The IFS UK & Ireland User Group Annual Conference took place at The Jury’s Inn Hinckley Island Hotel on the 19th and 20th September 2018, beginning with a pre-conference dinner on the 18th. This year the theme was Connect and Collaborate, chosen because communication and networking are at the heart of the User Group ethos.

The conference was attended by 260 delegates over the two days and for those of you who joined us, I hope you’ll agree this year’s conference boasted a content rich agenda. The event included presentations from some of our User Group Members, IFS Consultants, case study presentations and some thought provoking IFS Partner sessions.

New for 2018 were the “What’s Next in your Industry” sessions led by IFS’s Global Industry Directors. I personally got a lot from these leadership, future gazing style sessions when I visited the IFS World Conference in Atlanta back in May 2018, so I was extremely pleased when all of the Industry Directors accepted my invitation to share their insightful industry knowledge at the UK User Group Annual Conference. I hope you too found these sessions interesting.

Thank you to all of the IFS Partners who sponsored the conference, we were pleased to see some new IFS Partners to the conference “Market Place” this year as well as welcoming back partners with a long history of supporting the IFS UK&I User Group.

The Round Tables were back again this year, allowing customers to share thoughts and ideas with IFS and one another. The best ideas put forward during the Round Table sessions are shared with R&D and it was pleasing to learn how the 2017 Round Table ideas have been accepted for future inclusion in the product.

After the Gala Dinner on Wednesday we were treated to an evening of comedy, Paul Tonkinson, Adam Bloom and James Dowdeswell were hilarious and many thanks to ClickLearn for their contribution towards the cost of the evening’s entertainment.

I hope you can see from the attached video the diversity of our conference and I look forward to seeing you over the course of the year.

Look out for details of our up-coming events including Lobbies in October 2018, Health and Safety in November 2018 and Warehousing and WaDaCo in December.

If you would like to contact me or any of the User Group Committee, please do so using [email protected].

We hope to see you at an event very soon.

Paul Marsh
IFS User Group Chair