BENTONVILLE, Ark.- CROSSMARK opened its new Center for Collaboration in Bentonville, Arkansas today, with top consumer goods suppliers attending the event – ready to use the innovative and convenient high-tech facility as inaugural members.
The Center is located just steps away from Walmart’s Home Office and features the latest in collaborative technology. A revolutionary concept in the retail industry, CROSSMARK’s new facility is aligned with Walmart’s objective of working closer with suppliers.“CROSSMARK takes great pride in helping to bring the consumer goods industry together,” said Ben Fischer, CROSSMARK CEO, at the Center’s grand opening event. “This Center facilitates collaborative discussions in close proximity to Walmart, with rooms intended for joint business planning, product presentations, virtual modulars, and the facilitation of innovative ideas.”
More than 150 Walmart leaders and key suppliers filled the CROSSMARK Center for Collaboration for its opening ceremony, excited by the opportunity for greater collaboration to create big ideas.
Paul Wood, Samsung Vice President – Walmart and Sam’s Club Team, told the crowd that the facility has everything needed to accelerate strategic activities.
“The CROSSMARK Center for Collaboration provides an ideal venue to have cross-functional meetings with Walmart,” Wood said. “Historically, it’s been very difficult to get everyone in the same room, at the same time and in front of live product. Now that’s not an issue.”
The 18,562 square-foot facility provides teams with the latest in technology, abundant space, and close proximity to make collaboration easy with Walmart and Sam’s Club:
- Nine joint business-planning rooms with flat-panel displays of various sizes and quantities
- A presentation kitchen where food samples can be displayed in a consumer/home environment
- A solutions center focusing on on-shelf availability and shopper research
- Two rooms equipped with 8’ X 16’ PRYSM digital touch-screen walls
- One large space on the second floor that can accommodate more than 100 people for town hall meetings or can be converted to an “action alley” displaying products
Other features at the CROSSMARK Center for Collaboration are designed to showcase in-home product usage, planogram layouts and modular planning strategies. An adjacent room can be used for the display of physical products on shelves as they would actually appear in a store.
“This is a place where Walmart and suppliers can plan the future,” said Mike Graen, Vice President – Collaboration at CROSSMARK. “If you can create a place where the right people from both Walmart and the suppliers can collaborate, we will take care of our mutual customer – the Walmart Shopper and Sam’s Club Member.”
About CROSSMARK
CROSSMARK is a leading sales and marketing services company that provides growth solutions for consumer-branded suppliers and retailers. For more than 100 years, CROSSMARK has helped the world’s most powerful brands achieve their business objectives across major classes of trade. Expertise includes Headquarter Sales, Retail Merchandising, Retailer Solutions, Shopper and Consumer Engagement, In-Store Events, Experiential Marketing, Shopper Marketing, In-Store Data Collection & Field Intelligence, and Business Insights. Headquartered in Plano, Texas, CROSSMARK employs more than 40,000 associates worldwide with offices throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand.
Source: CROSSMARK