Looking to review the conference on China Investment Diversification or Private Equity: European Distressed Investing? Or perhaps you missed the exceptional keynote on Global Economics and the Euro Zone? Whatever it is you may be looking for, look no further! MIPIMWorld Blog has collected the best conferences from MIPIM 2012 and has edited them down to under 10 minutes each, preparing them for bite-size view!

Montreal is a major hub for the fashion industry.  With its dynamic and renowned shopping districts, as well as its internationally acclaimed fashion events, it has become Canada’s fashion capital. It also ranks among the largest production centres in North America, along with New York and Los Angeles.

According to the Apparel Human Resources Council (AHRC), the apparel and fashion industry employs 38,000 people in the province of Quebec, and around 75,000 in Canada.  Quebec is also home to a number of well-known brands such as Aldo, La Vie en Rose, Lolë, and FIG Clothing, to name a few.

In order to stimulate the industry and promote Quebec’s creativity at an international level, the government will allocate 4 million dollars over the next three years to develop markets such as the U.S., Europe, Japan and South America.

A part of the budget will also be allocated to encourage foreign buyers to participate in Montreal’s Fashion Week, which usually takes place in February.

Quebec will also invest 3 million dollars over the next three years in a pilot project to help the garment industry integrate information technology in its activities.

A working group, chaired by Mr. Elliot Lifson, Vice-Chairman of Peerless Clothing, and Ms. Anna Martini, President of Groupe Dynamite, has also been formed to identify promising avenues for the Canadian fashion and clothing industry, recommend concrete actions to support businesses in this sector and help companies position themselves in niche markets with high added value. Forming partnerships between creators and retailers and developing a brand strategy for Montreal as a fashion capital are also part of the group’s action plan.

“I was very happy, it’s not often that our industry is mentioned in a budget”, said Mr Lifson in an article recently published by the Montreal newspaper, La Presse. “This shows that the perception has changed, that we are no longer seen as an industry in its twilight, but as an industry where there is creativity and innovation.”

The fashion industry has helped shape Montréal’s identity. This decision from the Quebec government further supports Montreal’s desire to stand out internationally as a city of innovation and creativity.

Könige communications is a communication agency that distinguishes itself through its strategic communication approach and by its ability to achieve goals by offering clients a range of integrated services, such as communication counseling, branding, web strategies and design, public relations (press relations, speech writing, coaching) and event planning. Johanne Royer is the founding president of Könige communications. She is also the official representative of MIPIM in Canada.

Könige Blog

Könige on Twitter

Könige on Facebook

Image: Reneau Frigon

Urban Intelligence is a monthly collection of theme based articles from our cities experts and moderator Greg Clark. The month of May features: Planning Re-development of world’s megacities.

This issue will focus on how major world cities like Paris, London, New York, Moscow, São Paulo and Instanbul must address their structural weaknesses and plan strategically for a long-term and successful future in a more urban world. It will also discuss the important role of good leadership as a vehicle for effective collaboration.

To view previous issues of Urban Intelligence or to subscribe, please click here!

With a degree in Engineering and as a member of The Hong Kong Institution of Engineers, Mr. Philip Wong has over 25 years of experience in construction management, investment and property development.
He has been Executive Director of SOCAM since July 2009, Chief Executive Officer since April 2010 and most recently, appointed as Managing Director in March 2011. He has been the Managing Director of SOCAM Asset Management (HK) Limited and Shui On China Central Properties Limited since April 2007 and August 2009 respectively.

We were fortunate to get a few minutes with Philip Wong in Hong Kong at the last MIPIM Asia. Learn more about what he had to say on global economic conditions and sustainable development throughout Asia in our exclusive interview:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Short on time? Skip directly to the questions below that interest you:

What are your primary objectives at MIPIM Asia this year?

What impact do you think the current global economic conditions will have on Asian property markets?

Do you think enough is being done in the area of sustainable development?

