March 7, 2013, Nashville, TN – The OFA – The Association of Horticulture
Professionals recently hosted its first-ever New Vision Forum,
attracting garden centre owners from throughout the U.S. and Canada.
March 7, 2013, Nashville, TN – The OFA – The Association of Horticulture Professionals recently hosted its first-ever New Vision Forum, attracting garden centre owners from throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Retail consultants John Stanley and Sid Raisch facilitated the event.
“Fairly quickly into the session I started finding key points and ‘ah-hah’ takeaways,” said Art Vanden Enden, from Sheridan Nurseries in Georgetown, Ontario.
And that was one of the key goals of the forum.
“The future of many independent retail garden centres is an economic improbability,” stated Raisch.
“This is a challenge and an opportunity. We can do better as an industry, and New Vision Forum provided in-depth exploration of our business model, which in reality is not one business model but a mixture of many.”
Through OFA, Raisch and Stanley provided this unique opportunity for North American retailers to further develop their business and set a new direction for the industry.
Delegates were challenged to not only understand the consumer, but also the developing hyper-competitive “bricks to clicks” nature of worldwide retail in which a company integrates both an offline and online presence.
Participants were provided the opportunity to apply the challenges to their individual business models to focus plans on not just survival as the last man standing in the garden centre business, but on mastering the possibilities presented in a new economy.
OFA intends to offer to retailers a New Vision Forum experience later this year. Retailers wanting to participate in the future should visit the event website at www.YourNextLevel.org/NVF.
For questions about the conference and to receive an invitation to future events, contact Sid Raisch at Sid@AdvantageDevelopmentSystem, or call at 888-339-7456.
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