Christian Matenaers

Head of Digital Marketing
Cromwell Group (Holdings) Ltd

Cromwell Group is Europe's leading independent supplier of maintenance, repair and operations type products, offering the widest choice to all industries, professions and trades. From their Head Office and Global Distribution centre based in Leicester, Cromwell has over 2,000 employees with operations in UK, Australia, China, Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Ireland, Malaysia, Poland, South Africa, Thailand. Cromwell Group operates as a complete industrials supplies partner to a wide portfolio of markets and industry.

Starting in B2C but moving increasingly into B2B, Christian has contributed to various organisations such as Shopping.com, SHOP.COM, brightsolid online publishing, Essence, Gousto and BadgerCorp Limited. He joined Cromwell in 2015.

Christian will be sharing with us “How to Optimize your Marketing Automation to Drive Customer Engagement and Reduce Costs” on 7 December.

Check out the incredible speaker line-up to see who will be joining Christian.

Download The Latest Agenda

Day 1: 7 December 2016

Thursday, July 7th, 2016

10:55 Oxford Style Debate: Marketplaces will Compliment the Existing Manufacturer/Distributor Relationship and Add Value to the Industry

In a world where manufacturers can sell directly to end customers via marketplaces, what happens to the long-standing and loyal relationship of the organisation with its traditional channel partners? Is it possible for the new order to foster a new form of collaboration to the benefi t of the end customer? With so many blurred lines between the concept of client, competitor and partner, will the new landscape be defi ned by better access to data by all? James and Kilian sit on opposite sides of the fence and battle it out to deliver the winning argument.

FOR: Kilian Veer, Former Head of Digital Strategy, QIAGEN

Through marketplaces, manufacturers can access a wider breadth of customers
Manufacturers can also access brand new customers in new locales rather than through their legacy distributors
Marketplaces provide the manufacturers with better control of how their brand is represented online
Marketplaces allow greater access to customer data than distributors

AGAINST: Christian Matenaers, Head of Digital Marketing, Cromwell

Manufacturers cannot move into new opportunities where a well-established, long-service relationship exists with distributors
Marketplaces allow too much transparency between products which causes manufacturers to lose control of their pricing strategies
Marketplaces do not enable consultative selling
Marketplaces encourage lowest price buying whereby customers

MODERATOR: Eric Chemouny, SVP Sales EMEA, Mirakl

Day 2: 8 December 2016

Sunday, August 7th, 2016

11:15 Case Study Revolution: How to Optimize your Marketing Automation to Drive Customer Engagement and Reduce Costs

What tools are available as far as lead automation is concerned?
How will marketing automation evolve given the regulatory developments around data management?
Are marketing automation and intelligent marketing the same thing?
Is marketing automation the key to driving and attracting customers?
What are the key benefits of the programmatic approach in addition to customer engagement?
How are marketing automation tools set up and integrated into your existing systems and processes?
Which data and analytics provide a better understanding of your customer?
Following such analysis, how can an enhanced value proposition be automated?
Which marketing automation systems are used and tested by your peers?