South Foyer
Vienna East, West Room

Vienna North, South Room

Lost in the Shuffle: Understanding & Using Marketplaces
Steve White, Vice President, Publicis.Sapient, West Regional Business Lead, SapientRazorfish

Marketplaces are often caught in the middle between direct-to-consumer and retailers, but they can be valuable as a go-to-market strategy and expose a brand to millions of new customers. The last few years have seen an explosion in new marketplaces for brands and adoption from consumers. In this session, we will cover:

• What are marketplaces and what does the landscape look like for brands?
• Why would a brand want to be on a marketplace?
• Weighing the business pros-and-cons
• Understanding different marketplace strategies to maximize success

Town Hall
Facilitated by Janet Collins, Partner, TurningPoint Strategy  

Industry Breakfast and Standards Council Update
Jeffery Buysse, GOJO and Jamie Mennicke, Essendant

Want More GSA Business? Holding Your Own GSA Contract May Not Be the Best Plan!
Mike Tucker, CEO, National Office Products Alliance (NOPA)

Our federal government is arguably the world’s largest consumer of goods and services, buying everything from tanks and fighter jets to pens and labels.  It is also a complex marketplace with thousands of federal procurement regulations, product specifications, contracts, BPA’s, etc. that can overwhelm even experienced resellers.  In this session Mike Tucker will guide you through the federal marketplace providing useful information on:

• The size of the federal opportunity
• Insight into the GSA schedules program
• Things manufacturers must consider when developing a strategy
• Role of Independent Dealers
• AbilityOne/Mandatory Source programs
• Strategies for growing your business

Join Mike as he shares lessons learned from 30+ years of managing federal government business.

Retailer Content Creation: An Enterprise Approach
(Marketing Professionals Invited)
Steve White, Vice President, Publicis.Sapient, West Regional Business Lead, SapientRazorfish

The need for retailer content continues to grow and expand and soon will explode. Aside from website / mobile content, the coming wave of 5G bandwidth will drive mobile experiences in the store to become increasingly interactive as they help consumers engage with branded content. The creation, management and distribution of this content is a huge undertaking for brands, who are often just meeting the minimum requirements. During this session, Steve will share how companies can take an enterprise approach, speeding up time-to-market, creating predictable processes and elevating the effectiveness of the content itself.

Product Content Syndication Trends / How to Optimize Your Channel Sales
James Snell, Director of Product Management, GfK Etilize
Lloyd Wood, Enterprise Solutions – GfK Etilize

Vienna North, South Room

What Can LinkedIn Do for Your Brand? 
Brian Tietje, Global Client Director, LinkedIn

• What should you be taking advantage of to increase your personal and corporate brand?
• Best practices on next generation content including blogging, video and engaging others content
• Success stories
• The LinkedIn questions that keep you up at night - ask them!

3rd Party Marketplace Analysis - Past and Future Trends
Chris Hodson, Senior Research Analyst in Consumer and Ecommerce, Edgewater Research

•    How 3P profitability drives Amazon decision-making
•    The implications of potential 1P/3P integration
•    Expectations for 3P (Business Sellers) on the B2B platform

Wholesale Changes: The Likely Next Steps for an Industry in Flux 
Chris Hodson, Senior Research Analyst in Consumer and Ecommerce, Edgewater Research

• A look at what all this change actually means, and which scenarios are most likely to unfold.
• Insights driven data on the current state of the industry.
• Amazon in B2B: most recent changes, relevant threats, and available opportunities
• The most pressing themes in our research, and how they apply to the next 12 months.

West Foyer and Vienna
North/South Room

• Honoring BSA 2018's Leadership Award recipient, Mike Rowsey, Harbinger National
• Honoring BSA 2018 Lifetime Achievement recipient, Joe Templet, Essendant