Omnichannel marketing researchers and practitioners met for the second time this year

This year, the Omnichannel Research Group organised a thematic day at Corvinus University in Budapest, which, continuing the approach introduced last year, consisted of two major parts: in the morning, national and international researchers, and in the afternoon, renowned marketing leaders shared their experiences on the topic. 

Ildikó Kemény, PhD, Associate Professor at the BCE, welcomed the participants at the hybrid event, introduced the members of the research team and spoke briefly about current research directions. This was followed by a presentation by Tommi Laukkanen, Vice Dean of the University of Eastern Finland, who presented his own research on the impact of mobile apps on the purchasing process. The professor's research focuses on whether shoppers who use a particular retailer's app spend more. The results show that there is a correlation and that there are significant differences by gender and generation, especially in terms of the motivation for use. This was followed by a presentation by Irma Agárdi, PhD, also Associate Professor at BCE, who presented the results of her latest research focusing on the retailer side, describing and classifying retail innovations of recent years according to the degree of channel integration. This is a useful starting point for all professionals working in this field, as it adds a lot to the understanding of the concepts in the context of single, multi and cross-channel retailing, especially in the omnichannel context. The research results presented were discussed in a round table discussion with the participants, in addition to the doctoral students involved in the research, Katalin Hartl (BCE) and Erika Lázár (PTE), and Ákos Nagy, PhD, Associate Professor at the University of Pécs Faculty of Business and Economics, who also raised new - hopefully common - research areas. 

In the afternoon, the focus was on practical solutions, first Gabriella Sándor, brand and sustainability consultant, presented the integration possibilities of the TikTok platform through the example of a bookseller, then Andrea Nyéki, representing IPSOS Hungary, talked about future trends in times of multiple crises. 

In the second block of the session, Ákos Herdics, Head of Data Analytics at Crane, illustrated how continuous data analysis and visualisation can contribute to the successful management of complex decision systems by presenting an omnichannel decision preparation and monitoring system. A very useful and topical example was given by Gergely Román, e-commerce manager at Decathlon, who spoke about the challenges and development areas that retail companies need to address in order to move towards omnichannel marketing and the creation of an " obstacle-free" customer experience. 

We thank the speakers and participants for their active contribution. It is planned that the third omnichannel day will again be hosted by Pécsiközgáz, and we will keep you informed about the details. In the meantime, it is worth following the CoRe lab news on LinkedIn and Facebook. 

Krisztián Szűcs, PhD
University of Pécs Faculty of Business and Economics
Marketing and Tourism Institute