s&op to integrated business planning summit

TO INTEGRATED BUSINESS PLANNING

9th edition

5 - 6 December 2024 | Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Speakers 2023

Introduction

As supply chains mature and S&OP advances, leading companies have continued evolving their planning processes. Integrated Business Planning represents the evolution of S&OP from its production planning roots in the 1970s into a fully integrated management and supply chain collaboration. The IBP framework delivers a strategic perspective that integrates diverse processes – product management, demand, supply, finance and strategy – to deliver a single business planning and forecast model that aligns with organisational goals. The S&OP to Integrated Business Planning Summit will be a timely event at which cross sector leaders share their experience of advanced S&OP and IBP. You will hear experts discuss the challenges for business and how the IBP framework can help meet these challenges. They will look at the IBP journey at various stages of maturity and discuss the key drivers for cross functional integration and the strategic and technological levers for implementation. This will be an opportune forum to hear how you can continue your own journey in the evolution of your business planning and performance to enhance sustainability, agility, profitability and growth.

– Drive Competitiveness of your IBP

– Drive Operational Excellence of Your S&OP and IBP Processes

– Connecting S&OP/IBP with Sales & Operations Execution (S&OE)

– How Integrated and Extended Is Your Integrated Business Plan (IBP)? Assessing Your Planning Capability

– Incorporating Strategic & Financial Objectives within Your S&OP/IBP

– Segmentation Approaches for Integrated Business & Tactical Planning

– Speeding up the Planning Cycle and Driving Forecast Agility in a Collaborative Environment

– How Big Data, Predictive Analytics & Machine Learning Feature in S&OP/IBP

– Collaborating with Suppliers for Better Demand

– Planning and Inventory Management

Sponsors 2023

DIAMOND SPONSOR

Gold sponsor, silver sponsor, bronze sponsor, business development sponsor, coffee break sponsor.

Media Partners

SPONSORSHIP PROSPECTUS

Distinctive opportunity for exclusive access to global leaders, crafting and providing leading technology and services in a range of settings.

Prospects at a glance:

• Round table engagement/ One on one business meetings
• Startup showcase
• Exhibition vista
• Private luncheon

Novotel Amsterdam City

Corporate partners.

European Business Center, Dukelských Hrdinů 564/34, Prague 7 170 00, Czech Republic office[at]cpartners-group.com +420 210 022 094

CORPORATE PARTNERS GROUP LTD

19-21 Crawford Street, W1H 1PJ, London, England office[at]cpartners-group.com +442031291774

+19095161241

PARTNERSHIP

Data privacy.

Over 50 years ago, our founder, the late Oliver Wight, defined our mission as “changing the face of industry.” We remain true to that mission by helping companies integrate their planning and execution processes, from strategy deployment to detailed planning and scheduling spanning all functions, which enables them to achieve results beyond what they think possible. Our core principles are centered around the importance of people, not just processes and tools. As the creators of S&OP, and being instrumental in its evolution to IBP, Oliver Wight business advisors provide knowledge transfer, facilitation, coaching, and mentoring support to help our clients outperform.

ebp Global  is a global boutique management consulting firm with offices in London, New York, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Copenhagen and Singapore. We deliver impactful solutions to our clients’ most complex problems, with specialised expertise across value chain activities in various industries, primarily focusing on the apparel, footwear and catering industries. We strive to build long-term relations with some of the world’s most well-known brands.

Farseer is an integrated business planning solution for the modern enterprise. We help you shift from numerous spreadsheets and multiple data-sources and to a single source of truth. With Farseer you can manage your production planning, stock optimization, sales and OPEX forecasting and financial planning in one place.Complete user autonomy and excel-like interface significantly shorten onboarding time and user adoption. Our customers save up to 90% time spent on manual tasks and can focus on what really matters – making better decisions.

