operational management for leisure retailer 1991-1997
o Over the last ten years have served the site research teams at the majority of the top 25 UK retailers

About GeoLytix
o Founded by Blair Freebairn in 2011 to deliver vendor neutral spatial analytical consulting, development and deployment services
o Sarah Hitchcock joined in Oct 2012 from managing the Network Planning team at J Sainsbury’s bringing additional business consulting, project management and training skills
o Recent projects have included bespoke store forecasting models, training, custom data development, system development and consulting projects
o Can be found via www.geolytix.co.uk or by email to blair.freebairn@geolytix.co.uk

Mark Harlow, Senior Location Analysis Manager, The Co-Operative

Mark has a strong retail background stemming from a number of store management roles at Tesco. He has worked as an Area Manager on the Express format and prior to that managed stores within the Extra hypermarket format.

He has also recently completed his MBA in Retail at Stirling University.

Having initially worked as a Regional Location Analyst, Mark now leads the North team of analysts assessing and delivering on new food retail opportunities for the Co-Operative Group.