International retail expert to share experiences with South African businesses

SAS Institute South Africa will be hosting international retail guru Alexi Sarnevitz later this month, where he will examine international retailing trends and look at ways that these lessons can be applied to the South African environment.

Alexi, who is the senior director of Retail Strategy for the SAS Global Retail Practice is based in the USA, and will be speaking at the 10th annual ECR Conference, which is South Africa's premier retail event. He will also be interacting with South African retailers at two high profile breakfast presentations hosted by SAS, one in Cape Town at the Radisson Waterfront on the 30th of October and the other in Johannesburg at the Michelangelo in Sandton on the 31st of October.

As a renowned retail industry thought-leader, Sarnevitz believes that successful retailers today are only just beginning to truly understand their customers. The process begins by evaluating customer and sales data and then not only using this data to understanding your customers buying behaviour, but also tailoring business processes to optimise your merchandising activities. Sarnevitz believes that the key to retail success involves linking your supply chain to your customers using intelligent clustering solutions.

“Alexi has valuable insight and a wealth of knowledge to share with South African retailers. He works closely with Retail Product Management, R&D and the SAS Regional Retail Team around the world and firmly has his finger on the pulse of what's driving the retail space,” says Tracy-Ann Mooney, Head of Retail Practice, SAS South Africa.

Sarnevitz holds a BA degree from Brandeis University and an MBA. from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. Before joining SAS, Sarnevitz was Research Director of Retail for AMR Research, and prior to that an associate partner at Accenture where he led the rollout of new processes and enabling technologies in the merchandising, marketing, supply chain and store operations arenas for a host of leading retailers. He began his career by holding several senior merchandising and inventory management roles at a number of prominent retailers.

If you are a South African retailer and would like to learn more about the positive impact that a customer-centric retailing strategy can have on top line growth, we recommend you attend one of the complimentary SAS events in which Sarnevitz will be presenting.

“No one should miss this opportunity to glean value from such an experienced speaker, SAS is proud to host Alexi here in South Africa,” ends Mooney.

For more information about these exclusive events, please contact Jenny Meyer at SAS by emailing marketing@zaf.sas.com or call her on (011) 713-03442.