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FMI to Launch Ongoing Educational Platform in 2009

Now that Food Marketing Institute has committed to an every-other-year exhibit show, the group is developing what it hopes could become an event of equal or even greater importance for its members an educational forum that will seek to both develop future leaders and attract talented management to the food distribution industry. Future Connect, which is being introduced on a wide scale

ARLINGTON, Va. — Now that Food Marketing Institute has committed to an every-other-year exhibit show, the group is developing what it hopes could become an event of equal or even greater importance for its members — an educational forum that will seek to both develop future leaders and attract talented management to the food distribution industry.

Future Connect, which is being introduced on a wide scale to FMI's membership at the FMI Show in Las Vegas this week, is being touted as the industry's answer to the talent shortfall that is anticipated as the population swell known as Baby Boomers — 76 million Americans born between about 1946 and 1964 — approaches retirement age. The population that is younger than this group is much smaller, leaving an anticipated gap between current and future company leadership.

The program is scheduled to have its first actual conference in 2009 in Dallas, but the structure calls for it to become an ongoing event, with educational programs tied to colleges and universities that take place throughout the year.

“We looked at Bureau of Labor forecasts that said we are going to have 10 million more jobs coming through the economy than we have people to fill them,” said Tim Hammonds, president and chief executive officer, FMI, in an interview with SN. “It dawned on us that we are not just in competition within the grocery industry looking for talent, but we are in competition with everybody in the U.S. This is going to require that the industry join hands and give this a hard look, and not only make a strong statement that this is a great place to work, but have the right kind of programs in place to develop people as future leaders for our industry.”

He described the 2009 event in Dallas as the “big kickoff” for the program, which would proceed via continuing education programs, distance-learning opportunities through the Internet and other training programs that would connect the alternate-year gathering.

The idea for the program was developed under the leadership of Jeff Noddle, chairman and CEO of Minneapolis-based Supervalu, who was chairman of FMI from 2005 to 2007. A long-range strategic task force was formed to evaluate how FMI needed to evolve to remain of service to the industry as a whole.

“We thought that a yearly exhibit-type event doesn't really fit the needs of where we are going, and that we ought to move to at least an every-other-year education event,” Noddle told SN. “Frankly, we want this event to be part of the fabric to help us attract and retain good talent in our industry, and FMI should be a leader in that regard.”

Although, he pointed out, FMI has always been involved in training and education, “we are trying to take it to a whole new level.”

Steve Smith, CEO of K-VA-T- Food Stores, Abingdon, Va., and the current chairman of FMI, served on the strategic planning committees that developed the plan.

“One of the things that came out of that committee was that our every-year convention continued to go downhill,” he said. “Part of that was because it wasn't quite as relevant to our membership as it once was. So what we decided was to curtail this to an every-other-year event, and we also decided to move it out of Chicago, which was one of the recommendations of the committee, and this year we kicked that off with the Las Vegas convention.”

He said the committee determined that the industry needed to act now to begin developing top management talent for the industry, especially given the fact that food retailing has struggled in the past to attract top management talent.

“They suggested that we are going to face a real crisis in a few years, when the Baby Boomers start to retire, and we are going to wake up in 2015 and 2020 with a real problem on our hands,” he said.

Ric Jurgens, CEO of Hy-Vee, oversees the development of Future Connect as chairman of FMI's Education and Research Committee.

Much of the program's structure is being coordinated by Michael Sansolo, the former FMI vice president who now works as an independent consultant and devotes about half his time to the Future Connect program, Smith explained.

The program is divided into three tracks — Performance Connect, which will be geared toward skill development; People Connect, geared toward helping manage and develop lower-level workers; and Profit Connect, geared toward training in how to grow a company's business in both the top and bottom lines.

In addition, keynote speakers will address the whole group over the course of the three-day program, which is scheduled for Monday through Wednesday, May 4-6, 2009, at the Hyatt Regency in Dallas.

Smith said that in addition to recruiting many top-level speakers for the event — author and management guru Steve Covey has already been booked — FMI hopes to put many of its own leaders at the podium.

“We are going to try to get some key executives from the retail environment and the wholesale environment to speak to the group about what has precipitated their ability to lead their respective companies,” he said. “I think that will be very enlightening not only to someone like me, but also to someone 15 to 20 years younger than me who aspires to reach that level as well.

“We will hear some real-life stories about how such-and-such person became a district manager, and then moved up to a divisional vice president and then a chief operating officer and eventually became a chief executive of a multibillion-dollar corporation,” he said. “We want to think about how we can make this industry more exciting for these future leaders.”