Jedox is the world’s most adaptable planning and performance management platform that empowers organizations to deliver plans that outperform expectations. Over 2,500 organizations in 140 countries trust Jedox to model any scenario, integrate data from any source, and simplify cross-organizational plans across all business systems. Jedox enables a culture of decisiveness and confidence so teams can plan for opportunities, react quickly to changes, and uncover what they didn’t know was possible. For further details, kindly visit:  https://www.jedox.com/en/

Robust, recurring outsourced Planning Services. Planning Services is the Business Process Outsourcing service of EyeOn, specialist in forecasting, demand management, S&OP, integral business management and inventory management. With Planning Services, we provide robust, recurring outsourced services focused on high quality forecasting, inventory optimization, and actionable end-to-end supply chain insights. Take advantage of the best possible planning instantly, plugged-in to your existing planning tools.  Planning Services ( eyeonplanningservices.com )

Implement is a Scandinavian-born consultancy with more than 1,300 employees operating globally out of offices in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, and the US. We help organisations succeed with their most critical transformation initiatives by unlocking both human, business and IT potential. In that order. This transformation we facilitate in all parts of an organisation – Be it in Organizational Design, Leadership and Change Management, Strategy & Innovation, Supply Chain & Operations, Sustainability or IT transformation.

Website https://implementconsultinggroup.com/

With own events (inNOWvate Supply Chain Event and S&OP Selection Day), workshops, SCM Webinar Wednesday, the SCM Executives Club and a management publication to connect supply chain professionals around the world and take the maturity level of supply chains to a higher level. Supply Chain Movement is the international management publication of Supply Chain Media with a focus on Europe.Regular content: Cover interview with Supply Chain Director/VP, News & Background, event coverage in Snapshots, market overview visualized in subway maps, topic explained in checklist, mindmap and/or roadmap, extensive management article with several case studies, survey results visualized in Facts & Figures, innovations in Tools & Technology, personal interview with a supply chain executive about his or her agenda.Supply Chain Movement – Spreading European supply chain knowledge around the world!

VIST THE SITE:

https://www.supplychainmovement.com/

To meet to right opportunities you need to be at right place at right time with right information and meeting right people. Events are the perfect example and provide perfect platform for connecting with right opportunities. Our team gathers information about every event on a regular basis to ensure our data is fresh. Our vast community of event goers share their reviews and photos, so you have all that you need to make an informed choice.

VISIT THE SITE:

https://10times.com/

With a wide database of conferences around the world, Clocate.com allows you to search for international conferences and add your own events. Our service is intended to inform the community of relevant events and assist organizers, providing convenience for both interested participants and the people and organizations behind the events.

Our directory features a unique search allowing you to easily find conferences and events in any category or location, with detailed information including description, dates, map, prices, link to the official website, and more.

https://www.clocate.com/

Forward Sensing is a venture that aims to optimize the entire value network in real time through collaborative, data-driven foresight. We are building a collaboration platform that provides visibility across the entire supply chain. This is done by intelligently linking existing order data to detect disruptions at an early stage. With the final stage of development, the platform aims to include the following eight modules: supply chain transparency, CO2 guidelines, supply chain protection act, material supply bottlenecks, trends, transportation optimization, product portfolio optimization and sales forecast. Forward Sensing differentiates itself from the competition by requiring only minimal data exchange. We do not need master data – only transactional data (e.g. from orders and their confirmations). Forward Sensing is also an open ecosystem for all industries, which not only vertically represents the individual supply chains in silos, but also creates network effects between the participants of different supply chains. Of course, this is done under the highest data protection requirements and is based on the optional release of additional information (e.g., production capacity and inventory levels).

REMIRA is the largest and fastest-growing provider of intelligent supply chain software solutions in Europe. Whether it is planning, purchasing, production, transportation, or warehousing; our industry-leading range of solutions helps optimize your supply chain and improve S&OP/IBP.

https://www.remira.com/de/

Involvation is a consultancy and implementation firm that is focused on improving the supply chain and its management. In doing so, we are driven by possibilities. Our case studies show how we have helped organisations, both large and small, to take the decisive step: the step from the challenge to the result, inspired by the surprising possibilities we identified. Because that is what characterises us: we firmly believe that your supply chain offers potential for improvement. Especially if you are willing to join us in pinpointing the essence of the situation – without becoming distracted by details, symptoms and day-to-day operations.

