Columbia the company has been around since the late 1930s, evolving from a small family-owned hat distributor to become one of the world's largest outerwear brands, and the leading seller of ski-wear in the US. In 2008, the company reported net sales of $1.32bn, and is available in over 100 countries. But in the UK, the brand has struggled in the past - Dan explained to SGB how that's going to change in the future, and why.

SGB: NosiLife is getting a lot of attention - tell us about it...

Paul Lee: In 2002, the company developed some anti-insect clothing, which was called Nosquito and is to be known as Nosi from SS10 onward. This was proven, by The London School of Medicine and Tropical Disease to prevent 90% of insect bites, which is great for a travel, outdoor brand.

There's plenty of crossover between military equipment and camping, but with recent growth Highlander has decided to clearly mark the lines between the two fields. Moving forward, the military side will be known as Pro-Force, while Highlander remains the name to know in the outdoor side.

SGB: How does SM Group fit with Garmin; which of their five 'specialities' do you cover?

Kevin Turner: SM Group distribute a broad range of navigational electronic equipment split into four sectors. We've got marine, outdoor, fitness and automotive.

SGB: What can DMC offer the Independent retailer in these difficult times?

PD: The first thing that goes out of the window when times get tough is training and any budget for training. Unfortunately there's a dearth of really good man managers around and I think that's one of the keys to good retail, keeping the morale up; staff will perform better if they feel better. Good managers should be judged by the quality of their staff, so it's very important that those managers constantly train and develop.

SGB: What's the core of the Teva brand?

Giles Cundell: Teva is traditionally a performance brand - we were the first performance brand to design a universal strapping system sandal, about 26 years ago. The core of our business is outdoor and performance sandals, at the top end of quality.

Few brands have the name recognition of Clarks, linked forever to the British high street and school days with comfortable shoes... But the brand has moved on since the 80s, forging a hard-earned reputation as both a place to go for fashionable women's shoes as well as comfortable, hard-wearing shoes.

Big Bear distributes a range of brands, from snow sport-based (Spyder, Level, POC, SOS, Kask, Goode) to cycle-oriented (SiDi, POC Wheels, FRM, Pearl, POW, CicloSport) and straightforward outdoor (Cloudveil, and Mountainsmith); this breadth allows them to trade with at least three seasons of gear, so they're not as affected by the seasonality of certain sports as some.

In the outdoor industry, every product is technical to some level; fabrics boast amazing technology, walking boots have different treatments or have technical linings, tools do everything but make the tea (unless it's a kettle, obviously). So when it comes to your staff, skimping on training is potentially short-changing your customers. If they don't have the right knowledge to sell the correct gear to the correct customer, you could be missing out on repeat business and recommendations galore.

ViewRanger joins the ranks of personal navigation tools hitting the outdoor scene, and it certainly appears to be every bit as good as the competition - with a few features that help it stand out from the crowd, not least the fact that it runs on a mobile phone. Craig Wareham, co-founder of Augmentra, creators of ViewRanger, explains to SGB what makes this software solution stand apart.

There's some great boots out there, synthetic and leather. It's almost hard for the end user to go wrong when buying, so manufacturers have to make something special to stand out. Andi Hayman - who is also Southern Area Sales Manager for Rosker - explained to SGB what makes them special, and a lot more besides.