COORDINATION WITH VENDORS

One of the key features of the conference is the fact that it has been developed with a coordinated effort involving both retailers and suppliers, according to program planners interviewed by SN.

“This really was developed with our supplier partners as a solution for the total industry, not just FMI members, and they are going to be partners in this from start to finish,” Hammonds said. “When associations create new events, they often roll it out to suppliers and say, ‘You support it.’ We really took quite a different approach here from the very beginning of the concept. We worked hand in hand with the supplier community.”

The educational programs will be designed to appeal to both retailers and suppliers, he said, and to various levels of management on both sides. FMI is looking to its retail board members to commit to bringing a certain number of people to the event, and then it plans to challenge supplier members to match that total, Hammonds explained.

In addition, FMI anticipates that the event will provide networking opportunities for young managers from supplier companies to form relationships with their counterparts on the retail and wholesale side.

“We think this is an opportunity for suppliers to further the development of their own management talent, but also the entire Future Connect conference is going to have heavy emphasis on networking, so we think it will be an opportunity for people from both sides to make connections with folks that we think could last their entire career,” Hammonds said. “They can get to know people who will be future leaders in the industry just as they will be.”

FMI associate members who were involved in the planning process told SN they feel this conference is unique in terms of the depth of their involvement.

“There are supplier companies that are actually involved,” said Sandy Brawley, corporate director of customer development, The Clorox Co., Oakland, Calif. “This will be one of the few things we have collaborated on to jointly execute in a joint-training environment.

“We did joint meetings with the supplier community and with operators, and we talked about what the biggest needs are and what the areas are that we need to focus on,” he explained.

He said one of the key elements of the ongoing Future Connect program will be to offer a “smorgasbord” of training programs, and to make the delivery of those programs flexible enough that they could be accessed in many ways, including possibly through on-site training at the offices of retailers or suppliers.

Trish Brynjolfsson, vice president of business development and industry relations at Catalina Marketing Corp., St. Petersburg, Fla., who sits on the Education and Research Committee at FMI, said the supplier community has a “feeling of ownership” about the program.

“This is the first time that we have been asked for input as part of a broader group, about what the content should be,” she said. “So, we have really valued the opportunity to be a part of that process, and not asked at the last minute, ‘Oh, do you want to be a sponsor?’”

She conceded that FMI faces a challenge in attracting supplier participation, especially early on while the event is still unproven. She said she was confident that association leadership would work to recruit participation from the product and service companies that seek retailers as their customers.

“I think the support of the FMI board members is going to be very important both from participating members as well as from a PR standpoint,” she said. “I think there's a lot of work that can be done there.”

Brynjolfsson agreed that the event would provide a strong networking opportunity for suppliers to form relationships with retailers.

“That's one of the ways I will promote this within my own company,” she said. “These individuals are being selected to attend this because they have high potential, so to be in a learning environment and build those relationships that can really carry to the future is really attractive, especially to a company like Catalina.”

While many companies in the industry already have in-house training programs, Future Connect was designed as a complementary offering to those programs.

“We think there is incremental value in this, because it is something new and different — more specifically, it involves understanding what are the challenges of our clients, the retailers,” Brynjolfsson explained.

Hammonds said just the fact that FMI is creating this educational forum should send a message to potential future managers.

“I think it says a lot to young people that senior executives are willing to invest so much time and effort into career development,” he said.

FMI FUTURE CONNECT

MAY 4-6, 2009
HYATT REGENCY, DALLAS

MONDAY, MAY 4

8 a.m.-noon: Super Session

Noon-1:15 p.m.: Luncheon speaker

1:30 p.m.-4 p.m.: Operations management track (Performance Connect)

1:30 p.m.-4 p.m.: Executive development track (Performance Connect)

1:30 p.m.-4:15 p.m.: Senior executive track (Performance Connect)

4:15 p.m.-5 p.m.: Food industry Speaks

TUESDAY, MAY 5

7 a.m.-7:45 a.m.: Super Session

8 a.m.-noon: Operations management track (People Connect)

8 a.m.-noon: Executive development track (People Connect)

Noon-1 p.m.: Luncheon speaker

1:15 p.m.-3:15 p.m.: Operations management track (People Connect)

1:15 p.m.-3:15 p.m.: Executive development track (People Connect)

3:45 p.m.-5:15 p.m.: Super Session (Profit Connect)

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6

7 a.m.-7:45 a.m.: Super Session

8 a.m.-11 a.m.: Operations management track (Profit Connect)

8 a.m.-11 a.m.: Executive development track (Profit Connect)

11:15 a.m.-noon: Super Session (Profit Connect)