PMP Sets Survival Seminar in Vegas

January 2, 2011  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Business Strategy on January 3, 2011

Furniture sales promotion specialist Profit Management Promotions has details on its "5-year-survival" seminar at Las Vegas Furniture Market's winter show.

The workshop, "Is Your Business Ready for the Next 5 Years?", is set for 1:30-2:30 p.m., Jan. 24, in World Market Center's Building C Retail Resource Center. No registration is required.

The seminar sprang from a two-year review of PMP client assignments, which showed that fewer than 10 percent of furniture retailers have formal strategic plans in place to address changes in the marketplace and potential opportunities.

"Most businesses map out five-year strategic plans to forecast and act upon changing market conditions, yet a shockingly small number of furniture retailers have workable action plans in place," said Ron Cooper, Jamison, Pa.-based PMP's director of sales and marketing. "To keep afloat in today's rocky economy, they need to pull together a five-year survival plan. What's more, they need to do so now."

Cooper noted that such plans needn't be complex, but they do need to address critical financial, operational and marketing-related issues that must be acted upon immediately.                                                                        

The PMP Las Vegas seminar will study the major marketplace challenges confronting furniture retailers including the multitude of new choices consumers have for purchasing home furnishings such as big box stores, growing national chains, closeout stores, independent outlets, and web retailers; and the changing attitudes of today's value-oriented consumers.

Cooper will present the seminar along with colleagues PMP President Michael J. Egan and Vice President of Operations Hector Mustafa. They will cover a range of considerations tied to retailers' strategic options: staying the course with their current strategies, pursuing restructurings, investing in capital improvements, business expansion, or liquidating.

"The fact is the business models of many furniture retailers may have worked in the past, but they're probably not the right models for today," Cooper said. "One thing is clear: for most retailers, new brand-positioning and marketing strategies are needed to contend with increasing economic pressures and competitive threats. Our seminar will outline the key management questions furniture retailers need to be asking themselves today in order to position themselves for substantive growth tomorrow."

Cooper has more than 25 years' experience as a retail store owner and marketer of bedding and home furnishings products. Cooper and his colleagues at PMP are members of the National Home Furnishings Association, the International Home Furnishings Representatives Association and multiple regional groups serving the home furnishings market.