MANILA, Philippines - Partners and tenants of SM gathered to celebrate SM Supermalls’ 30th year of leading the retail industry through the first-ever SM Partners Summit. The event is a forward-looking conference for retail industry players and business owners that aims to provide practical and inspiring knowledge through discussions of new and innovative ways to elevate the customer experience into a memorable one. The two-day summit comprised of a Retail Summit forum and an SM Partners Awards night that was held at the SMX Convention Center of the Mall of Asia complex.
With the market’s adaptation to digital shopping, traditional retail businesses find it important to keep up with the consumer’s growing needs and demands for shopping experience beyond the brick-and-mortar concept. To create a venue for deep discussion among retailers and business partners, SM leveraged on this big idea for the forum “Bricks Click: Creating the New Marketplace”.
STAR columnist Francis Kong explained that a business should learn to utilize social media and technology not to compete with the traditional way of business but to enhance and further develop its reach. Technology, according to Kong, is not the competitor of traditional retail, but its complement.
In attendance at the summit were over 1,000 participants hailing from businesses in the Philippines and abroad, all pioneers and heads of SM’s valued tenant companies. Photos by Mike Amoroso