CEM Africa Gathers Who’s Who of Ecommerce and CX Gurus

Cape Town, South Africa, November 04, 2021 --(PR.com)-- Some of the leading global and local pioneers in ecommerce and customer experience (CX) are set to share their insights, case studies and success stories at the upcoming CEM Africa from 10–11 November 2021. This follows the unprecedented, accelerated adoption of ecommerce and online shopping by billions during the last 18 months, and etailing proving to be one of the few silver linings in a pandemic-depressed economy worldwide.

*CEM = Customer Experience Management

CEM Africa speaker and session highlights include:

- Qaalfa Dibeehi is the Dean of the Customer Experience Leadership Institute (The School of Great Moments), at Majid Al Futtaim, a global conglomerate (retail, hotels, property, grocery, luxury, entertainment, cinemas, etc.) based in Dubai. Says Quaalfa: “The technology we now refer to as CRM stems from the need to have real time customer dialogue.”

On Day 1, on Wednesday, 10 November, Qaalfa Dibeehi is delivering the opening keynote presentation entitled: "Diversity and inclusion and the lofi CX - Low fidelity customer experience."

- Robert Paddock is the founder and CEO of the Valenture Institute. He was the co-founder of GetSmarter, an online education company that has educated over 200,000 professionals from 154 countries, and was sold to Nasdaq-listed 2U in 2017.

At CEM Africa, Rob is presenting a case study on "Online education sector - the new student experience." He believes that the online experience has got to be designed from first-principles: “The closest analogy [for bricks and mortar schools operating remotely] would be if you’ve got a petrol or diesel engine car and you try to retrofit an electric engine into it, versus a purpose built electric car.”

- Steve Towers is a Process Management and Customer Experience enabler from the USA. The founder of the BP Group in 1992, Steve was named one of the 30 most influential Global Customer Service Experts in 2021, and believes companies need to focus more on their customers: "without a clear, outside-in line of sight to what your customers true needs and successful outcomes are, you will never be truly customer centric. Change is a must. Every person in the organisation needs to make the customer their True North."

Steve Towers will deliver a keynote on "The importance of employee experience and global leadership in the adoption of CX approaches."

- Simon Hartley, the founder of Wumdrop in South Africa, is part of a panel discussion on "Redefining CX for the new era," and has strong opinions about what is terms the informal economy: “As of 2021, 'informal economy' is a phrase that absolves South African businesses of meaningfully serving the overwhelming majority of South Africans when things get hard, or complicated. And I do mean most of us. Our 'formal' retail economy comprises a whole 5% of total outlets in South Africa. We’re not even into double digits.”

At the CEM Africa discussion, Simon will be joined by Kia Abbott, Rewards Programme Manager at the Shoprite Group of Companies, Lynne Blignaut, Group Loyalty and Customer Rewards, Dis-Chem and Clint Payne, Senior Manager – Customer Experience at Multichoice.

- Julia Ahlfeldt is a South African Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) and one of the marketing experts behind the 2021 South African Digital Customer Experience Report. At CEM Africa, Julia will lead the panel discussion to unpack the compelling, and sometimes, surprising results from the survey.

According to the report, South Africa’s most recently reported online spend of R30bn1 suggests that if online stores were to fix key issues they’d potentially generate an additional R11.95bn in revenue.

“South African consumers have clearly embraced ecommerce,” says Julia. “With improved levels of connectivity and an abundance of online shopping options, there’s no good reason why South Africa should still lag behind. Customer experience is holding it back.”

Valuable CX lessons
The CEM Africa Summit has been around for a decade and has played a leading role in South Africa’s customer experience journey and has connected thousands of CX professionals over the years.

Confirmed event sponsors so far include Freshworks, Verint, Insider, Infobip, Rogerwilco, Simplify360 and Inquba.

CX experts from some of the most recognised and successful brands on the continent, including Multichoice, Woolworths, Shoprite, Superbalist, African Bank, DHL and Rand Merchant Bank, will share their valuable lessons learnt (from success and failure) during the event.