First-time event champions retail channel in Southeast Asia; Keynote speakers COURTS, ELECTROLUX and INTEL stress the power of customer experience

BANGKOK, THAILAND / SINGAPORE - Media OutReach - 26 March 2019 - GATES Consumer Channel Summit, Southeast Asia concludes at the Centara Grand Ladprao in Bangkok with over 250 top executives from the consumer technology industry. In just its first year, GATES Summit brought together leading channel partners from 10 countries across the region for over 1200 pre-scheduled 1-on-1 meetings with senior executives from international technology brands.^[1]

Ben Tan, CEO at Courts (Singapore), speaks at GATES Summit

GATES Summit was supported by ETERNAL ASIA, KONCEPT C and TOSHIBA as Platinum Sponsors; PHILIPS and PROMATE as Gold Sponsors; and DIVOOM, MY FIRST and STM as Silver Sponsors. Singapore's leading technology trade promotion association, SG TECH, supported a delegation of Singapore-based brands to meet Southeast Asia's top retail channel partners at GATES Summit.

GfK MARKET INSIGHTS served as Knowledge Partner and opening keynoter at GATES Summit. Events partners also speaking at the conference included COURTS, ELECTOLUX and INTEL. Dr. Alok Bharafwaj, Managing Director at CREOVATE TRANSFORMATION and moderator of the panel discussion, summed up the common themes of the summit: "transformation, technology and tomorrow."

Ben Tan, Country CEO at COURTS Singapore, said in his keynote address: "Today's consumer expects the best of both worlds, speed and experience, and we aim to deliver the best of all platforms. Physical and online stores are both important. The challenge is how to integrate both channels seamlessly."

Organizers of the 3-day event expressly focused on Southeast Asia's burgeoning consumer technology channel, inviting the retailers, etailers and distributors who specialize in serving these markets. In addition to a showcase of innovative products and solutions targeting the business channel, the GATES conference program aimed to address their critical information needs.

The panel discussion, titled "Top Channel Voices," featured senior executives debating the challenges and opportunities for Southeast Asia's channel partners. "Technology and information are making the customer more powerful," said Doan Viet Dung, CEO at ShopDunk (Vietnam), who stressed the importance of maximizing the in-store experience. Ajay Mohan, Marketing Director at Intel,stated it more directly: "Customer experience is the new brand!"

Ashish Kapahi, Executive Director at GATES, said: "There is real power in partnership. All channel executives who took part in the panel discussion referenced, in some way, the need to work together to solve problems and build win-win relationships. This was undoubtedly a main theme at the GATES conference in our first year, and it demonstrates just how important our platform will be for the channel community moving forward."

GATES GIVES INNOVATORS AN EDGE

GATES Summit provided a springboard for new-to-market vendors to expand their retail reach. Participating exhibitors PADMATE, KOKOON and SILENTMODE all completed successfully crowdfunding campaigns in the past year and used GATES to build out their distribution channels now that they are "ready for retail." Padmate was ranked as most-backed and most-funded tech product on Indiegogo in 2018, raising over US$ 3.3 million.

Rickey Xiong, Sales Director at Padmate, says: "We have backers from more than 130 countries for PaMu Scroll. Now we are setting up retail channels to reach customers in stores, with a great product and with affordable price. At Padmate, we will continue to lead the way and plan a series of new launches in 2019."

GATES SMART PITCH provided vendors an opportunity to deliver a 90-second elevator pitch for their latest product or solution on stage. This informative and entertaining session featured three awards, with winners chosen in real-time through electronic voting by the audience of channel partners.

SMART PITCH Best Design: UB+

SMART PITCH Best Innovation: Promate

SMART PITCH Game Changer: Mobile Pixels

SMART PITCH Best Presentation: My First

GATES hosted the prestigious ICT Industry Excellence Awards 2019 at the Gala Dinner. Through live electronic voting, channel partners recognized vendors for their exceptional channel performance in Southeast Asia over the past year. The GATES Gold Awards honored participating vendors at the event. Award winners include:

ICT INDUSTRY EXCELLENCE AWARDS

1. DELL was voted COMPUTING Vendor of the Year
2. APPLE was voted SMARTPHONE Vendor of the Year
3. APPLE was voted DIGITAL LIFESTYLE Vendor of the Year
4. SAMSUNG was recognized for MARKETING EXCELLENCE
5. SAMSUNG was honored for OUTSTANDING OVERALL PERFORMANCE

GATES GOLD AWARDS

1. PROMATE was voted MULTICATEGORY vendor
2. PROMATE was voted ACCESSORIES & PERIPHERALS vendor
3. UB+ was voted AUDIO vendor
4. TUCANO was voted CASE, BAGS & PROTECTORS vendor
5. PROMATE was voted top INNOVATOR among vendors
6. OAXIS was voted GAMING & GADGETS vendor
7. WD was voted HARDWARE vendor

GATES Consumer Channel Summit, Southeast Asia was held 20-22 March 2019 at the Centara Grand Ladprao in Bangkok. For more information, visit www.thegates.biz and follow on Twitter @GATES_Summit^[2]

References

1. ^{^} Media OutReach (www.media-outreach.com)
2. ^{^} www.thegates.biz (www.thegates.biz)