- Successful premiere with more than 400 participants
- 20 percent international participants
- Keynotes and workshops ensure full rows
"The atmosphere was charged with curiosity and a spirit of optimism, among visitors as well as speakers and exhibitors," says Tobias Gröber, Business Unit Director Consumer Goods Fairs and responsible for the ISPO Group, looking back on the two-day ISPO Digitize Summit. "The need for digital solutions in the sporting goods industry is there. The event showed that. The Summit was an important first step and impetus for the sports industry, and now it needs to open up further. The awareness is there. We believe that the topic will grow quickly and so will the platform," said Giuseppe Lumia, Team Lead Sales at Wirecard, summarizing his impressions.
Of the 443 visitors, 20 percent came from abroad. There were 65 percent of visitors from the sports industry and 35 percent from the retail sector. Just how great the interest in digital topics is was shown by the full series of presentations as well as numerous questions and stimulating discussions following the presentations and workshops.
The digital transformation is changing the structure of the entire value chain. The requirements for digital solutions are therefore very different. Christoph Rapp, project manager of ISPO Digitize, sees this as the added value of the summit: "Our concept, with a mix of exhibition space, keynotes, workshops, and personal coaching sessions, allows us to address specific requirements individually." For example, at a joint workshop between Mammut and Foursource, it was all about how important end-to-end digital transformation is for the apparel industry. Mobile business expert Heike Scholz, on the other hand, presented the sports retailers with innovative concepts and solutions with which retailers can exploit the opportunities of digitization for themselves.
Keynote speakers from BMW to Telekom to AmazonPay provided impetus from outside the sports industry. What the sports industry can learn from them became clear, for example, in the presentation by Peter Schwarzenbauer (BMW). Digital services that are created around the automobile provide experiences for the end consumer. This experience can also be transferred to the sporting goods industry. Jyri Hautamäki, Deputy Vice President at Fenix Outdoor International, is happy about the input from outside: "Often, you gain the most inspiration from speakers who don't come from your own industry. At the ISPO Digitize Summit, we had the opportunity to build contacts outside our own ranks."
When it comes to digitization, the dynamics of the sports industry apply to only a few companies. This is shown by the first anonymous evaluation of the Digital Readiness Check, in which 500 representatives from the sports industry have taken part so far. Professor Karl Peter Fischer from the University of Applied Management in Ismaning summarizes the initial findings as follows: "The level of digitalization at most companies is alarming. Sports retailers in particular are still lagging behind when it comes to digitization. Further, the results show that numerous companies are either just planning to digitize or have only recently begun to do so. "During the Summit, we were confirmed that we have the right solution for the sports industry. At the same time, we realized that sports retailers still have difficulties in taking on digital tasks, often due to a lack of resources," sums up Christian Seidl, Managing Director Sales and Marketing, TIE KINETIX.
Already this week, the ISPO Digitize format will be continued: In China, Eric Cao, Head of IT at Nike, will be speaking at ISPO Shanghai about how manufacturers can use digital solutions to bring innovative products to market. Alexander Jobst, Marketing Director of Schalke 04, will talk about how digitization is finding its way into international soccer clubs, while representatives from Anta, Columbia, The North Face, Toread, and Under Armour will discuss profitable digital solutions for sports companies at the ISPO Shanghai Digitize Forum. The format will return to Munich in 2019 and will be integrated into the existing platforms ISPO Munich (February 3 to 6, 2019) and OutDoor by ISPO (June 30 to July 3, 2019). In addition, ISPO accompanies the digital transformation daily on ispo.com.
The recordings of the keynotes will be available online shortly. Interested journalists can obtain free access via presse@ispo.com. Pictures of the ISPO Digitize Summit are available in the media database.
Recordings of the keynotes will be available in online soon. Interested journalists can gain free access via press@ispo.com. You will find images from the ISPO Digitize Summit in the media database.