If this is both the Asian Century and the new Urban Age, it is certainly the decade in which Asian cities have come to prominence with their astonishing rates of growth, massive investment, radical overhauls infrastructure, stunning architecture, and sparkling logistical platforms. But this is only the beginning of the story.

4 out of 10 and 3 out of 6. There is no doubt that a handful of pre-eminent cities in the continent have become new leaders in the global urban system.  In 2012, three Asian cities made the top ten of the EIU/Citi global competitiveness study. Singapore ranked a highly impressive 3^rd, Hong Kong matched Paris to finish 4^th, and Tokyo placed ahead of Zurich to rate 6^th.  In the same month, Seoul reached a new high of 8^th in the Global Cities Index. These four are now established top dozen cities in the world, and have ambitions to match.

From ‘big four’ to ‘big six’ The ‘big four’ world cities that have been identified since the early 1990s – London, New York, Paris and Tokyo – continue to retain their rarefied status in comprehensive world city indexes. However for the first time their position is being challenged by Singapore and Hong Kong, who have recorded exceptional results in a range of studies, especially those whose audience are executives, knowledge workers and tourists.

Hong Kong and Singapore have surpassed Paris and Tokyo as financial centres with global reach, and are now more central to circuits of exchange between the largest multi-national producer services firms. The pair have placed a clear 3^rd and 4^th in the Global Financial Centres Index in all 11 editions since 2007. Singapore reached a highly impressive 3^rd in the EIU’s benchmark on global city competitiveness in 2012, outflanking Paris and Tokyo for financial maturity and institutional effectiveness. And despite reports of its stagnation and even decline, Tokyo’s physical assets and regional position in finance continue to render it one of the most competitive hubs in the world, while the same can also be said of Seoul. This quartet now face a new phase of development challenges.

Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore are established world leaders: the trio rate equal 1^st in the 2012 EIU study on physical capital, and among the top 10 in the 2011 Global Power City Index for accessibility, which also takes into account external connectivity. Transport and core assets in large Japanese and South Korean cities now roughly equal those of their North American and Western European counterparts, and telecommunications linkages even surpass most in the West.

Just behind are the larger Asian hubs of Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, Shenzhen, whose large capital investments over the past two decades have enabled them to catch up with South-Eastern European cities such as Budapest and Athens.

Not all large Asian cities are making global strides. The rise of Eastern cities is not comprehensive, and the story is much more complex than a simple West-East shift allows for. Large Asian capitals such as Taipei, Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok and New Delhi have remained fairly static in business and finance terms with their overall brands not making headway on leading Western cities. For these cities, improved numbers of international travellers and increased embeddedness in the global economy has not translated into anything like a compelling all-round offering for international talent, and frequently they are not considered significant enough to include in several worldwide comparative indexes.

South Asian cities and others have much less auspicious physical platforms, as demonstrated in several benchmarks. While the leading East Asian cities can legitimately focus on ‘softer’ quality enhancements – such as business attraction incentives – the likes of Mumbai, Ho Chi Minh City and even Manila are preoccupied with much more urgent ‘hard’ development agendas, as well as considerable healthcare deficits. The latter are in many cases linked to institutional limitations that restrict cities’ fiscal autonomy and capacity to address problems across the whole metropolitan area. It is not least because of these deficiencies that executives in the 2012 World Cities Survey do not rate Mumbai and Delhi any higher than 18^th and 20^th in terms of the top global cities in ten years’ time, despite the huge business potential they offer.

As Asian cities become equal partners in circuits of global exchange, their diversity and cultural depth are being called into question by recent indexes. In a measure of ‘social and cultural character’ in EIU’s study, which assesses social rights, open-ness, tolerance and cultural variation, Tokyo and Seoul are the top Asian cities, but only in equal 28^th place. Further down, only Nagoya, Busan, Hong Kong and Singapore feature from Asia among the top 50. This deficiency compares to 23 European hubs and 13 North American centres in the top half-century. Remarkably, promising cities such as Kuala Lumpur, Beijing, Taipei and Mumbai all score lower than every European city including Birmingham, while Tianjin, Shenzhen and Ahmedabad score extremely poorly.

