Open discussion with participants about the challenges and issues they face in the retail industry.

Facilitated by: Jie Zhang

Utilizing Data Analytics to Build A Winning Retail Business

Join the Smith alumni community for a webinar designed to help with your financial goals for 2021. The webinar will cover how to plan and achieve your financial goals in 2021 and provide attendees with important financial updates and tips for the New Year. Information will be presented for alumni at all career levels. The discussion will feature Smith alumni Ben Offit '09 and May Jiang '12 of Offit Advisors.

Speaker Bios

Retail industry trends and implications for small and Mid-sized Retailers (SMR)

This session will focus on 1) the "big picture" and major trends of the industry, more or less organized by different retail sectors; 2) the implications for SMR's; 3) discuss strategies to address these challenges from the perspective of SMR's.

Facilitated by: Jie Zhang

In this webinar, we’ll discuss selecting the social media outlets that resonate with your target audience. As the number of social media platforms expands, it becomes more confusing for the business owner to decide where to invest their time and resources in the social arena. We will look at established and emerging social media platforms to better understand who is using them and how businesses can make the most of their social media efforts on each SM platform.

As the general population has gravitated towards e-commerce, industrial buyers have come to expect more from B2B sites. We’ll look at how you can make your B2B site more engaging and informative for procurement officers. With millennials entering the supply chain field, we’ll also explore what content and platforms they are seeking to guarantee a smart B2B purchase.

Once you’ve decided on your site’s target audience(s), it’s time to design the site with their needs in mind. We’ll explore infusing your company’s site with your unique company brand personality through content and design to guarantee positive user experience. We’ll also look at the nuances of a mobile site/app design to assure a frictionless interaction.

We will broaden our studies to include concepts of managerial accounting. This type of accounting involves the application of business management tools, including budgeting, cost accounting, performance management, breakeven computations and incremental analysis.

Andy Shallal, CEO and founder of Busboys and Poets joins Maryland Smith Associate Dean Victor Mullins in a conversation about pivoting your business strategy in the midst of a global pandemic, economic distress and racial protests. Join us to share your thoughts and ask questions on how to move your business and your career forward in uncertain times.

We will expand the discussion of accrual accounting to specific areas of a company’s business and explore the key differences between a company’s income statement and its cash flow statement. We also will review concepts of financial analysis and use analytical tools that use accounting information to assess the financial health of a company.