Africa’s CEM industry leaders take centre stage as summit kicks off in the Mother City on day one

The much anticipated Customer Experience Management Africa Summit launched this morning with an official summit welcome and opening by Alan Winde, Minister of Finance, Economic Development and Tourism for the Western Cape.

The summit is being held at the African Pride 15 on Orange Hotel in Cape Town, South Africa. International business-to-business conferencing company, Kinetic Events is proud to be producing and hosting the inaugural summit which aims to bring together Africa’s CEM and IT industry leaders; providing a unique platform to build relationships, share ideas and most importantly, to do business.

Sabine Heckmann, Creative Director at Mustard Seed Relationship Marketing led an innovative keynote session focusing on putting the consumer at the heart of every conversation. Summit platinum solution provider Inter-Active Technologies Commercial Director and Founder, Brendan van Staaden offered invaluable insight into customer relationships, customer needs, and managing the interaction and quality of the customer experience in an expert keynote session.

The first anticipated panel discussion of the day is set to focus on business process outsourcing in the South African context and climate, addressing how government has committed to actively promoting South Africa as a BPO destination. The panel is set to feature industry leaders including Gareth Pritchard, CEO, BPeSA Western Cape; Alastair Tempest, COO, DMA SA; Loane Sharp, Labour Market Analyst, Adcorp; and Jonathan Goldberg, CEO at Global Business Solutions, labour attorney, and negotiator for BUSA at Nedlac for Labour Relations Act amendments.

Leading solution providers will present interactive and innovative workshop sessions throughout the summit. Platinum solution provider Inter-Active Technologies are set to present ‘customer interaction magic; marrying business rules to people rules to technology rules. Silver solution providers, Interactive Intelligence will present; ‘CRM + CIM=CEM²’ and Cincom; ‘An introduction to and overview of true “adaptivity” in interactions and the associated power to transform customer experiences’.

The second panel discussion of the day will explore staffing analysis and the alignment of the brand promise with employee behaviour. The panel is set to address matching up call centre resources with the predicted workload as a critical step in the effective management of call centre operations. The panel will feature Christelle Correia, Award-winning Head of National Contact Center, Clientele Life; Jenny Handley, Brand Strategist at JH Performance Management; Chantel Botha, Business Consultant, Sanlam Group E-Business; and Nikki Cockroft, Head of Online at Woolworths and chair for the DMMA and Bookmarks.

Jannie Vermeulen, creator of FNB’s RB Jacobs and MD at Count2Five New Media will conclude day one of the inaugural CEM Africa Summit with a topical keynote session entitles, ‘harnessing the social media monster’ with a focus on how businesses can take a more streamlined approach to engaging the consumer.

Day one of the strategic industry summit has been designed for knowledge sharing, exclusive networking opportunities and connecting with industry peers within the African CEM and contact centre industries. The must-attend industry summit has already proven to be a success, featuring focused business meetings, informative workshops and a cutting-edge interactive conference agenda.

For more information, comment or photographs, visit www.cemafricasummit.com or contact Shaunei Meintjes on +27 21 555 0866 or [email protected]. Follow @ITLeadersAfrica and @KineticEventsSA on Twitter for daily updates and news feeds.