Related to this is the challenge to expand entertainment and recreational opportunities for residents and visitors. The hosting of globally transmitted events and development of privileged cultural districts have successfully penetrated the consciousness of influential communities, especially in the case of Singapore and Shanghai. But the overall picture is of a much slower rise in brand status than might be expected. While some may argue these scores indicate a certain Western partiality, there is no doubt that factors of cosmopolitanism, spontaneity and fairness do inform the locational decision-making of global firms and mobile talent. As such, the negotiated management of more open and less scripted urban communities is an important task for many Asian city policymakers.

There are other agendas Asian world cities need to pursue besides cultural flair.  Their educational assets are excellent only in small pockets, and constrain their development as centres of knowledge and influence. For example Shanghai’s comparatively modest elite higher education provision means it loses out not just to other global centres but also to Beijing in terms of information exchange and political prestige, as the 2012 Global Cities Index testifies. In addition, the successful commercialisation of innovation-led R&D is in short supply in Asian world cities, despite real strengths in Tokyo and Seoul. And, last but certainly not least, all Asian cities have to be vigilant to uphold or improve their reputation for accountability and respect for the rule of law, especially given their newfound visibility on the world stage.

As we shall see over the next month on our MIPIM Cities Blog, many Asian cities see their own challenges very clearly and most have the right combination of strategy and investment required to tackle them in the medium term.

Image: Reggie Wan

While individuals and businesses alike are “going green” in an effort to save energy and do their part in protecting the environment, we are starting to see more and more retailers jump on the sustainability bandwagon. One Danish retailer however, has extended their approach to sustainability not just through greening and energy efficiency, but through what they call, ‘social responsibility’. IC Companys A/S is a Danish listed group that runs 11 independent sports and fashion brands: Peak Performance, Tiger of Sweden, Jackpot, InWear, Matinique, Saint Tropez, Part Two, Cottonfield, By Malene Birger, Soaked in Luxury and Designers Remix.

IC Companys sustainable strategy isn’t just limited within the development of their brands: social and environment work is an integral part of the business to promote sustainable development in society. They promote sustainable development and help people in need through various projects: from formalised co-operation with Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO’s) to the use of organic cotton in the textile production.

Each project is chosen by the individual brand. Some of them include:

• IC Companys is co-founder of Danish Ethical Trading Initiative, a resource center which seeks to strengthen the ethical practices and supply chain management of Danish companies.
• IC Companys cooperates with Save the Children Denmark and Danida in training children and teenagers at a technical school in Bangladesh, providing current and former child workers with basic educational skills and technical textile training.
• The brand Jackpot has a close partnership with the Dutch NGO “Made By”, which means that at least 10% of each collection is made in organic cotton.
• Varying parts of the collections of Peak Performance, Jackpot and Saint Tropez are made of organic cotton.

With revenues of 468m euros and more than 2,500 employees, IC Companys is one of the largest clothing companies in Northern Europe. Their 11 brands are sold not only online, but in nearly 500 retail and franchise stores with close to 10,000 distributors in more than 40 countries.

Interested in a discussion with IC Companys? Meet them directly at MAPIC this November!

Source: http://www.iccompanys.com

Image: IC Companys

Ben Simpfendorfer is the Managing Director of Silk Road Associates. Former Chief China Economist at the Royal Bank of Scotland and former Senior China Economist at JPMorgan, he has advised many of the world’s largest financial investors and multinationals on China’s economy.

Under Global Strategic Associates, Ben advises a prestigious group of Chinese, Middle Eastern, and other foreign clients on cross-border business and investment opportunities. He is the author of “The New Silk Road”, a book published in 2009 in five languages that examines China’s relations with the Middle East. He has been invited as a speaker by many prominent institutions, notably the U.S. State Department, Council on Foreign Relations, and IMF.

