Agenda

08:30

Registration and coffee

09:00

Welcome and introduction

  • Nick Folland Former Chief External Affairs Officer, Co-operative Group

Theme 1: Involvement in internal procedures

09:15

Outsourcing and other key supplier contracts in retail: strategies, latest developments and risk areas

  • Practical tips on how to negotiate with key IT suppliers
  • IT projects in retail
  • Key clauses in contracts – what should you expect to get
  • Strategy, tactics and tips when contracts goes to tender
  • Service Level Agreements: ensuring your service credits have teeth
  • Contract procurement tips
  • Making your contracting process as efficient as possible
  • Integrating your team in strategy meetings and with other parts of the business
  • What should you look for in a cloud contract?

10:00

Employment headaches for retailers: how can you be prepared?

  • Working with the various types of staff engaged in your business (e.g secondees, interns, supplier employees, franchise, etc.) including:
    • If and how you should manage and discipline them
    • The sharing of confidential information
  • Dealing with the legal uncertainties of holiday pay and overtime
  • Preliminary reaction to the EAT’s judgment on holiday pay calculations
  • What the future holds for zero-hours contracts
  • Lisa Patmore Partner, Employment, Reward and Immigration, Lewis Silkin

10:45

Coffee break

Theme 2: Managing your supply chain

11:15

Key success factors in supply chain management

  • Setting up an effective supply chain organisation
  • Formulating a strategic sourcing strategy
  • Carrying out essential due diligence
  • Establishing key supplier arrangements
  • Managing the key supplier arrangements
  • Managing risk and compliance across the supply chain
  • Optimising the inventory
  • Establishing processes and procedures
  • Dealing with disputes
  • Dealing with exit
  • Amanda Lewis Partner, Technology, Media and Telecoms Department, Dentons

12:00

Enforcing a code of conduct and ethics across your supply chain

  • Executing due diligence with your suppliers and what risk can you take?
  • Ensuring ethical trading and responsible outsourcing across your supply chain
  • Managing and enforcing your code of conduct
  • How can budgets affect codes of conduct?
  • How to conduct an ethical audit, and how often to do this
  • International compliance hot spots: China India, Indonesia etc.
  • What is being enforced and where, what penalties could you face for non-compliance
  • Joining a consortium: what groups are available and how do you go about joining one?

12:45

Lunch

Theme 3: Risks to your relationship with your customer

13:30

Staying compliant in your customer engagement

Working with data

  •  How far can you take your customer data?
  • Personalising your marketing activity
  • Consumer buying trends: what data can you use and how can you use it
  • Data permissions with your different sales channels: hazards and pitfalls (ex. E-gifts and vouchers)
  • Different sources of data and what can you use: aligning apps, CRM and analytics
  • Best practice when collecting data from different territories
  • Making sure your consents are consistent across all channels and territories

Social media and advertising

  • High risk and low risk social media proceedings
  • Imagery in social media: what images can you use, and what copyright limits are there
  • Monitoring social media use by employees, what policies can you implement?
  • Disaster recovery

14:15

Reputation management: what to do when things go wrong?

  • Expert views: discussion with a PR company, a media lawyer and a GC
  • How can the legal and communications teams work together?
  • The effects of a story: talking to journalists and persuading them to pull away from running a negative story
  • Overcoming bad news, how to move on from the crisis
  • Rebuilding reputation

15:00

Coffee break

15:30

Breakout sessions

1. Working with creative agencies: end to end campaign guidance

  • Campaign guidance: how does an ad campaign come together?
  • What licenses and agreements do you need to know about?
  • Who is liable and are you insured? Understanding what certain types of contractors take responsibility/liability for what
  • Contract drafting with agencies and venues, and how to include indemnity clauses
  • Managing the fall out if things go wrong
  • Jamie Barnard General Counsel, Global Marketing, Media & eCommerce, Unilever

2. Managing the relationship with secondary online markets

  • Practical implications of working with secondary online markets (Amazon, ebay, Alibaba etc)
  • How to get things taken down?
  • The considerations and dangers of selling/reselling legitimate products on secondary markets?
  • How far can you track items that shouldn’t be online, and what can you do?
  • Who is liable?
  • Ensuring your trade mark strategy is fully comprehensive to encompass ecommerce

3. Data protection: staying compliant with the regulation

  • What’s new? Data protection regulation update
  • What changes to the regulation should you look out for
  • Data sovereignty: the thin line between data protection and data security
  • Data protection in social media
  • Big data: how does this affect retailers

Theme 4: Expansion and growth

16:15

Competition law

  • Resale price maintenance
  • Segmentation and distribution (interaction between physical and online retail)
  • Do’s and don’ts of online distribution
  • Most favoured nation clauses: pro or anticompetitive?
  • Planned reforms to the competition law private enforcement regime: what does this mean for you

17:00

Growing retail internationally – different routes to market

  • Pros and cons of different routes to market
  • Structures available for International expansion  (franchising, joint ventures, online and multi-channel)
  • Risks and rewards
    * Key legal issues
  •  Case study:
    * Q&A

17:45

Closing comments and end of the forum

Networking drinks and canapes

 

 *Programme subject to change