Eventful journey
Value of Corporate Events
Corporate events matter. They can educate, inspire and connect. They can start a dialogue in your global corporate community. They can reach out to those who matter and build your network. They can align closely with your needs and goals, and bring your vision to life.
What is a corporate event? A corporate event could be a conference (physical, virtual or hybrid), a seminar, a workshop, trade shows, exhibitions, brand/service launch or any bespoke event catering to specific industry/corporate requirements, for the achievement of its objectives. A corporate event is an ideal strategic marketing tool for any company whose objective is to present a new product, a new service, a new feature, a new headquarters, or to communicate a novelty or just make its brand and what it does, known.
You can create a unique platform that helps you achieve your business goals, curate brand experiences, virtual, inspirational live & hybrid conferences, bespoke events and so much more – it’s all about connecting with your audience. Wherever you are in the virtual or physical world, you can achieve your goals, with global reach, local knowledge and smart technology.
What are some of the most important strategic advantages of organizing a corporate event?
Networking & Knowledge sharing
Corporate events, such as industry-specific conferences, seminars or round tables, keep businesses competitive in today's rapidly evolving landscape. Not only do they provide numerous opportunities for businesses to stay up-to-date on the latest industry developments, they help you network with other domain experts and professionals in your field especially the influencers, and promote your brand. These platforms enable businesses to interact with other professionals in their industry and share ideas, develop new business leads, maybe form collaborations & partnerships, as well as build lasting relationships. The relaxed environment of an informal side event like a ‘meet and greet’ one on the side lines of the main event, can act as the ice-breaker and is useful for professionals to connect with one another, to help them increase their industry connections and build a strong professional network.
These professional networks provide a rich forum for exchanging best practice knowledge of your industry, learning about the business techniques of your peers, discussing common challenges and opportunities and staying abreast of the latest industry trends. They also give you access to valuable advice and insights of experienced peers, which may open many doors for you, enabling you to raise your business profile, to remain ahead of the competition curve, to plug the gaps in your knowledge and practices, to make course corrections and to identify synergies between inter-related businesses, form innovative win-win partnerships.
Improve brand visibility
Participating in events like trade shows and exhibitions can help in brand promotion, wherein businesses showcase their products or services, attract new customers, and enhance brand recognition. Hosting a corporate event is an effective way to build brand awareness and start valuable conversations with customers. The positive word of mouth publicity generated by a well-defined event can provide a better return on marketing spend than many others such activities. Sponsoring these events can give your businesses added visibility and exposure to a broader audience.
An event can build brand awareness in a variety of ways; through raising of a pertinent industry topic, promoting sales and subscriptions, launching a product or stimulating debate on a connected theme. Whether the format is an intimate breakfast meeting, or a Thought Leadership series or a visual brand or a large-scale launch, there is an event to suit all brand messages, topics and budgets. Make your event a truly memorable experience for your target audience by introducing a ‘wow’ element that will put your brand at the forefront of their minds. Try novel ideas. Out of the box food serving idea or a unique choice of venue can make an event unforgettable. For instance, digital branding around the venue – both inside your venue space and in communal areas – can create an immersive experience for your guests, making your brand recognisable and memorable. Use technical innovation to offer an all-encompassing integrated high-tech branding event experience, such as a 4k video wall, seamless branding in the foyer and elevators, visual theme materials and maybe a striking interactive chandelier lit up in a choice of colours, to fully immerse your attendees in your brand identity.
Gain public trust & customer loyalty
Theming your event around your company’s core values, rather than just a product showcase, projects your company as much more than just what it sells and tends to inspire confidence. Your target audience can experience the brand in terms of emotions, which make the bonds of loyalty of your customers stronger. Humanising your brand breaks down the barriers between you and your customers and is more likely to lead to brand loyalty.
Live events create valuable face time with your potential customers, allowing them to ask any questions as well as to experience your products or services first-hand. Establish a conversation/connection with your customers and make them feel as though they really know you- this is an effective way to encourage loyalty and is a powerful brand advocacy.
Upskill and upgrade
Corporate events like workshops and training sessions provide businesses and its employees with the platform to acquire new skills, stay up-to-date with the latest technology and trends, and increase their productivity. Continuous skill upgradation is also the hallmark of an agile and alert organisation. Apart from the knowledge and skills required for the regular flow of working life, learning potentially new things at your work place, like soft skills or life skills can amplify the employee productivity manifold and improve the general health of the organisation.