We were grateful to get a few minutes with him at MIPIM Asia to get his perspective on property investment in China. Don’t miss this exclusive interview!

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Short on time? Skip directly to the question that interests you:

What are your primary objectives here at MIPIM Asia this year?

How will the Asian property market be affected by the global economic crisis?

Over the course of 5-10 years, where do you see the key trends emerging?

What place do you think sustainable development has in the future of China?

What other key areas in the region will expect to see growth in the future?

Which real estate sectors are showing the most innovation across Asia?

In collaboration with Greg Clark

The financial capital of South America, São Paulo is the commercial hub of Brazil, one of the largest emerging economic nations in the world, a country that is predicted to rise from 8% of United States’ GDP in 2007, to 26% by 2050. Having risen to national prominence in the 1950s based on trade and industrial growth, São Paulo has successfully overcome challenging economic adjustments and witnessed a credit boom that has helped to spur record car sales, bank profits and stock exchange gains. The city has witnessed a period of huge foreign direct investment, and high year-on-year real income growth fuelled by its thriving legal scene and rapidly internationalising BM&F Bovespa, the multi-asset bourse. The city is now a continental focal point for entrepreneurial investment, and is a major specialised centre for banking, trade, higher education, fashion, advertising, design, and healthcare.

Geographically, the central city of São Paulo is approximately the size of Greater London, at 1,500 km², of which two-thirds is urbanised. The city GDP is well over $200 billion, translating to more than $15,000 per capita. The city is located within a metropolitan region named Grande (Greater) São Paulo. While the region incorporates 39 municipalities, it is itself situated within São Paulo state. Brazil’s largest state – one of 27 – has more than 40 million inhabitants and contributes around 30-33% of the country’s GDP. The metropolitan region is one of three in the state, while constituting only 3% of the total area of the state of São Paulo.

Sao Paulo 2040 is a new strategic plan currently under development by the Municipality of São Paulo, in collaboration with a wide range of business, institutional and NGO stakeholders, and involving experts at one of the city’s main universities. The Plan aims to provide a benchmark for government, citizens, businesses and organisations to collaborate towards 2040, with intermediate goals by 2025. The Plan provides an agenda of integration and synergy, to optimize current efforts in different sectors and departments, and to engage the right partners and investors. It is the city’s major new instrument for long term thinking and consensus-building.

The vision for Sao Paulo in 2040 is to create ‘The City We All Desire’, for the city to be both globally competitive and have good living conditions for all, while respecting the environment. The vision stresses the importance of all citizens living in dignity and with a good quality of life, enabled by access to education, quality health care, recreational and cultural amenities close to all homes. The vision also refers to the importance of providing solutions for young people and the post-retirement generation.

Economically, Sao Paulo will become more open to the international economy, with enhanced innovation and research centres reflecting a re-orientation towards high technology and services, and a move towards excellence in cultural, intellectual and academic production.

Sao Paulo’s Strategic Plan has begun with a preliminary strategic vision based on Sao Paulo Priorities and drawing upon other city experiences, and has pursued vigorous consultation with more than 25,000 citizens and commentators,  while developing five propositions of the Strategic Axis. These are:

• Social Cohesion – a major reduction of inequity in income, territory and access to public services, while maintaining identity and affiliation.
• Urban Development – social and spatial balance to ensure infrastructure and populations are adjacent rather than far apart.
• Environmental Improvement – controlling environmental pollution and a new ethos of sustainability in line with global norms
• Mobility – dramatic reduction of time and money spent on daily movements of people and cargo
• Business Opportunity – springboard from knowledge-intensive creativity, technology and innovation infrastructure while maintaining key logistics platform and open-ness to international markets

One key element of the draft plan is the identification of key catalytic projects, cross cutting interventions that can bring the future to life quickly and create a sense of momentum and progress. These projects include:

Living Rivers: a programme to clean up the waterways within Sao Paulo to enable people to enjoy the water and improve health.

Urban Parks: a programme to create  several urban parks for recreational purposes to improve livability.

