One such gathering that has recently emerged as a go-to event is the annual meeting sponsored, assembled, coordinated and managed by the Emerson Group, a leading and much-emulated organization that excels at bringing buyers and sellers together to meet, exchange ideas, swap secrets and, not incidentally, buy and sell products.

A recent adjunct to this range of services and agendas is an event that has come to prominence as Industry Day, a daylong series of events, meetings and presentations designed to broaden the knowledge and increase the efficiency of those retail companies with which Emerson does business, shares ideas, promotes innovation and challenges the current ways of doing business.

Behind Industry Day, and so much more of what the Emerson Group accomplishes as a business organization is Scott Emerson, the company’s founder and behind-the-scenes proprietor of so much that transpires at Emerson. Among the company’s crowded and impressive agenda is, not surprisingly, Industry Day.

This year’s annual event, unveiled under the challenging name “Next,” brought together “retail leaders, brand innovators and inspirational groundbreakers” (Emerson’s description) in Philadelphia to (again Emerson’s description) “expand and reframe thinking, embrace people and relationships, envision the future, and boldly build access in the post-COVID world.”

And that’s exactly what it did.

Combining a full day of virtual and on-the-scene presentations, the session explored such subjects as the Post-Corona Outlook, deftly presented by famed New York University marketing professor Scott Galloway; The Future of Work, a live panel discussion with shoppers; The Retail Outlook; Digital Commerce; Science; and, as a concluding item, View Back to the Future.

Alongside this impressive agenda, senior executives from such retailers as Rite Aid, CVS, Walmart, Dollar General and Walgreens discussed the future as they envision it, combining candor, optimism (they are, after all, retailers) and a degree of honesty about what lies ahead for them.

Much else transpired as well. There was, for instance, an impressive presentation by Jocko Willink, author, podcaster and retired U.S. Navy Seal (this alone worth the price of admission). And a Leadership Roundtable, at which senior leaders from Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble and Glaxo­Smith­Kline openly (to a degree) shared their ideas, knowledge and thinking about what comes after what comes next.

Finally, Industry Day afforded the thousands of virtual attendees and those in person the opportunity to mix, mingle, share knowledge with each other while, in passing, insisting that they should meet again under less formal circumstances.

One could go on and on, but the general idea and inescapable conclusion emerges to the effect that this was an event worth attending. And it will most certainly be recovered “next” year, with a new and equally formidable group of retailers, suppliers and industry gurus. As to where and when it will unfold, to find out simply contact Scott Emerson at [email protected].