Frequently Asked Questions
Start with the six questions that matter first. Each answer opens a more detailed set of questions about the same topic.
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What do we and our companies gain from the Hub?
See what is changing, understand where our capabilities matter and bring experience into the Landscapes.
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Does joining the Hub cost anything or create commercial commitment?
Certification and Navigator participation do not require payment. Commercial cooperation remains separate.
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How do we take part as Navigators?
Contribute where our experience and company interests are genuinely relevant.
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What comes with being a Navigator, and what remains separate?
Briefings and relevant Hub invitations are included. Retail Summit participation remains separate.
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How does a company become certified, and how do we become Navigators?
369DI researches the company. European Conferences United personally invites Navigators.
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How do the Hub, the Solution Landscapes, the Club of 369 and Retail Summit fit together?
Two distinct communities bring different perspectives into one continuing intelligence process.
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We bring experience from where change has to work. We put real market friction on the table because better decisions are urgently needed.
• What does the Solution Landscape Monthly Briefing give us?
Each month, we see what is moving across the 55 living Solution Landscapes: where buyers are hesitating, where implementation is getting stuck and which new routes deserve attention.
We stay close to the work while it is developing, not only after it is published.
• What happens in the Hub meetings?
The Monthly Briefing shows us what is moving. The meetings let us test it together.
We compare experiences, challenge easy answers and separate ideas that sound good from routes that can survive implementation.
• What does our company gain from being represented?
Our company is connected to the business decisions its experience and capabilities can support.
That helps us understand buyer questions more clearly and explain where we fit, what we can contribute and what needs to be in place for our solutions to work.
• What do we gain personally as Navigators?
We see beyond our own clients and sales pipeline.
We learn from people facing similar resistance, risk and implementation pressure, and sharpen our own judgment about what can move a decision forward.
• How can we contribute to a Solution Landscape?
We bring what we see in real client situations: where good solutions stall, what gets in the way and what needs to be in place before a route can work.
One strong example, piece of evidence or market signal can make a Landscape much more useful.
• Can our contributions change a Solution Landscape?
Yes. Strong evidence, real experience or an overlooked obstacle can change how a Solution Landscape is understood.
369DI remains responsible for the final Landscape, so the result stays credible for buyers and for all of us.
None of us buys a place in the Hub. Certification follows research, and commercial cooperation remains a separate choice.
• Is there a fee for company certification?
No. None of our companies buys its place in the Hub.
369DI certifies a company only when its independent research confirms credible relevance to at least one defined Decision Area.
• Is there a fee to become or remain a Navigator?
No. We do not pay to become or remain Solution Providers Hub Navigators.
The role follows an invitation and a relevant connection to a certified company, not a membership payment.
• Does my company need to sponsor Retail Summit?
No. Some of our companies may choose to sponsor Retail Summit or cooperate commercially with European Conferences United, but that choice remains separate from certification and Navigator participation.
• Can sponsorship or another commercial relationship influence certification?
No. Our companies are certified because of what the research establishes, not because of what they spend.
369DI applies the same research-based standard whether or not a company has a commercial relationship with European Conferences United.
• Can anything outside the standard Hub cooperation have separate arrangements?
The standard Hub cooperation comes at no cost. This includes company certification, Navigator status, the Solution Landscape Monthly Briefing, normal opportunities to contribute and Hub meetings to which we are invited.
A separate event, programme or commercial activity may have its own arrangements. When that happens, the conditions are made clear in advance, and each company decides for itself whether to take part.
What one of us sees in one part of the market can help all of us recognise a wider pattern.
• Do I have to attend meetings or contribute a certain amount?
No. There is no quota for meetings, hours or contributions.
Each of us takes part where we have something relevant to bring. One timely insight or strong example can matter more than frequent attendance.
• How does another Navigator’s contribution help me and my company?
Another Navigator may recognise a buyer obstacle, market change or implementation pattern before it appears in our own work.
That can help us respond earlier, understand dependencies around our solutions and sharpen how our company approaches the market.
• What kind of contribution is most useful to other Navigators?
The strongest contribution is a lesson others can use.
It may show what worked, what failed, what blocked progress, what buyers misunderstood or what changed the outcome. It should add to our shared understanding, not simply promote a product.
• Can I challenge a Solution Landscape when my company has a clear interest?
Yes. Our companies naturally care about how the parts of the market they know best are understood.
We can point out a missing route, challenge a conclusion or explain why something should change. The contribution becomes valuable to everyone when it is supported by strong evidence and clear reasoning.