Communities: a programme to turn precarious settlements into communities and integrate them to the City.

The 30 minute city: a way to integrate transport, a more compact city, and better urban nodes so that non-one need travel for more than 30 minutes to get to work and receive urban services.

Poles of Opportunity: an initiative to foster specialist business districts and sector hubs so that Sao Paulo’s diverse economy can flourish.

Open-City: a programme to deepen the global reach of Sao Paulo and to celebrate it cosmospolitan and international character.

São Paulo 2040 will be completed during 2012. To find out more please visit: www.sp2040.net.br

By Miguel Bucalem, Secretary for Urban Development, City of São Paulo.

Greece continues to battle against the recession, with prosperity indexes tumbling to the lowest level since the beginning of the economic crisis in 2011. Fears over job security, government cuts and tax increases leave consumers reluctant to spend. How can Greek retailers survive in such conditions?

We had the chance to sit down with Dimitris Kotsas, Vice President of Patafritas, a brand company of grill, café and fast food restaurants located at cities’ High Streets and Shopping Centers in Athens, Thessaloniki, Larisa, the U.K., Bulgaria. Find out what he has to say about the Greek retail market and international expansion in this exclusive interview.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Short on time? Skip directly to the question that interests you:

Tell us about your company what you are doing here at MAPIC?

How is the crisis in Greece impacting business and retailers?

What type of innovations in retail do you think we’ll be seeing in the future?

What are the factors that influence your decision in choosing a location?

In existence for over 70 years, PHOTOMATON is the French leader of the automatic distribution of photo ID and digital photo processing kiosks.  Benefiting from the strength and experience of Photo-Me International Group, they boast a turnover of 84.9 million Euros, currently employing 300+ workers in over 70 regions, of which 220 are technicians. With roughly 40 PHOTOMATON customers per minute countrywide, they are obliged to stay on the cutting edge of innovation by adapting to new modern design and responding to advancing offline and online technologies.

In close partnership with acclaimed designer Philippe Starck, a whole new generation of the photobooth was born in 2011.  The objective was to find a way to attract customers and enhance user experience via new technologies, without losing the classic look of the exterior booth. Stark achieved this by keeping to pure and elegant lines, with the addition of an orange translucent interior seat.

Apart from an aesthetic makeover, PHOTOMATON has also found a way to update their technology and expand their online presence by introducing a new set of functionality inspired from modern video games and mobile devices.  Boasting a tactile control screen and a heated state-of- the-art camera technology automatically adjusting to users heights, the new PHOTOMATON ensures maximum quality at every take. In line with social media and retail trends of personalisation, this innovation has literally turned the photobooth into a personal creative studio, providing users with a range of pop art and fun frame photos to a selection of backdrops including destinations such as the Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty.  Furthermore, the new PHOTOMATON is equipped with a 3G connection, enabling customers to share their photos instantly on Facebook, Twitter, Picasa and Dropbox.

PHOTOMATON continues to provide full customer photo service by offering developing kiosks that print selected photos and mini albums in various sizes, not to mention black and white photocopy machines.

To go with the marriage of this modern sleek design and enriching consumer experience via new technologies, PHOTOMATON launched a new concept store in 2011 and will be inaugurating the first established sites in shopping centres this year.

Interested in building a relationship with PHOTOMATON? Meet them at MAPIC!

Source: http://www.photomaton.fr/notre-societe/relations-presse.html

Image: PHOTOMATON

Since 2000, London has reformed its citywide strategic planning more than any major developed western city. In 2000, the UK national government created the Greater London Authority (GLA), including a directly elected Mayor. Urban planning and transport was incorporated into a strategic citywide plan, the London Plan, backed by a multi-modal transport agency, Transport for London. Strategic planning is now central to London’s long-term urban development.

The London Plan, first launched in 2004 and the city’s first for nearly two decades, has transformed the city’s attitude to integrated plan-led development in a historical context where there has been hostility to ambitious political visions and large-scale physical interventions. The Plan is a live document; it is regularly and rigorously updated. The 2011 version is more focused than the previous Plans – with fewer policies, designed to be user-friendly.