VISIT THE WEBSITE: https://www.involvation.com/

Vuealta is a leading global Anaplan Gold partner, with offices in EMEA, North America & APAC. Our industry expertise, coupled with Anaplan’s visionary platform (as deemed by Gartner), empowers Supply Chain, Finance, and Operations leaders across the globe to make better business decisions every day. In addition to Anaplan consultancy, training, and implementation services, Vuealta offers pre-built Supply Chain Planning solutions on the Anaplan platform, enabling rapid time-to-value and high ROI. Our solutions are delivered ‘as-a-service’ and developed based on industry best practices, providing a best-in-class planning solution for Demand, Supply, Inventory, Production and S&OP/IBP. Customers include Polaroid, Just Eat, Del Monte, Glossier, NHS, GW Pharma, Vita Coco & many more.

https://vuealta.com/

OneStream Software provides a market-leading intelligent finance platform that reduces the complexity of financial operations. OneStream™ unleashes the power of finance by unifying corporate performance management (CPM) processes such as planning, financial close & consolidation, reporting, and analytics through a single, extensible solution. We empower the enterprise with financial and operational insights to support faster and more informed decision-making. All in a cloud platform designed to continually evolve and scale with your organization. OneStream is an independent software company backed by private equity investors KKR, D1 Capital Partners, Tiger Global, and IGSB. Our primary mission is to deliver 100% customer success, which we’ve done successfully since our inception.

To learn more visit www.onestreamsoftware.com .

Board is the Intelligent Planning Platform that offers smarter planning, actionable insights, and better outcomes for more than 2,000 companies worldwide. Board allows leading enterprises to discover crucial insights which drive business decisions and unify strategy, finance, and operations to plan smarter and achieve full control of performance across the entire organization. With Board, companies can manage and control their entire planning process from goal setting down to operational execution in one user-friendly environment. Partnering with Board, global enterprises such as H&M, BASF, Burberry, Toyota, Coca-Cola, KPMG, and HSBC have deployed end-to-end planning applications at a fraction of the time and cost associated with traditional solutions. Board International was founded in 1994 and now has 25 offices around the world and a global reseller network. Board has been implemented in over 100 countries. Board International has long been recognized by leading analysts and subject matter experts including Gartner, Nucleus, and Dresner. Headquartered in Switzerland and US, Board International has branches in Argentina, Australia, Benelux, Nordics, Germany, France, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Singapore, Spain, UAE and UK and a worldwide network of distributors and certified partners. Board International is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to a diverse and inclusive workforce.

http://www.board.com

Dedicated solutions that will effectively address all the marketing KPI’s at your business. Over 10 000 customers worldwide. Local support and free onboarding. 1200% higher email OR. 100%higher www conversion. Results in first 3 months. 451% more leads.

https://www.salesmanago.com/

S&OP Sponsorship and Exhibition Package

Send download link to:

COVID SECURE MEASURES

Please be informed that we are working diligently with the event venue to establish clear COVID security measures for the protection and safety of all attendees at the event.

The following measures are currently in place, however they will be reviewed regularly in line with Government policies and adapted to various situations appropriately.

HYGIENE : Regular sanitization of the event rooms as well as frequent disinfecting of surface areas

SPACING : Attendees will be seated 1.5 meters to 2 meters apart from each other

ATTENDEE REQUIREMENTS : Please be aware that you are required to bring one of the following;

– Proof that you have been vaccinated against COVID-19 with printed digital certificate

– A negative test result taken within 24 hours prior to arrival at the venue

– Proof that you have recovered from COVID-19 in the last 6 months

Solentim is the trusted global leader for solutions to create, isolate, and characterize the highest value cells for the development of new biological medicines, including cell and gene therapies, monoclonal antibodies, vaccines and stem cells. For our customers, which include most of the world’s leading pharmaceutical and biotherapeutics companies, we are the partner of choice for facilitating the highest level of assurance in cell line development for therapeutic protein and viral vector production.

Our customers develop cell and antibody based therapies for a wide range of conditions including lymphomas, cancers, Crohn’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, high cholesterol and asthma.

Our portfolio of proven and innovative instruments (including VIPS™, Cell Metric ®,  Cell Metric ®  CLD, ICON™ and STUDIUS™) are designed for single cell cloning and assurance of monoclonality. Combined with enabling reagents  and our unparalleled domain expertise, we transform the speed and efficiency of clonally-derived Master Cell Bank development. Our customers trust in our technology to ensure they are confidently prepared for regulatory review.

Solentim continues to define modern assurance driven workflows for cell based and antibody based biotherapeutics including stem cells, gene therapy and immunotherapy.