• How do we share useful experience without sharing confidential information?
We never need to share confidential information or anything that belongs to a client, employer or partner.
Experience can usually be generalised, anonymised or supported with public evidence while preserving the wider lesson.
• How does one contribution become useful to the rest of the Hub?
369DI tests it against other evidence and perspectives and identifies the wider lesson.
That insight may return through the Solution Landscape Monthly Briefing, a Hub meeting or an updated Solution Landscape. One Navigator’s experience can therefore become useful intelligence for all of us, while 369DI remains responsible for the final conclusion.
Our place in the Hub is shaped by relevance, involvement and the work we actually do.
• How are invitations to Hub meetings and activities decided?
Invitations follow the subject being discussed and the experience that can add to it.
We may therefore receive different invitations. That reflects the Decision Areas we know and the work currently taking place, not a difference in Navigator status.
• Can we contribute outside our primary Decision Area?
Yes. Our primary Decision Area gives our role focus, but it is not a boundary.
When we see an important connection elsewhere, we can raise it. We may also be invited into another Solution Landscape when our experience is relevant.
• Are the Solution Landscape Monthly Briefing and Hub meetings public?
No. The completed Solution Landscapes are freely available to the wider industry, but the Solution Landscape Monthly Briefing and Hub meetings form part of the working environment for Navigators.
They allow us to follow the work earlier, discuss what is changing and contribute before the next public update.
• Can colleagues from our company join a Hub activity with us?
A Navigator invitation is personal and does not automatically include colleagues.
A colleague can participate only when separately invited, either as a Navigator or for a particular activity. Our company may suggest someone whose experience could be relevant.
• How is our company recognised in the Hub?
Certification is the foundation. A certified company that is meaningfully and currently involved through its Navigators and Hub activities can also be recognised as:
Solution Providers Hub Certified Company
Represented in the 369DI Solution Providers Hub
Representation reflects real involvement, not certification alone.
• How are we made visible as Navigators?
We may be named or shown through the Hub meetings, discussions and other activities in which we take part.
The Hub does not publish a searchable directory of Navigators or provide automatic access to personal contact details. We become visible through meaningful participation, not through a public directory.
We bring one part of the picture. The wider system brings what we cannot see alone.
• How do Decision Areas, Solution Landscapes and Playbooks connect?
A Decision Area identifies a business decision that retailers and consumer-goods companies need to make.
The related 369DI Playbook helps leaders understand and prepare that decision. The living Solution Landscape explains the available solution routes, what they can contribute, what they depend on and where their limits lie.
Our experience enters primarily through the Solution Landscapes, helping to keep them current and grounded in implementation reality.
• What does the Club of 369 contribute that we cannot provide ourselves?
We see decisions through clients, projects and implementation.
Members of the Club of 369 see them from inside the businesses that own those decisions and carry their consequences. They bring priorities, pressures, ownership questions and operating realities that we cannot fully see from the solution-provider side.
• What is the 369DI Compass?
The 369DI Compass is the framework through which 369DI connects the business reality brought by the Club of 369 with the solution and implementation reality we bring.
It helps clarify which decisions matter, what gets in the way, which routes may work and which first and second effects need to be understood.
The Compass is a framework, not another community or membership body.
• Do the Solution Providers Hub and the Club of 369 work as one community?
No. We remain the Solution Providers Hub, and they remain the Club of 369.
The two communities have different roles and identities. 369DI connects what each side brings without merging them into one community.
• What does Retail Summit add to the year-round process?
At Retail Summit, the decisions and solution routes worked on throughout the year meet the wider industry live.
New questions, pressures and practical experience enter the conversation and help sharpen the next updates of the Solution Landscapes.
Retail Summit is one important live moment in the cycle. It is not the reason the Hub exists.
• What do 369DI and European Conferences United each do?
369DI owns the research, company certification and final content of the Playbooks and Solution Landscapes.
European Conferences United manages relationships, personal invitations, Hub activities and Retail Summit.
That means our contributions are welcomed, while the final conclusions remain independent.
Would you like to Join us?
We are the Navigators of the Solution Providers Hub.
If your company is in a position to give direction, and you have the experience to recognise which routes can truly work, you may already belong among us.
Talk to Michael Samuel, Customer Service Director at European Conferences United. Michael Samuel can check whether the company you work for is already certified and speak with you about becoming a Navigator.
Talk to Michael Samuel