London’s plan has to address the challenge of population growth. London’s population declined after the Second World War but has risen again since the current phase of globalization began and is set to reach 9,000,000 by 2031.

London’s Population 1911 to 2031:

While primarily a spatial strategy, the London Plan has scope over a range of policy fields, including housing, quality of life, economic growth, social inclusion, sustainability, accessibility, design standards, and climate change adaptation. The plan directly focuses on the key challenges in these fields and has accelerated the flow of ideas and implementation. The London Plan is therefore, the unifying framework for all Mayoral strategies, which also include economic development, transport, biodiversity and culture.

The London Plan offers a strategic vision rather than a precise territorial map of land-uses. The Plan’s main map identifies a series of growth corridors and opportunity areas around the city, focusing future growth on brownfield sites. The boroughs take on these broader visions and enact the detail. Boroughs develop Local Development Frameworks (LDFs) which offer improved flexibility and enable proper community and stakeholder involvement.

The London Plan has encouraged the location of growth sites in areas where there is high public transport capacity. The Plan has crystallised all the thinking on London’s developments into a scheme-by-scheme basis, which links planning, development, land use and transport systems together in order to achieve high density targets in these hubs. The London Plan allows for site-specific endorsements, designating priority areas that can motivate private sector involvement.

The London Plan’s character of guiding inclusivity offers a positive new instrument for London’s future development.  The Plan has achieved wide participation and acceptance, not least because its formulation encouraged a commitment to a decisive and comprehensible vision. The Plan’s structure has enabled it to be smoothly converted into sector-based strategies and incorporated into local plans. It has especially prompted a more direct effort to rehabilitate brownfield sites in many boroughs were much land is derelict.

The London Plan is an example of a strategic plan which has benefited from close alignment with national strategies, especially in terms of growth corridor locations and commitment to sustainable development. The Plan is nourished by a number of strategic alliances that facilitates quicker implementation.

A number of challenges remain, notably in terms of overcoming financing constraints and intra-regional co-ordination shortcomings. The Plan’s integration with the planning initiatives in neighbouring regions such as the South East and East of England has been partial and limited due to a lack of co-coordinating mechanisms.

As London prepares for the 2012 Olympic Games, the London plan provides the longer term framework for development that enables The Games to be the catalyst of the development of East London, providing London with the capacity needed to increase housing and business locations and to guide infrastructure integration for the long term.

IMAGE: TJ Morris

Cheung Kong Holdings is a property development and strategic investment company. It is one of the largest developers in Hong Kong of residential, commercial and industrial properties.

Justin Chiu joined Cheung Kong Holdings in 1997 and has been an Executive Director since 2000. He is the Chairman of ARA Asset Management Limited , ARA Asset Management Limited as the manager of Fortune REIT, ARA Trust Management Limited as the manager of Suntec REIT , and ARA Asset Management Limited as the manager of Prosperity REIT. Mr. Chiu is also a Director of ARA Fund Management Limited as the manager of the ARA Asia Dragon Fund. Mr. Chiu has more than 30 years of international experience in real estate in Hong Kong and various countries and is a director of a company controlled by a substantial shareholder of the Company within the meaning of Part XV of the Securities and Futures Ordinance.

Get a better idea of the state of the Asian real estate market in our exclusive interview with Justin Chiu during MIPIM Asia last November:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Short on time? Skip directly to the questions that interest you:

What projects are you presenting at MIPIM Asia this year?

What effects will the economy have on Asian property markets?

Sectorally and geographically, were do you see the key areas of growth in the region?

How has the atmosphere changed here at MIPIM Asia over the past few years?

How is sustainable development being adopted throughout the region?

