You are invited to an exclusive event – A seminar about…‘Barriers and Enablers to Effective Selling in Scotland’s Food & Drink SMEs’

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Sales & marketing are key functions in most businesses but they are particularly important for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the food & drink industry, many of whom are feeling the squeeze from retail customers and struggling to find ways to sustainable growth.

Recognising what some of the barriers and enablers in today’s competitive environment are, will help SMEs cultivate productive ways to achieve success when starting to do business with, or developing more business with major food retailers. Together we can all share the best way to build a sustainable business with multiple retailers is, through a more effective sales approach, marketing and relationship management focus.

The Business School at Napier University has a strong reputation for working with food & drink SMEs recently successfully delivering Scottish Enterprise Supplier Excellence programme and is therefore uniquely placed to provide support in the development of SMEs’ sales and marketing capability. If you want to learn more about the key ingredients for sales growth and business development in an increasingly competitive food & drink sector, then come along to the workshop.

The event will be co-chaired by:

• Tony Douglas, Professor in Strategic Selling & Sales Management at Edinburgh Napier (Tony has been working in the food & drink industry for 25 years in buying, marketing roles both sides of the fence and now delivers coaching and mentoring among other things to SMEs) and
• Andrew Fearne, Professor of Value Chain Management at Norwich Business School (Andrew has spent the last decade working with Tesco and over 600 food SMEs across the UK in the use of shopper insight to inform business planning and marketing decision-making).

The event is limited to 25 people to enable everyone to engage in a detailed discussion and learn from shared experiences. So, please confirm your attendance asap to avoid disappointment. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me, by email at t.douglas@napier.ac.uk)

We look forward to welcoming you to Edinburgh Napier University and to what I am sure will be a highly stimulating and commercially relevant exchange of ideas, challenges and experiences.

Date & Time: Tuesday 1^st November 2016 from 5pm till 7.30pm

Venue: Edinburgh Napier Business School, Craiglockhart campus EH14 1DJ

Who should attend: Those responsible for sales and/or marketing or CEOs/ Founders

Numbers: This event will be restricted to 25 participants

Cost: A nominal charge to cover hosting costs of £20 + VAT (includes teas and coffees)

For more information contact: Dr Tony Douglas t.douglas@napier.ac.uk