Take your vision higher

John Atkinson is an Inventory Management Expert and Lead Trainer for the Advanced Certificate in Strategic Inventory Management: ACSIM™

The Advanced Certificate in Strategic Inventory Management: ACSIM™ is delivered through Innoverto Training in Dubai and covers Effective Inventory Management which is a vital element of Supply Chain management and effectively underpins both financial revenue streams for the organisation as well as ensuring that projects are completed on time.

ACSIM™ leads delegates through the key methodologies to ensure that inventory levels are optimised both financially and operationally. The course expands to incorporate safety stock level system management, the management of slow moving and obsolete inventory and provides delegates with a soft copy inventory management model to enable delegates to swiftly and confidently implement their learning upon their return to the workplace.

What do you believe are the key challenges faced by organisations when managing inventory?

From my experience of working globally with a range of clients across all industry sectors including: Oil & Gas, Telecoms, Defence & State Institutions, the most common challenges are:

• Managing Excess Inventory Levels.
• Managing user forecast variations.
• Managing changes in inventory mix as a result of Operational changes.

These challenges can be overcome, by applying various models including: Forrester Analysis, and understanding the key inventory metrics; particularly leading indicators that will provide a “heads up” to inventory mix change. When combined with Stock Turn Ratio analysis, the organisation gains a clear picture of change and is able to adapt by both Re-balancing inventory levels and also adapting the appropriate min/max model.

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Since 2014, Bâton Global (B|G) has been bringing together the best of academic research with cutting-edge technologies and leading business experience. Our international team are subject-matter specialists across industries, markets, and organizations, possessing a highly strategic and operational focus, as well as a very practical, hands-on, approach when partnering with clients.

Through our services and our senior on-the-ground presence across all the regions we operate in, B|G focuses on impacting organizations by helping them solve their most challenging problems while achieving sustainable  performance and growth.

Four key areas of expertise: Strategy – Research – Innovation – Leadership

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Retail Leaders Circle, a trusted and influential community of prominent retail leaders, is committed to provide the world’s retailers, brand owners and suppliers with the intellectual and social capital they need to succeed.

What Makes RLC MENA Unique

Inspiring Thought Leadership Provide an innovative and dynamic framework where thought leaders and visionaries inspiring all participating parties to introduce bold new ways on shaping the retail direction of the future.		Strategic Collaboration Create and support partnerships by offering a unique and open format where leaders collaborate to best leverage their unprecedented combination of influence and expertise.
Incredible Networking Foster exclusive networking of leading thinkers, business leaders and public figures who engage in privileged discussions and form a community that helps RLC MENA to push its mission forward.		Inspirational Keynotes This unique event is infused with an atmosphere of connecting, sharing, and learning. You’ll hear fresh voices put forth innovative approaches, and established experts debate market opportunities.

Photos from Retail Leaders Circle March 2018

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On the eve of the Retail Leaders Circle MENA, the industry is looking at how best to embrace technology to remain relevant.

The retail industry in the Middle East today is facing the threat of disruption due to a plethora of technological innovations. With the rise of e-commerce and omnichannels, the introduction of Aramex’s Shop&Ship, and the increased focus on personalised customer experiences that meet the changing consumer expectations and behaviour, retailers must now compete at every touchpoint.

Globally, the retail market in the GCC is in a unique position as it continues to grow as new state-of-the-art malls and destinations open. While the US has around 1,100 malls operating today, a quarter of them are at risk of closing over the next few years, according to analysis from Credit Suisse. In comparison, the UAE alone is expected to welcome around 1,184,000 sqm of new retail space by the end of 2018. Recent announcements have been made about Nakheel’s $1.2bn mall on the Palm Jumeriah being 85 percent complete, while the world’s first nature-inspired mall, Cityland Mall, has confirmed its launch date for next year. Consequently, the Dubai Chamber of Commerce has predicted that the UAE retail sector is projected to expand at a CAGR of 4.9 percent and reach $71bn by 2021.

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Tell us about your time in the Middle East?

I arrived in Dubai in 2010 from New York and the US where I had lived for 8 years following the completion of my Masters degree in political science from Uppsala University in my home country of Sweden.

I moved to Dubai as part of a company transfer that was supposed to last for 2 years. After only one year in Dubai but about 10 years of work experience in international business out of about half were in conference production and executive professional training I co-founded Innoverto in 2011 in order to provide the region with better access to international best practices and executive training through certified programs led by international experts.