As covered in MORE Vision 5, our bi-monthly retail trend report, airports and train stations are becoming fully functioning retail destinations, attracting tourists and locals to these locations as consumers. As retail becomes more technologically advanced with digital initiatives and online stores, cities need to adapt as well, by integrating an effective strategic response to the growing online demands of city commerce.  That’s why major cities like New York, London, and South Korea are already heavily invested in the installation of wi-fi throughout their subway and transport systems; an investment that will no doubt bring great future rewards as mobile shopping becomes more mainstream.

According to Transit Wireless, the company founded to build a shared wireless infrastructure for Metropolitan Transport Authority’s NY Transit, New Yorkers will soon have cellphone service and free wi-fi in over 30 more subway platforms by the end of the year. The project started last year and is set to fit all 277 subway stations with wi-fi over the next 4 years. As the Wall Street Journal reports, “Transit Wireless and MTA will share proceeds of the company’s contracts with wireless carriers, MTA have said, with a minimum annual payment to the transit system of $3.3 million once the cellphone network is complete.”  What does this mean for retail in transport hubs? Now that passengers can be plugged into the net during their long commute to and from work, online shopping channels can only benefit.

Perhaps it is no surprise, as South Korea is known to have far superior broadband connections than the rest of the world, but Seoul is also a major city for wi-fi connection underground. They have gone a step further by introducing a Tesco Homeplus virtual supermarket in a South Korean subway station, encouraging shoppers to use their smartphones.  A large billboard was installed in the station with life sized photos containing a QR code. Shoppers scan the products they want while they wait for their train, and the order is delivered to the user’s home within one day.

In preparation for the Olympic games, London is set to launch Europe’s largest free wi-fi zone, outfitting up to 120 stations on the network before summer of 2012. The mobile operator O2 said the deal, which will have no cost to the taxpayer, will enable visitors to “make the most of what London has to offer”. According the BBC, Councillor Philippa Roe, recently elected Leader of Westminster City Council, said: “Westminster welcomes over a million tourists a day, is home to 250,000 residents, employs over half a million people and sees 4,000 business starts-ups each year. Visitors to London will easily be able to share their pictures and updates of the Olympic events across social networking sites.”

What she didn’t mention is that thanks to wi-fi, visitors and locals alike will be more connected than ever to more than 40,000 retail shops throughout the city.

IMAGE: flickr-marketingfacts

Deichmann is the German and European market leader in shoes, offering one of the largest selection on the market for all age groups. Their message is simple: ensuring outstanding value for money while staying on top of the latest fashion trends with scouts exclusively focused on bringing current fashion developments into their collections. The retail group has not only held a commitment of ensuring long term growth with sustainable practices, but as a pioneer in e-commerce, it has remained on the cutting edge of technology with a well established online and virtual presence.

From the acquisition of administrative buildings, to the construction of new shops, Deichmann pushes eco-smart principles and efficiency. They encourage modern, environmentally friendly technology by using solar energy, heat pumps and energy-saving lighting designs. This is why the company’s largest distribution centre in Bottrop, with a surface of 40,000 m², received the 2003/2004 Nordrhein-Westfalen government’s Ökoprofit certificate.

With the creation of their online shop in 2000, Deichmann was regarded as a pioneering venture by the industry. Since then, they have developed their e-commerce by offering the site in 20 countries and have increased their online presence by engaging with social media platforms like Facebook, where they feature their latest brand ambassador, Halle Berry. This enables them to continually seek out not only new customers interested in their collection, but also those generally interested in fashion, informing them about the general trends of the season. They achieve this with their own fashion blog, using celebrity style and the fashion scene as a source of inspiration, but according to Deichmann, also giving their designers and trend scouts their say: “Customers are used to visiting our shops and quickly find the latest trends at affordable prices; we want to give them an online fashion platform, where they can find concrete recommendations. That way, we are contributing to the democratisation of fashion. Our aim is to make lifestyle affordable for everybody.”

