Handelskraft celebrated its eleventh anniversary and we proudly looked back on a productive 2017 full of experiments and innovations. But more important than the past is the future. Especially in digital business, interactive retail, time passes twice as fast and one can hardly believe that the times in which a webshop was the ultimate solution of the digital transformation, are hardly a decade old. In the meantime, digitisation means the seamless interaction of people and machines in marketing, sales, and services across all channels – online and offline.

In order to meet the demands of networked customers, whether as consumers in B2C or business customers in the B2B sector, entrepreneurs need to think outside the box. What brought enthusiasm a few years ago is now expected by customers, partners, and employees alike. The quality of the digital user experience decides more and more about the entrepreneurial success. Their excellent implementation requires know-how!

The changes are immense and the challenges for retailers and manufacturers are technically, organisationally, and culturally diverse. So we are all the happier and proud to publish our sixth Trend Book in a row, with this edition also being the first also available in English, with Handelskraft 2018 »Moving Towards Digital Excellence« we are happy to provide leaders from business, e-commerce, sales, marketing, IT, and digital decision makers with a free compass for their digital business, that gives them a concrete overview of the most important digital trends, innovations and industry developments, without getting lost in the buzzword jungle.