Retail Summit 2010

Dear participants of Retail Summit,

We are very glad that also thanks to your participation the Retail Summit 2010 has become the biggest gathering of key CEE retail market players in the sixteen years history of this event. Research among the participants has proved another - even more pleasing - highlight of this conference year: its information value was perceived as the highest one in the last ten years. This can be explained by excellent and well-balanced level of all discussion sessions of the Retail Summit 2010. Several respondents have stated that „the discussions were significantly better than in previous years“, „the quality of all conference parts was comparably high“ and „one can learn something interesting in any session“.

Ten out of 13 discussion sessions got the school mark better than two (in the Czech system this means something between excellent and very good). The individual evaluation numbers given to discussion panels differ very little – so it wouldn’t be fair to highlight some of the winners. The only exception we can make is the CEO panel opening the summit prepared by Zdenek Juračka of the Czech Confederation of Commerce (SOCR CR) with panellists – CEOs of retailers and manufacturers and with Finance Minister Eduard Janota and analyst Tomáš Sedláček.

This panel was according to participants “the best kick-off of this summit ever” and was rewarded by excellent average mark 1,4, “Perfect mix of panellists”, “brilliant moderation of media star Jan Pokorny” and “absolute openness, interactivity and different points of view” contributed to the positive acceptance. Many respondents valued very special discussion entries of Czecho-Slovak tycoon Andrej Babiš, who has obviously enjoyed his first conference participation ever.

The speeches in the main plenary session got high scores as well, fully comparable with successful last year’s evaluation. The highest resonance (expressed by the 1,6 school mark) gained the speech of Prof. Goetz Werner (“unique, fantastic, inspiring“).

One quote representing prevailing opinion coming out of the survey: “The speaker has an incredible charisma. His speech went deep under my skin and injected optimism into me, enabling to trust that ideas of humanity and personal growth can work even in business”. Other ranks of virtual speakers‘ hit parade were kept by Petr Bena of Procter & Gamble (“right to the topic – very relevant”, “clear message– real best practices!”) and Thomas Bachl of GfK (”these data are useful“, “interesting facts partly very different from what some retailers try to say”).

The participants‘ feedback on new concept of the evening party was positive as well. They have appreciated the focus on support of La Sophia foundation helping the children in need to the real „bounce-off-the-bottom“.

Respondents have used the survey to communicate many valuable remarks and ideas how to improve the program, organization and hotel services. Summit organization team has already started to analyze all ideas in order to implement them within the preparations of the next Summit year.

We are looking forward to meeting you all in full number and high spirit at the next Retail Summit that will be held on We believe that Retail Summit has given you some energy and inspiration co necessary to cope with the coming year that will still be far from being easy. We wish you to finish with good February 1-2, 2011.

In the name of organizers

Barbora Krásná
Partner, Blue Events