VISIT THE WEBSITE: https://www.solentim.com/

Our culture is built on collaboration, respect and having fun whenever possible. Our #SonoranSpirit enables us to learn, grow, create customer value, and manage the well being of our collective ecosystem of partners, customers and associates alike. We rise each day with an unwavering commitment to lifelong learning, collaborating with respect, and operating with integrity.

VISIT THE WEB SITE:

https://blueyonder.com/

We are not a common digital company, with an aim of selling IT products. Our goal is to forge a long lasting partnership with customers. We strive to understand their real needs and the problems they face on a daily basis. Only by doing so can suggest valuable solutions. We combine knowledge and experience, with cutting edge innovation to surprise and delight customers. Our Return-On-Investment (ROI) promise, means that our customers are ROI-positive at all times. Whatever your current digital planning and organizational capabilities maturity level are, we make sure that you meet and exceed your objectives. We believe in a ‘discovery-based’ and a selective digital transformation approach. The critical knowledge and know-how needed to succeed lie squarely within the four-walls of your enterprise. It is our job to help you diagnose, document and unlock its full potential. This is why we love to co-create with you. Our passion and satisfaction come from seeing customers benefit and thrive from our solutions. ‘Customer First’ is our creed.

VISIT THE SITE: https://www.digitalsoft.com/

Faster, more intelligent business decision making translates directly to better financial results, but it means much more. It means organizations are able to achieve their goals while using less of the earth’s precious resources. Also great decision making processes drive more transparency, reduce organizational politics, empower people, increase productivity and that translates to inspired employees who are happy at work, and therefore happier at home and better contributors to society. We are on a mission to develop the best technology to aid organizations in this critical pursuit.

VISIT THE WEB SITE: https://o9solutions.com/

Möbius is a management consulting company that supports organizations by  designing  and  implementing sustainable business solutions  at  strategic moments throughout their lifecycle.

We are active in different sectors: we work for  government  and  health institutions ,  industrial and service companies .

https://www.mobius.eu/

• Home » Learn more » Blog » Boosting Business Efficiency: Lessons learned from the 8th Global S&OP & Integrated Business Planning Summit

Boosting Business Efficiency: Lessons learned from the 8th Global S&OP & Integrated Business Planning Summit

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, effective planning and integrated business strategies are vital for staying ahead of the competition. To harness the power of strategic alignment and optimize operational processes, more than 70 companies from various industries recently attended the 8th Global S&OP & Integrated Business Planning Summit in Amsterdam on the 11 th and 12 th of May. This immersive event as well and it provided us with  valuable insights, innovative Sales & Operations planning (S&OP) techniques, and networking opportunities with proven industry leaders and experienced supply chain professionals.

One of the greatest advantages was the opportunity to connect with industry leaders and professionals from diverse sectors. The summit featured an impressive lineup of industry experts and thought leaders delivering insightful presentations and sharing their experiences. EyeOn consultants had the privilege of participate in expert talks and of hosting panel discussions that covered a wide range of topics, including innovative demand forecasting techniques, alignment of Supply chain and Sales for better planning, and integration of constrained and unconstrained demand. These thought-provoking sessions not only broadened the understanding of best practices but also offered practical solutions to address the challenges we face in our day-to-day work with customers. For example EyeOn consumer goods market expert, Jens Lubrich, was invited to a roundtable discussion about Proactive S&OP strategy. He shared his expertise about the best practice that allow this next step of the S&OP evolution to be embraced in the companies. His extensive experience in FMCG and Retail businesses within EyeOn helped him to bring some lively examples from global market leaders in S&OP/IBP.

The Global S&OP & IBP Summit showcased the latest trends and emerging technologies in the field of integrated business planning. From innovative ways of working with financial plans to machine learning and artificial intelligence, we gained exposure to cutting-edge ideas that can revolutionize planning processes. Learning about these innovative technologies and their successful implementations by industry leaders has inspired us to explore new avenues for helping our customers improving their business efficiency. One of EyeOn experts, Willem Gerbecks, was able to share his experience in unleashing power of Driver based forecasting. His presentation was dedicated to modern business challenges that companies can solve using ML-powered Driver based forecasting. Using couple of real-life examples from our customers Willem showed how little a company actually needs to start implementing DBF approach and to put it into practice. EyeOn has large experience in this area supporting customers on all stages of DBF journey, from defining the right drivers and setting up data structure to embedding of DBF into an existing planning process in form of service or inhouse capability.

