GS1 Hong Kong Summit - Innovating for Digital Consumers Connection - Ended on a High Note

The Summit took off to a rousing start with the encouraging words of Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, GBS, BBS, JP, Secretary for Transport and Housing, HKSAR Government as the Guest of Honour:

“E-commerce spells both opportunities and challenges to the entire supply chain industry. A forecast of e-Marketer projects that retail e-commerce sales will continue at a double-digit growth to top US$4 trillion in 2020. This means new business potential for wholesaling, retailing, logistics and distribution. Connecting the virtual and real economy is now a crucial part of supply chain management,” declared Professor Cheung.

“As a highly developed metropolis where the East meets the West, our people are known for being adaptive, and adaption to fast changes is a precious asset in the e-commerce settings,” he added.

In his welcome remarks, Mr. Joseph Phi, Chairman of GS1 Hong Kong stressed: “Everyone is jumping into the e-commerce bandwagon, but the key lies in trying to devise innovative ways to connect better with the customers and to create that unique user experience. This is the topic of our Summit today ‘Innovating for Digital Consumers Connection’.”  

He noted the highly important role GS1 could play as a global language of business in creating a common standard and platform, and providing accurate and reliable product and related information.“You now can take advantage of the 20/20 hindsight information to make sense of what happened yesterday, you are now able to generate actionable insight and decide how you pivot today, and you can produce useful foresight to tackle challenges of tomorrow. Hindsight, insight, foresight through the adoption of standards, this is the power of GS1 – one code, infinite possibilities.

One of the highlights of the Summit was to unveil the GS1 Hong Kong's first CEO Pulse Report, which compiled the collective insights of 225 CEOs across Hong Kong the key business challenges, opportunities they faced with digital revolution and their e-commerce business strategies, plus a consumer survey collecting feedback from 500 Hong Kong and 500 Mainland Chinese respondents on their online shopping attitudes and expectations. Delegates were active and enthusiastic in their response and participation at the CEO Panel where the panelists of chairmen and CEOs went on stage to dive deep into “Building a balanced omni-channel commerce ecosystem on connecting consumers”. Time, however, did not permit this subject of great interest and concern to be explored to its fullest; and many have expressed the hope to revisit the topic at the Summit next year. 

The grand finale of the Summit was the ECR Golden Circle Awards 2016 Presentation Ceremony. This award programme was organised by Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) Hong Kong and hosted by GS1 Hong Kong, in recognition of professional excellence and contribution in supply chain management across Hong Kong and Greater China.

Ms Anna Lin, JP, Chief Executive of GS1 Hong Kong said, “The promotion and adoption of Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) concepts and techniques in e-commerce and omni-channel business are one step in the same direction enabling the industry to become more responsive to consumer demands.”

This year, 12 notable achievers received recognitions in four categories which are Supply Chain Leader, Digital Consumer Leader, Ecommerce Leader and Technology Innovation Leader. “The aim of the programme is to enhance the industry’s ability to compete efficiently and effectively in order to provide better value to consumers.” said Ms. Lin.