Nancy Hasselback, CEO, Diversified:
"Our world is in constant flux. It has been for the past few years and will continue to be, given global events stemming from political unrest, natural disasters and wild economic swings.
But our business cannot be driven by market fluctuations. Personally, I believe that the more we talk about double dips, the more skittish consumers will become.
Of course unemployment is a huge issue in our developed worlds and consumer confidence is sketchy at best, but corporate profits are strong, and that is a major driver for many of our events.
Diversified’s focus continues to be on growing our rising stars by launching new products within a franchise, and acquiring in related industries.
We’ve been fortunate to land several acquisitions during a time when other companies have held off, and private equity funding is not so attractive.
At the same time we have become more focused in our growth strategy by investing in products that have potential to succeed in new geographic markets.
In the past we have acquired in totally new industries to gain a foothold, which has helped diversify our business.
More recently, we have sold or discontinued a few one-off events in order to put our talent to work in more promising areas. It’s a good time to be picky, but continuously opportunistic.
As for budgeting for the coming year, we are cautious on revenue growth, which puts pressure on cost control. At the same time, organisational pressures are prompting the need to add a few supporting positions to accommodate growth.
Operating successfully in uncertain times requires ongoing planning, staying close to our customers and full throttle pursuit of new revenue streams."
Sandy Angus, CEO, Montgomery:
"The period of what might come to be described as the first phase of this recession has seen three years of unprecedented growth from Montgomery.
Our UK business and in particular Ireland has seen some difficult times. However, while we have lost square metres, we have not lost numbers of exhibitors, and therefore retained the relationship with our customers to confirm the value of exhibitions as part of their marketing plans.
In expanding our business activities in markets that have been relatively unaffected by the lack of growth in Europe, we have sought to establish ourselves in areas which will continue to grow almost regardless of what happens in Europe and the US.
Asia, the Middle East and Africa have all attracted the major UK organisers, and in a sense we are finding ourselves competing more with them abroad than we ever do at home.
If we are about to enter a double dip, I don’t think there is anything we will do differently from what we have been doing.
Our shows in West Africa, Libya, the Middle East, India and Sri Lanka have to prove themselves alongside the launches we have undertaken in established markets like the UK and South Africa.
Being a private company gives us the luxury of being able to make mistakes and take risks."
Renaud Hamaide, CEO, Comexposium:
"The first crisis had no major impact on our business. However, we are preparing proactively for the second major international crisis that is particularly affecting Europe.
We are strengthening our international profile by exporting our brands abroad. Among the trade fairs that we have chosen to geo-clone are SIAL, which will be held soon in Brazil, and Cards & ID, which will be held in Las Vegas in March. The success of this geo-cloning is due to our local networks.
Comexposium now has offices in 10 countries and eight subsidiaries abroad. We are pursuing our development with creative and strategic acquisitions like the Foire d’Automne in January.
Comexposium also acquired, jointly with WSN Development, the SODES Company, organiser of the Salon du Prêt-à-porter Paris, which adds to other fashion fairs in our portfolio such as Who’s Next and Premiere Classe. We are also increasing the attractiveness of our trade fairs for our customers who know that in times of crisis it is more necessary than ever to invest in marketing.
Comexposium therefore created its first interactive space dedicated to our exhibitors: The One-Stop Shop.
This e-commerce platform allows our exhibitors to setup their stand from scratch in just a few clicks.
The company would like to enhance the attractiveness of our exhibitions for our visitors, who, although we live in an Internet age, still want to physically see the innovative products so as to better compare them. We are therefore prepared for any crisis and have chosen an aggressive strategy so as to minimise the effects of these.
Comexposium has more than 130 exhibitions a year for three million visitors and 34,000 exhibitors, of which a third are international."
Patric Sjöberg, CEO, Stockholmsmässan:
"We see the biggest challenge facing the exhibition industry in 2012 as the insecurity around global economic development.
All exhibition organisers and venues need to have very good business intelligence and prepare so that they can follow suit if and when the turbulence affects our different customer industries.
This means trimming processes and moving fixed costs to variable costs, making it easier both to scale up and down when required.
We have strategies in place to attract international exhibitions or exhibitions organised by a foreign agency to our venue.
The most important thing is to be perceptive and really listen to your customers’ needs. This means we present both ready-made packages to give customers a good overview of our offering, and are ready to adapt those packages and tailor-make solutions for those customers preferring that.
In terms of our venue offering, we continue to invest in keeping our technical facilities up-to-
date, for example in new flooring, ventilation and Wi-Fi equipment.
How we present and promote the premises is improving, with new web tools making it easier for organisers to get an overview of our offering.
For the standalone exhibitions our largest events are very international, looking both at exhibitors and visitors, for example at the Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair."
Any comments? Email exhibitionworld@mashmedia.net
