CAIRO: The American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) held its fourth annual Career Development Center (CDC) Dec. 8-9 at the InterContinental CityStars hotel. The CDC is a professional development workshop for businesspeople in the area of middle management. Two of the marketing world's leading researchers, Dr Michael Soliman and Barbara Glanz, were brought to Cairo to give a seminar on each of the days, both made up of eight-hour sessions. On Saturday, Dr Soliman gave a seminar entitled, "Why we buy: Understanding consumers to guide market strategy, which offered insights into the consumer's mind, how to appeal to different types of consumers, and how to keep up with ever-changing market trends. The seminar was attended by businesspeople from a wide variety of industries, and all of those who spoke to Daily News Egypt were impressed by what they had seen. Mohammed, a manager from Auto-Egypt, was pleased with the new techniques of customer communication he had learned, as well as the session on classifying consumers. "I will use a lot of this, he said. "It is important to tailor your message to reach out to particular target audiences. Classifying different types of consumers was becoming more and more important in Egypt, said another participant Yasser, also from the automotive industry. As the Egyptian economy grows, the market becomes more diverse, Yasser said, and the lecture was particularly useful in demonstrating how to keep up with changing market trends. "(Dr Soliman) has made it clear how important it is to market different types of the same product - like cars - to different consumers, added Yasser, "he also highlighted the need to make customers aware of every aspect of the product that could appeal to them, that might not be obvious just by looking at the car. It is about better customer communication. In this way, many of the marketing concepts and techniques at the CDC were not new, but much of the focus was on how to better apply them in order to keep up with, and excel in, Egypt's developing marketplace."The CDC gives people in middle management the tools they need to adapt, modernize and become more competitive, said Mona Mowafy, one of the organizers from AmCham. Hisham, a manager at Dream Foods in Cairo, has been amazed by the change in Egypt's consumer trends, saying the seminar was beneficial in offering ways to harness that. "Egyptians have access to satellite TV, internet and foreign movies, and this is exposing them to new foods. No one in Egypt used to buy desserts with blueberries, cranberries or cherries, but now they are very popular, he said. "This exposure is giving our company freedom to explore. Amr Khalil, a senior management consultant at Team marketing, was pleased with the seminar, and with the opportunity to meet Dr Soliman ("a guru in consumer behavior ), but felt the lecture was a little broad. "It was well delivered but it was quite a broad presentation. Dr Soliman tried to give some local examples of business experiences, but Arab business entities are becoming large, with an international perspective. There could have been more about international marketing. For people like Yasser, however, the Egyptian marketplace is their bread and butter for the foreseeable future, and remaining competitive in the market will suffice for now. "The companies who survive are the ones who will develop with the market, he said.