Deichmann a family-owned business since 1913, is headquartered in Essen, Germany. Deichmann SE is currently active in 22 countries with around 3,200 local shops and employs approximately 32,500 people. 2010 saw the highest growth rate since the German reunification. Despite increasing wage costs in the producing countries as well as increasing goods and energy prices, expectations were well exceeded in 2011 throughout 21 European countries and the USA, with a turnover increased by 5 percent. Internationally, DEICHMANN sold about 156 million pairs of shoes (152 million pairs previous year). At the end of 2011 the group ran 3,175 stores worldwide (2010: 2,939) with 32,500 employees (2010: 30,000).

Source: Deichmann Corporate Site

Interested in learning more about Deichmann? Register today for MAPIC and meet them this Novemeber!

In collaboration with Greg Clark

Following 18 years of Yury Luzhkov Mayoralcy, the new Moscow Government team is preparing a new kind of strategic plan for the future of Russian capital. For decades Moscow remained a state within a state and a ‘terra incognita’ for foreign investors. The new team is starting to break with this old cliché, showing openness for new ideas and a commitment to positioning Moscow as an emerging world city and international financial center.

As a result of previous planning policies, the urban structure of Moscow faces challenges and inbalances. Nearly 40% of working places are concentrated within the densely built center, in 4.5 km radius around The Kremlin. At the same time two thirds of the Moscow population resides in the outskirts of the city, and more than a million people commute daily into the city from the wider Moscow Region. This causes excessive congestion in the city center, with serious transportation, ecological and social consequences. The Moscow Authorities, as well as residents, express concern at the level of density.

These factors explain the recent decision to create ‘Greater Moscow’, an enlarged city with a much larger municipal boundary, announced in June 2011 by The President of Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev. The territory of The Russian Capital will grow almost by 2.5 times. The city will expand to a line which is 60 kilometers southwest if its center. This will make it possible to move some of the functions concentrated in the historical center to newly planned areas within the enlarged city.

Map of the new Moscow boundary expansion

Source: www.mos.ru

According to the new draft plan of Moscow Government, Moscow’s new territories will be split into three zones: the closest to ‘old Moscow’ zone for partial urbanization, zone of local urban complexes in the natural environment, and a larger recreation zone. Also, the new territories will house the government compound, financial and business centers, research and innovation areas, university, medical, recreation and tourist clusters.

The strategy and master-plan for Moscow’s future development within the  extended borders have to be elaborated by the end of 2012.

An international competition for the concept of the Moscow agglomeration development was launched in  early 2012 to collect a maximum number of variants for the development of Moscow in its new boundaries. Ten international teams were shortlisted from 67 primary applications of the best world architects and urban planners. Among them such companies as OMA, L’AUC, McAdam Architects, and the leading Russian institutes and centers for urban development. In the next six months they have to decide how the development of new and existing territories of Moscow can be linked together.

In the meantime, not all are optimistic about The Greater Moscow project. The southwest direction of expansion and the way of decision-making are widely criticized by media and independent experts. Contrary to many public announcements, the results of an Urban Land Institute Advisory Panel’s research (held in Moscow in early December 2011) did not point to Moscow being an extraordinarily dense city, but urged the need to draw more attention to better land-use planning, and to public transportation improvement.  Another puzzling issue is that it is not clear how the results of the international competition for the concept of the Moscow agglomeration extension could be linked to the strategy of socio-economic development of the city, which should be completed by autumn 2012.

A long term strategic plan is needed for Moscow to answer the challenges of expansion and to increase its international role. Such kind of plans have been developed in London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, and many other established and emerging world cities.

A strategic plan is a means for Moscow to create the agenda to be a world city based on the three pillars of macro reform and attractive business climate, better infrastructure and land use, and enhanced position, identity, and visitor experience. This plan will shape the development of Moscow for the next 20 years, and the identity and reputation of Moscow for the world beyond Russia. This is good time for a new plan for Moscow. As Shanghai, Sao Paulo, and other world cities emerge into a world that wants to do business with them, there is great appetite to see Moscow taking its place and becoming Russia’s global stage.

Anna Trapkova is business development director of IRP Group.

Image: Dieter Karner