For instance, Innoverto is the official provider of training for internationally revered and recognized institutes and training programs such as the New York Institute of Management and BMTG in the UK. As such Innoverto acts as the local representative and provides a long list of public and in house certified training programs but also industry events such as the Retail Leaders Circles – a CEO Forum now in its 4th year.

The topic areas we are known for are Leadership & Management, Procurement, Contracts, Bid & Tender Management and Supply Chain, Operations, Process & Procedure and Data Management & Analytics.

As our trainings are being requested globally we deliver several executive programs such as the Advanced Certificate for Executive Assistants in Toronto, Washington DC and Singapore and will continue to launch other public courses in new locations in 2018.  Most rewarding is to receive such positive feedback from participants which create a natural catalyst for us to grow and to do so on a wider and more global scale with each passing year.

How would you describe the culture of your business?

We are a small, young, energetic and flexible team able to produce and facilitate tailor-made programs on a broad range of topics. As a result, we have been able to establish long term partnerships with trainers and clients in the region and internationally.

What are some of the common requests for training from the L&D industry

We are seeing a lot of requests for Experiential Workshops and Business Simulation programs.  To meet this demand, we are offering among other trainings something we call Business Games which we develop as either a ½ or full day workshop. The games represent a simulation of the real business world and when teams are conveyed to an attractive business world that serves as a metaphor for your own business context, you create a ‘safe’ distance from the working environment for your employees, but you can still easily translate the ‘outcome’.

The workshop is a perfect balance of traditional team building on topics ranging from Management, Ownership, Communication, Strategy and Leadership combined with the unique objectives of the client involved. We find them to be an excellent way to round out the year and prepare corporate teams for specific skillset challenges for the upcoming year.

What are your biggest challenges in the next 5 years?

As a dynamic region in constant flux, organizations continue to adapt to this change so we focus on growth and constant customization. For instance, online learning is increasingly prevalent, so we are currently exploring how to best offer this service while complementing our current model. We don’t believe that executive training will be replaced by online learning but can see that it can be very effective when technology and in person programs are combined.  We predict that more innovative methods of training will come online in the next few years and we will continue to strategize how best to incorporate them with our successful program to best suit our clients’ needs.

On the topic of technology and in line with the newly launched UAE Artificial Intelligence strategy, we anticipate an enhanced demand for training in Artificial Intelligence tools. Companies and the public sector are just starting to implement AI technologies and the sector is constantly evolving but ultimately will change both the government and private companies’ way of working and we aim to assist in this change by providing timely and practical trainings.

Dubai – MENA Herald: Retail Leaders Circle (RLC), a pioneering industry summit bringing together global, influential and visionary industry leaders, will host its annual MENA summit on March 27th-28th, 2018, at Dubai’s Four Seasons Resort at Jumeirah Beach.

The high-level summit is being organised in partnership with the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry  under the theme “Re-imagining Retail in Middle East: Innovation and Disruption.” The exclusive event will bring together over 300 business leaders from the retail, real estate, and technology sectors, as well as investors and other key stakeholders

“It is with great pleasure that we host RLC MENA in Dubai, which is currently one of world’s hottest retail destinations,” said Panos Linardos, Retail Leaders Circle’s Chairman. “Dubai has become the preferred market for regional and international retailers and is the ideal location to provide industry inspiration for the entire region.”

H.E. Hamad Buamim, President and CEO of Dubai Chamber said: “Dubai Chamber is delighted to support RLC MENA as the event comes at a very exciting time for the region’s retail sector. In recent years, retail has become a much more important contributor to regional trade and economic growth. Dubai is an ideal place to host this premier event as it boasts a vibrant retail market with a strong presence of leading local, regional and international brands.”

Dubai Chamber’s President and CEO explained that Dubai’s strategic location as a hub for the movement of people and goods across the GCC region, Southeast Asia and the African continent and offers an ideal base for retailers to boost their profile and reach a market of 2 billion consumers across the Gulf, Africa, and Asia.

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Majority of us believe that creativity is an inborn thing and cannot be developed or nurtured. But that’s not the case anymore.

While rejecting this myth, renowned Professor Srikant Datar, faculty chair of the Harvard University Innovation Lab, believes human beings tend to fall into certain patterns of “fixednesses” – or fixed ways of thinking – which suppress creativity, innovative thinking and problem-solving techniques.