The summit also featured real-world case studies presented by companies that have successfully implemented advanced S&OP and IBP methodologies. These case studies offered invaluable insights into the challenges faced during implementation, the strategies employed, and the measurable results achieved. These case studies were accompanied by panel discussions among professionals who could extend it with experiences from their companies.  For example a big part of the program was dedicated to the topic of change management which directly concerns all attendees of the summit. It is worth  to say that S&OP/IBP improvement leads to all sort of changes: processes, people and their mindset and behaviour, KPIs, new skills and techniques, and solutions. All these transformations should be properly facilitated in order to sustain improvements for business. EyeOn expert in Planning Services, Andrey Averyanov, together with other experienced panellists shared a  comprehensive view on existing change management techniques, roles and responsibilities of different functions in organisation in this change management journey, and the key skills which are required for the successful execution of advanced S&OP/IBP. EyeOn, being not only content expert in the area of Supply chain planning but also a successful customer’s navigator in transition and adaptation journey, brings together  thought leadership together with profound change management expertise. This combination guarantees the highest quality of execution of projects to serve the needs of our customers in a sustainable way.

Attending the 8th Global S&OP & IBP Summit in Amsterdam proved to be an enriching experience. Through networking, thought-provoking discussions, exposure to emerging trends, and practical case studies, we gained valuable insights and tools to enhance our business efficiency. We left the summit equipped with a broader perspective and an array of innovative strategies to drive our customers forward. By embracing the concepts and methodologies shared at the summit, we are confident in our ability to optimize our planning processes and ensure greater success of our partners in today’s dynamic business environment.

Want to know how EyeOn can bring these best practices to your company?

Global S&OP Integrated Business Planning Summit

• May 11, 2023 at 9:00 to May 12, 2023 at 18:00 UTC+02
• Location: Overtoom 503H, 1054 LH Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Latest Activity: Jan 10, 2023
• The Journey to creating world class demand planning
• Unlocking the digital key to inventory management success
• Adaptive sales and operations planning
• Achieving supply chain resilience in an unstable world
• Common pitfalls to avoid when implementing S&OP

You need to be a member of Global Risk Community to add comments!

Join Global Risk Community

Upcoming Featured events

The GlobalRisk Community is a thriving community of risk managers and associated service providers. Our purpose is to foster business, networking and educational explorations among members. Our goal is to be the worlds premier Risk forum and contribute to better understanding of the complex world of risk.

Useful Links

• Privacy policy

Business Partners

For companies wanting to create a greater visibility for their products and services among their prospects in the Risk market: Send your business partnership request by filling in the form here!

Hello, you need to enable JavaScript to use Global Risk Community.

Please check your browser settings or contact your system administrator.

Global S&OP Integrated Business Planning summit 11th – 12th May 2023

• Amsterdam, The Netherlands

We are looking forward to join the Global S&OP Integrated Business Planning summit 11th – 12th May 2023 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

We are looking forward to join the Global S&OP Integrated Business Planning summit 11th – 12th May 2023 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Join our presentation on May 11 th at 10:40 am to learn from our expert Willem Gerbecks on how to unleash the power of driver-based forecasting. Where he will elaborate on drafting the demand planning world where we are living in, how to realize predictive business in a volatile market, driver-based forecasting put in practice, and more…

Next to that our experts Sander de Groot , Jeroen Vermeulen and Andrey Averyanov are happy to drink a coffee with you.

Privacy Overview

Adobe Summit 2024: Unveiling the future of customer experience management (CXM) in the age of generative AI

Today, at Adobe Summit, the world’s largest digital experience conference, we unveiled a suite of innovations for the enterprise across Adobe Experience Cloud and Adobe Creative Cloud that empower brands to deliver one-to-one personalization at scale through natively integrated generative AI and real-time insights.

These major innovations will deliver business value from generative AI by driving insights based on unified customer data, scaling the production of personalized content, and boosting customer engagement through journey orchestration. This includes a new Adobe Experience Platform AI Assistant that supercharges the productivity of experienced practitioners, democratizing access to extended teams through a natural language interface and enabling them to unleash new ideas. Adobe GenStudio is a new generative AI-first offering for marketing teams to quickly plan, create, manage, activate across apps and publishers, and measure on-brand content. New Adobe Journey Optimizer capabilities enable both B2C and B2B brands to enhance journey orchestration with timely, personalized experiences. A new capability in Adobe Firefly, Adobe’s family of creative generative AI models for safe commercial use, called Structure Reference brings users a new level of creative control.

