The 9th ICA Regional Workshop for Managers on “Management of Consumer Co-operatives in Asia-Pacific” was held on 24-26 August 2009 at Costa Sands Resort (Downtown East) in Singapore. Hosted by Singapore National Co-operative Federation (SNCF) and supported by NTUC FairPrice, 17 managers of consumer co-operatives from four countries (Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) actively participated in the three-day workshop.

The workshop commenced with the welcome address by Mr. Zulkifli Mohammed, Chief Executive Officer of the SNCF, followed by the presentation on NTUC Fair Price by Ms. Juliana Tan, Manager of the NTUC FairPrice Training Institute.

Mr. Kao Beng Lee, Ms. Juliana Tan and Mr. Simon Tan from NTUC FairPrice covered four important areas of retail business, “Visual Merchandizing”, “Store Management”, “Staff Training and Development”, “Basic Methodology for Store Comparison”.

Ms. Eriko Sakurai (Trainer, Cash Register Group, Store Operation Department of Co-op Net Business Federation, Japan) was invited as a resource person this year. She made a presentation on “Customer Service Strategy in Store Operation of Co-op Net” and conducted a practical training on customer service. All participants actively participated in the practical training and learnt the importance of finding “unconscious expectations” of customers.

The participants visited a hypermarket, a convenience-store and two supermarkets of NTUC FairPrice, and its competitors’ stores on the second day. They learnt about practical techniques for store operation such as merchandise assortment, display and pricing.

On the last day of the workshop, the participants were divided into 4 groups and made a group discussion on the “solutions” to the scenarios given on the first day. After the discussion, participants made presentations on the “solutions” based on their own SWOT analysis.