For instance, team building and team work training activities helps participants develop multiple social skills, as also those relating to inter alia, managing resources, researching, swift communication, thinking on your feet, negotiating and quick decision-making. Problem-solving is one of the most obvious benefits of team building exercises. Shaping your activities around problems and puzzles forces the participants to stretch their analytical and research abilities into new areas, examine it from multiple perspectives, check credibility of their sources, consider various interpretations and reach a solution-generating path after examining and confirming all underlying assumptions. One event, multiple benefits.
Promote company culture
A company may also organise events for promoting their company’s culture, for instance to communicate the company's strategies to their employees, initiate changes within the enterprise, launch new products, train employees, reward exceptional employees or influence customer behaviour.
Building a positive and supportive Corporate culture heightens the brand identity of a company, it can attract and retain the best talent and can encourage employees to become enthusiastic advocates of the company.
A supportive workplace culture, where employee recognition is frequent, also boosts productivity by providing a conducive work environment .
Moving from Event Planning to Event Strategy
Looking at the myriad structures, shades and nuances that an event may have, managing an event is no more confined to just an ‘event planning’ where you only take care of the logistics, décor and participation, but has moved into the complex realm of ‘event strategy’.
For a businessman, it’s important to know not just why you’re in business but also where you want to reach, for which an effective strategy would be like a roadmap that defines the actions required and what they should prioritize in order to achieve their desired goals. Strategists rely on a variety of tools and techniques to assess, diagnose, and prescribe how limited organizational resources should be deployed to maximum effect.
An event strategist is someone whose primary objective is to realize the full business potential of an event. As such, he would focus more on ‘event effectiveness’ rather than ‘event efficiency’. In that sense, while the event planner is primarily concerned with ‘doing things right’, the event strategist is primarily concerned with ‘doing the right things’.
Clearly, there needs to be a paradigm shift from the traditional planning of events to the new post-pandemic era of using these events for maximizing the overall business impact, to leverage them for your organization’s competitive advantage. Events have never been more critical. After several years of avoiding in-person events or only attending virtual events, attendees are ready for the evolution of events. And hence, every event, no matter how small or how large, should define it’s overarching goals and objectives, which are specific and clearly-defined, and state what exactly it’s trying to accomplish. And these should be aligned with the overarching business goals and objectives.
There’s nothing worse than setting a goal but not having the mechanics to properly measure whether you’ve achieved that goal or not, after the event. Have an evaluation matrix in place, to measure the business outcomes of your event by identifying key performance indicators (KPIs). Post-event evaluation should ideally capture the right data that not only provide insights into the determination of the success of the event but also gives you the analytical and interpretive ability to identify meaningful trends and patterns to make more informed decisions in future.
Business events require to be creatively curated in today’s competitive data-driven digital age. The event strategist (who may either be the event planner or the event owner) needs to develop new competencies and skill sets to meet new requirements to perform. Like for instance, the strategist needs to master the ‘Analytics’ skill to meaningfully interpret and synthesize the right data, to inculcate critical thinking or informed decision-making. ‘Event Design’ proficiency is required to curate both the form and the content of the event to deliver on crucial business objectives, while simultaneously identifying the cost savings and value added opportunities. Using a definitive ‘Content Strategy’ is increasingly important in establishing relevance, meaning and value for event owners and participants. Given the cross-industrial participation, these events can be an idea-generating forums for cross-pollination. Key to generating new ideas, new ways of thinking and problem-solving is to ‘do different things’ as well as to ‘do things differently’. Most critical here is the Creativity factor, that is creating something valuable and adding the ‘novelty’ element. To minimise the uncertainty around event innovations, ‘Design Thinking’ skill to be used, an iterative process which seeks to understand users, challenges assumptions, redefines problems and creates innovative solutions to prototype and test. ‘Experience Design’ focuses on the participant’s level of engagement, it’s quality and the satisfaction derived, based on understanding of Environmental Psychology, that is the relationship between man-made environments and human thoughts, emotions and behaviour, which influence the participant’s experience, informs the design. Last but not the least, to make the execution of the event manageable and a better experience for everyone involved, the strategist should leverage technology, to use Event Planning Tools. No matter what your goals, KPIs, budget, or team size, you’ll want an Event Website, Event registration software, Event planning and analytics software Onsite event registration software Mobile event app etc. Whether you decide to use a collection of platforms or an all-in-one event management solution, you need to make sure that your event tech stack offers important features aligned with your event goals.