“Generative AI enables a fundamental shift in the relationship between brands and their customers, creating a transformative moment for business leaders to drive organizational productivity while delivering new digital experiences. The ability to personalize interactions at scale has become the key growth driver in customer experience management for enterprises around the world, and Adobe is leading the way in making this a reality with powerful generative AI deeply integrated into existing workflows.”

Anil Chakravarthy, President, Digital Experience Business, Adobe

New data innovations

Announced on stage at Summit were a broad array of releases anchored in Adobe Experience Platform, to enable brands to activate customer data across various enterprise systems through an integrated set of applications, creating a foundation to activate insights and deliver true personalization at scale.

• Adobe Experience Platform AI Assistant provides a simple conversational interface that can answer technical questions and will automate tasks, simulate outcomes, and generate audiences and journeys within applications such as Adobe Real-Time Customer Data Platform, Adobe Journey Optimizer, and Adobe Customer Journey Analytics.
• Federated Audience Composition provides data management flexibility and efficiency by allowing teams to federate audiences and data directly from enterprise data warehouses (AWS Redshift, Azure Synapse, Databricks, Google BigQuery, and Snowflake) to augment real-time and cross-channel use cases in Adobe Experience Platform. This enables teams to minimize data copy, govern the use of sensitive data, and get the most out of their existing IT investments for powering customer experience workflows such as profile enrichment, audience segmentation, and personalized communications.
• Adobe Real-Time Customer Data Platform (CDP) Collaboration is a new clean room application for brands and publishers to collaborate in a privacy-safe way to discover, reach, and measure their high-value audiences in a world without third-party cookies. Real-Time CDP Collaboration is expanding and evolving the value of a CDP to include data collaboration as a critical and necessary component of customer data management in a cookieless world.

New content innovations

The c ontent supply chain is an end-to-end business process that every company needs to deliver the content required for marketing campaigns and personalized customer experiences. It is composed of five key building blocks: Workflow and Planning, Creation and Production, Asset Management, Delivery and Activation, and Insights and Reporting. Adobe GenStudio, a new generative AI-first offering lets marketing teams quickly plan, create, manage, activate, and measure on-brand content to help companies automate and optimize their content supply chain.

• Workflow and Planning: Adobe Workfront Planning provides every user a unified view into all activities across the marketing lifecycle, to ensure organizations plan strategically and accelerate delivery.
• Creation and Production: Adobe Firefly Services and Custom Models unlock personalization at scale for enterprise content creation and production, eliminating manual tasks while ensuring generated outputs remain on-brand.
• Asset Management : Adobe Experience Manager Assets content hub allows teams to easily distribute brand-governed assets across their organization and external partners. Content Hub forms a seamless connection point between GenStudio and AEM Assets, where any user can search for an asset and create personalized variations with Firefly in Adobe Express, the all-in-one content creation application.
• Delivery and Activation : Adobe Experience Manager Sites variant generation, powered by generative AI, enables brands to create personalized variations of marketing assets, with copy that is audience-centric and on-brand. With Edge Delivery Services, brands can deliver the fastest possible page load times. Document-based authoring in AEM Sites also allows the broader team to author webpages in Microsoft Word or Google Docs.
• Insights and Reporting: Adobe Content Analytics creates an essential feedback loop for brands to understand which generated assets and campaigns are performing best, down to the attribute level. These insights help build a more complete view of the overall customer experience, expanding Adobe Customer Journey Analytics beyond web, streaming, in-product, and more.

New customer journey innovations

For both B2C and B2B brands, the ability to enhance customer engagement through journey orchestration hinges on a unified and real-time view of the customer. This ensures that as brands interact with consumers on channels such as the web, social media and mobile, any real-time changes in user behavior or preferences are captured, triggering new experiences. The newest offerings announced at Summit are designed to orchestrate personalized journeys that drive impact to help teams harmonize both brand-initiated and customer-initiated moments.

