The Role of Tech in Event Management
Naveen boasts of a 16-year long career during which he has handled key responsibilities across companies such as Network8 Promotions & Events, HSBC, RGBSI, Naseba, and Spire Solutions, prior to joining Trescon in 2023.
People think that’s doing events is easy and everybody & anybody can do it, but that is not the reality. Event Management is an art. Under events, you have wedding planning, product launches, roadshows, corporate parties, B2B events, and a lot more. Furthermore, under the B2B events category, we have much more – roundtables, workshops, summits, conferences, confex (combination of conference and expo), and exhibitions, to name few. Here, expos and exhibitions are one among those massive events where we have 10,000 or 20,000 audience. So, the event industry is very vast.
I feel the event management industry in India is currently thriving and getting better in terms of the kind of experience it is offering to people, the way we are using technology, moving away from the siloes, and not having those fragmentations. While there are a lot of new players foraying into the event management industry, we need to ensure they do not dilute the essence of events and learn the art of event management either before they venture into the field or after they do, so that the industry as whole progresses forward.
Tech Influencing MICE
MICE is no more a growing industry; I personally feel it is already a fully developed segment of the events space. The two years of Covid is when people realized how important MICE is – meeting people in a setting, summits, conferences and expos. This is because it has a direct impact on procurement and people. Knowing what’s happening in the industry, meeting with their peers to know how they can benchmark against each other and learn from each other, meeting potential solution & service providers who can efficiently solve their problems internally, opening different avenues, looking at new jobs or probably starting their company and looking at how to innovate their respective businesses are some of the major aspects individuals can be benefitted with MICE events.
The physical charm of MICE and events space will always remain, as it has a massive impact on the industries for which the events are being organized. Also, because of events, there are a lot of ancillary businesses and other industries that get benefitted. So if a large energy expo is being organized, it’s not just the energy industry that is being benefitted; travel & tourism, hospitality, and even malls & shopping complexes in the vicinity of the event venue are also being benefitted. Thus, there is a lot happening around the event that cannot be factored into.
Expectations from Event Management Companies
As an event organizer company, we expect innovative tools and technologies that take less times for us to do our jobs, enhance user experience internally, and most importantly, enhance the customer and attendee experience. Right from the time a person registers for the event online till the time they come and collect their badges, attend the event, go back home, and give their feedback, we need to ensure a seamless journey that is created for that attendee. This hassle-free experience can be created by leveraging technology and requires a lot of suppliers and vendors from the event management space to come together. Moving away from a traditional mindset that tech is not for events and embracing as much technology and sustainability as possible by avoiding printed roll-outs & boards by using digital hoardings is one expectation we have from the suppliers and the event management companies.
What the industries expect from us is to help understand what lies ahead for them. They already know the present, but are very much keen to know the upcoming trends and disruptions that might happen in the industry so that they can stay abreast of the latest happening in the industry and prepare themselves better to cater to the changing consumer demands. Curation of that kind of content and making sure that they have the right topics and right people in the right format to convey the message is one major expectation they have from an event organizer like us.
Additionally, they also want us to work closely with the government and help influence a few policies, come-up with few strategies and create some frameworks because we have access to that pool of people within the industry. We also do our own research and see the different types of topics, trends, challenges and solutions. So, they also expect us to have some kind of say in influencing the government regulations and policies.
Future Predictions
A lot of tech will be embraced by the events space, and the size & scale of events will change dramatically. Although events comprising of 50 or 100 people will still remain prevail, people will eventually start wanting to see those events expand in size and scale. They will want to meet diverse set of audience. Events will also influence other social elements and sustainability goals that are being talked about by the UN. So, moving away from just being an event to actually be an industry and society driver & shaper will be the direction that events are headed towards. Events were always accepted by the community, but post covid, we are being accepted even more because people have started realizing the value of this physical in-person setting. So it is safe to say that the industry as a whole will witness glorious years ahead.
.jpg "Naveen Bharadwaj, Group CEO, Trescon")
People think that’s doing events is easy and everybody & anybody can do it, but that is not the reality. Event Management is an art. Under events, you have wedding planning, product launches, roadshows, corporate parties, B2B events, and a lot more. Furthermore, under the B2B events category, we have much more – roundtables, workshops, summits, conferences, confex (combination of conference and expo), and exhibitions, to name few. Here, expos and exhibitions are one among those massive events where we have 10,000 or 20,000 audience. So, the event industry is very vast.
I feel the event management industry in India is currently thriving and getting better in terms of the kind of experience it is offering to people, the way we are using technology, moving away from the siloes, and not having those fragmentations. While there are a lot of new players foraying into the event management industry, we need to ensure they do not dilute the essence of events and learn the art of event management either before they venture into the field or after they do, so that the industry as whole progresses forward.
Tech Influencing MICE
MICE is no more a growing industry; I personally feel it is already a fully developed segment of the events space. The two years of Covid is when people realized how important MICE is – meeting people in a setting, summits, conferences and expos. This is because it has a direct impact on procurement and people. Knowing what’s happening in the industry, meeting with their peers to know how they can benchmark against each other and learn from each other, meeting potential solution & service providers who can efficiently solve their problems internally, opening different avenues, looking at new jobs or probably starting their company and looking at how to innovate their respective businesses are some of the major aspects individuals can be benefitted with MICE events.
The physical charm of MICE and events space will always remain, as it has a massive impact on the industries for which the events are being organized. Also, because of events, there are a lot of ancillary businesses and other industries that get benefitted. So if a large energy expo is being organized, it’s not just the energy industry that is being benefitted; travel & tourism, hospitality, and even malls & shopping complexes in the vicinity of the event venue are also being benefitted. Thus, there is a lot happening around the event that cannot be factored into.
Expectations from Event Management Companies
As an event organizer company, we expect innovative tools and technologies that take less times for us to do our jobs, enhance user experience internally, and most importantly, enhance the customer and attendee experience. Right from the time a person registers for the event online till the time they come and collect their badges, attend the event, go back home, and give their feedback, we need to ensure a seamless journey that is created for that attendee. This hassle-free experience can be created by leveraging technology and requires a lot of suppliers and vendors from the event management space to come together. Moving away from a traditional mindset that tech is not for events and embracing as much technology and sustainability as possible by avoiding printed roll-outs & boards by using digital hoardings is one expectation we have from the suppliers and the event management companies.
What the industries expect from us is to help understand what lies ahead for them. They already know the present, but are very much keen to know the upcoming trends and disruptions that might happen in the industry so that they can stay abreast of the latest happening in the industry and prepare themselves better to cater to the changing consumer demands. Curation of that kind of content and making sure that they have the right topics and right people in the right format to convey the message is one major expectation they have from an event organizer like us.
Additionally, they also want us to work closely with the government and help influence a few policies, come-up with few strategies and create some frameworks because we have access to that pool of people within the industry. We also do our own research and see the different types of topics, trends, challenges and solutions. So, they also expect us to have some kind of say in influencing the government regulations and policies.
Future Predictions
A lot of tech will be embraced by the events space, and the size & scale of events will change dramatically. Although events comprising of 50 or 100 people will still remain prevail, people will eventually start wanting to see those events expand in size and scale. They will want to meet diverse set of audience. Events will also influence other social elements and sustainability goals that are being talked about by the UN. So, moving away from just being an event to actually be an industry and society driver & shaper will be the direction that events are headed towards. Events were always accepted by the community, but post covid, we are being accepted even more because people have started realizing the value of this physical in-person setting. So it is safe to say that the industry as a whole will witness glorious years ahead.