“People say innovation and creativity can’t be learnt – it’s either God-gifted or you are out of luck. So I went on Sabbatical to test that idea of what people say that it can’t be taught or learnt. I came away from Sabbatical test completely convinced that you can learn creativity. The theory is simple; we have certain kind of fixednesses – functional, relational, cognitive or structural. In order to break those fixednesses, there are specific techniques you can use. I have consistently seen that by using these methods, you can think in very different ways than the traditional thinking. We can make individuals, companies, products, services and business models all more innovative by simply applying innovative method of innovation. The course programme is very short and helps people develop those skills as you can break fixed ways of thinking,” said Professor Datar.

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Unleash your best with I CARE Leadership

You are at a time in your career when you want to truly unleash the potential you know you have for the benefit of yourself, your team and your organisation – to undestand what delivers success and then to do it in a way that works in any organisation. I CARE leadership lets you do that.

This program is aimed at leaders who wish to take their capability to a truly world class level to set themselves and their teams apart from the rest as a great place to be and for you to be seen as a role model for excellence and delivering future success. Through leveraging your current experience, new leading edge thinking and interactive exercises and peer-to-peer debate you will gain insight into delivering an inspirational environment via I CARE leadership – a new and powerful integration of rational business thinking and the power of trust and belief in the future. This delivers not only high performance but enhances customer focus, optimises risk, builds the brand, enables innovation and change and boosts efficiency.

About Chris Roebuck

Visiting Professor of Transformational Leadership, Cass Business School, Senior Leadership Lecturer, New York Institute of Management Best-Selling Author of the acclaimed book “Lead to Succeed”

Chris Roebuck is Visiting Professor of Transformational Leadership at Cass Business School, London. He was formerly Global Head of Leadership at UBS, where his work is part of a Harvard Business School Case Study and has worked with HSBC, KPMG and London Underground and advised many other organisations.

Earlier in his career Chris served with the Corps of Royal Engineers in the British Army and is the inventor of the “pipe fascine”. Chris has been on the HR Most Influential Thinkers list annually since 2010, been interviewed over 250 times on TV with a total global audience now over 1bn. He has also been quoted in many top global publications on leadership issues including Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, Times of India, Business Week, Time Magazine and many others.

Retail Leaders Circle, a trusted and influential community of prominent retail leaders, is committed to provide the world’s retailers, brand owners and suppliers with the intellectual and social capital they need to succeed.

What Makes RLC MENA Unique

	Inspiring Thought LeadershipProvide an innovative and dynamic framework where thought leaders and visionaries inspiring all participating parties to introduce bold new ways on shaping the retail direction of the future.
	Strategic CollaborationCreate and support partnerships by offering a unique and open format where leaders collaborate to best leverage their unprecedented combination of influence and expertise.
	Incredible NetworkingFoster exclusive networking of leading thinkers, business leaders and public figures who engage in privileged discussions and form a community that helps RLC MENA to push its mission forward.
	Inspirational KeynotesThis unique event is infused with an atmosphere of connecting, sharing, and learning. You’ll hear fresh voices put forth innovative approaches, and established experts debate market opportunities.

Photos from Retail Leaders Circle March 2017

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Develop a new Leadership Mindset.

You are at the center of your people and it is time to take up the leadership challenge and create a winning, results-driven, goal-oriented team – one that will provide superb performance, relevant across all industries. This program is aimed at those individuals who are ready to create a coherent unit that can meet any challenge, any time! It will take them on a journey to understand what gets them super performance from people and how that can then be aligned with their organizational objectives. Through robust leadership frameworks, interactive exercises and peer-to-peer debate you will gain insight into the mindset of creating a high performance culture, and learn to tap into your own strengths to influence and lead with impact. You will explore different facets of leadership, such as how to inspire and motivate teams, build commitment and leverage your team’s experience to deliver the next level of high performance.

About Chris Roebuck

Visiting Professor of Transformational Leadership, Cass Business School Senior Leadership Lecturer, New York Institute of Management Best-Selling Author of the acclaimed book “Lead to Succeed” Chris Roebuck is Visiting Professor of Transformational Leadership at Cass Business School, London. He was formerly Global Head of Leadership at UBS, where his work is part of a Harvard Business School Case Study and has worked with HSBC, KPMG and London Underground and advised many other organisations. Earlier in his career Chris served with the Corps of Royal Engineers in the British Army and is the inventor of the “pipe fascine”. Chris has been on the HR Most Influential Thinkers list annually since 2010, been interviewed over 250 times on TV with a total global audience now over 1bn. He has also been quoted in many top global publications on leadership issues including Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, Times of India, Business Week, Time Magazine and many others.