• Adobe Experience Platform and Adobe Journey Optimizer Unified Experimentation uses enhanced statistical models to help marketers, product managers, and developers leverage experimentation and decisioning capabilities within journeys — driving reuse of offers across communication channels or optimizing the ideal path a customer should take to maximize conversion.
• Adobe Journey Optimizer provides enhanced brand-initiated journey orchestration by helping brands connect their audience-centric campaigns with real-time customer signals, so that the right customers are engaged and mistimed marketing communications can be avoided.
• Adobe Journey Optimizer: B2B Edition is a new application built on Adobe Experience Platform, with an industry-first focus on account specific buying-group journey orchestration to reimagine sales and marketing collaboration throughout the B2B revenue lifecycle.

Customer and partner momentum

“Creating richer and more relevant experiences within a connected customer journey is fundamental to success in today’s marketing climate and Adobe Experience Cloud has been our partner of choice in customer experience management,” said Norm de Greve, chief marketing officer, General Motors. “Adobe’s enterprise applications allow our teams to deliver real-time, highly personalized touchpoints at scale for customers engaging with our brands.”

Adobe also announced today an expanded partnership with Microsoft to deliver generative AI capabilities for marketers that bring powerful Adobe Experience Cloud customer experience insights and Firefly generative AI directly into Microsoft applications to reinvent workflows and ignite productivity. An expanded partnership with OneTrust integrates consent management into AI-powered customer journeys. Adobe is also working with agency partners including Havas, IPG, Omnicom, Publicis, and WPP, and system integrators including Accenture, Deloitte, IBM, and EY to accelerate generative AI investments, processes, and workflows across creative production and digital marketing.

Adobe Summit 2024 is a hybrid event with both an in-person and online presentation powered by Adobe Experience Cloud. Luminary speakers and industry leaders presenting at Summit include General Motors CEO Mary Barra, Pfizer Chief Digital and Technology Officer Lidia Fonseca, Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian, TSB Bank CMO Emma Springham, MLB Chief Operations and Strategy Officer Chris Marinak, founder and CEO of Zaia Ventures Ukonwa Ojo, author and entrepreneur Nina Schick, and Shaquille O’Neal, host of Adobe Sneaks where Adobe unveils the latest research and development innovations.

To watch the Adobe Summit keynotes online, as well as explore more than 200 sessions and hands-on labs across 12 tracks, network with peers or speak live with an Adobe expert, visit the Summit web experience .

https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2024/03/19/leverage-ai-to-get-more

https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2024/03/18/adobe-announces-firefly-powered-features-substance-3d-apps

https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2024/03/18/adobe-partners-nvidia-harness-power-pdf-intelligence-next-gen-llms

China's Xi meets American CEOs in bid to boost confidence in ailing economy

BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping met with top U.S. executives in Beijing on Wednesday as his government tries to reassure foreign businesses about a market that remains crucial for their bottom lines despite persistent tensions between the world’s two biggest economies.

Xi met the group of American businesspeople and academics at the Great Hall of the People , Chinese state media reported. The meeting was preceded by a group photo.

Participants included Blackstone founder Stephen Schwarzman, Bloomberg Chair Mark Carney, FedEx President Rajesh Subramaniam and Qualcomm President and CEO Cristiano Amon, according to state media reports.

During the meeting, Xi said the Chinese economy was “healthy and sustainable,” an achievement that “cannot be separated from international cooperation,” according to state media, which reported that he “listened carefully” to the American participants.

The executives were in China for a series of business-related events, including the China Development Forum, an annual high-level meeting that ended Monday. Other prominent U.S. business leaders, such as Apple CEO Tim Cook , have also been in China in recent days as the government and American companies engage in a mutual charm offensive.

China has been struggling to bounce back from three years of pandemic isolation , its economic recovery weighed down by structural issues that include a real estate crisis, high local government debt, industrial overcapacity, lackluster consumption and youth unemployment , though the economy managed a 5.2% growth rate last year.  

“The mood here is still pretty dark — about the economy, about the trajectory of the country overall, about China’s place in the world,” Scott Kennedy, senior adviser and trustee chair in Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, CSIS, in Washington, said in an interview in Beijing last week.

“There’s been some economic recovery, but it has not translated into people having more positive, optimistic sentiment,” he said.

U.S. and other foreign companies who still see the potential for big business in China, meanwhile, have been alarmed by regulatory crackdowns, a new anti-espionage law, the use of exit bans , raids on consulting and due diligence firms , and other measures amid Xi’s national security drive.

“China’s success the last 40 years has been built on the private sector and openness and collaboration with the West,” Kennedy said. “And so people’s sense of the future is very unclear and ambiguous, and I think that’s what’s leading consumers to not spend as much, companies not to invest as much and for there to be this general malaise that you encounter just about everywhere you go.”

During a visit to China last year, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said U.S. firms had told her the country was “uninvestable because it’s become too risky.”

And a report released in February by the American Chamber of Commerce in China found that the top concerns of U.S. businesses in the country were U.S.-Sino relations, China’s regulatory environment and rising costs.

Hopes rose in November when Xi and President Joe Biden held a summit in California , their first encounter in a year. During the trip, Xi also met with U.S. business leaders at a dinner in San Francisco, where he received a standing ovation.

Among those at the dinner was Apple CEO Cook, a frequent traveler to China, who arrived for another high-profile visit last week.

Even as the company shifts some production to countries such as India , Cook emphasized on this visit that Apple is still committed to China, a key overseas market for the company, as well as a major manufacturing base.

For the first time last year, Apple was China’s largest smartphone vendor , with market share of 17.3%. But the company is under intense pressure from domestic competitors such as Huawei, and iPhone sales reportedly f ell by 24% in the first six weeks of this year compared with a year earlier.

The use of iPhones at Chinese government agencies and state-owned enterprises has also reportedly been restricted amid national security concerns, much like the Chinese app TikTok has been banned from U.S. government devices.

Those are not the only challenges facing Apple, which the U.S. Justice Department sued Thursday over its alleged monopolization of the smartphone market.

Earlier that day, Cook was all smiles as he opened a new Apple store in downtown Shanghai, the company’s 57th outlet in China and its second-largest flagship in the world after its Fifth Avenue location in New York.

Cook said he was “very confident” in the future of Apple’s China operations. “I love being here. I love the people and the culture,” he told reporters. “And it’s just like every time I come here, I’m reminded that anything is possible here.”

Though fans mobbed Cook at the store opening, where some people had lined up overnight, that does not necessarily translate into sales. The economic downturn appears to be making Chinese consumers more price-sensitive, increasing the appeal of cheaper smartphones from Huawei and other local rivals.

“The iPhone is more expensive than other phones, so I think people will choose cheaper ones,” Shi Zhongnuo, 17, said in an interview Monday outside an Apple store in Beijing.

Cook also met with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, who urged him to “continue to unlock the Chinese market and achieve shared development with China,” the ministry said in a statement.

It was unclear whether Cook attended the meeting with Xi on Wednesday.

China’s courting of executives is in part an effort to revive business interest from abroad. The country’s foreign direct investment fell 19.9% in the first two months of this year to 215.1 billion renminbi ($30 billion), the Commerce Ministry reported last week, after it shrank 8% year-on-year in 2023.

“There’s still huge numbers of multinationals and American companies here, but China has basically lost its place at the very top of the list of where they are targeting strategic investment long term,” Kennedy of CSIS said.

A Chinese regulatory official Tuesday dismissed the drop in foreign investment as nothing unusual.

“The volatility is quite normal when viewed from a global or Asian perspective or when the trend is viewed on a longer timeline,” Xu Zhibin, the deputy head of China’s foreign exchange regulator, said at the Boao Forum for Asia, an annual gathering in China’s southern island province of Hainan that is known as the “Asian Davos.”

Premier Li Qiang , China’s No. 2 official, told Cook and other global business executives at the China Development Forum in Beijing on Sunday that China welcomed foreign investment and was taking steps to improve its business environment.

Vice Commerce Minister Guo Tingting also said Monday that foreign companies would be treated the same as Chinese ones so they “can invest in China with confidence and peace of mind.”

Last week, Chinese officials eased some rules on foreign investment, as well as some security rules on the cross-border flow of data, an issue that has concerned foreign companies. Beijing said this month it would make access to the manufacturing sector easier for foreign investors.

Sean Stein, chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said that while such announcements were encouraging, “announcements don’t move markets and promises don’t drive investment.”

“The key, as ever, will be full and timely implementation,” he said.

Janis Mackey Frayer reported from Beijing, and Jennifer Jett reported from Hong Kong.

Janis Mackey Frayer is a Beijing-based correspondent for NBC News.

Jennifer Jett is the Asia Digital Editor for NBC News, based in Hong Kong.