Conference News June 2022 | Page 23

23 Interview

The power of digital
MF : There ’ s a lack of education about virtual event providers in the event buying sphere . What ’ s your take on that ? SG : Firstly , as humans , we want to get back to physical . Secondly , I think there ’ s disparity in consistency of delivery over the past two years , certainly in a virtual and digital event environment . That trust must be earned to a degree .
There ’ s been a huge amount of innovation , but maybe not strategic thinking , in that maybe the digital providers saw an opportunity and were opportunistic , rather than strategic .
There are some learnings for us all to do with what good looks like going forward . For instance , networking at an event : there ’ s always going to be a place for that . It will be less and less , but the beacons within the field will still win , the outstanding products will still win .
For us , we ’ ve had incredible engagement and trust . We tried to make sure our billing was clear , and value-based . The most important component was making sure that executives are comfortable with technology .
I think the whole sector must review itself . I think it will have to look at itself and say , how ’ s that going to work going forward ? Is there still enthusiasm for the digital world ? Will we work with executives that are in transformation ?
All of us in a digital event space need to be authentic and credible . Some parts of the sector were opportunistic in their delivery and their billing .
We deal with weekly conversations about if we want to go physical , because there ’ s still a place for it . Hopefully there ’ s space in the world for both , I think the physical event industry will come back .
But again , that doesn ’ t worry me or scare me if I ’ m in that sector . It ’ s all about the fittest needs to shine , and the events that weren ’ t strong will fall away and I think that ’ s okay . MF : Has there been a mindset shift as well among your clients to understand that there is an ROI to be had for virtual installations and activations ? SG : Whether it ’ s physical or digital , you need to understand outcomes , understand ROI , and deliver on those in a trackable , viewable way .
Why would we want any clients to spend their hard-earned money with us , and not be able to deliver trackable value ?
We love to deliver , doing digital has enabled us to track delivery in quantifiable methods that are not clicks . We do summarised , quantifiable metrics delivered to the outcomes .
I feel like for 90 % of the sector , what can digital not do better ? Within the sector you must make choices about what does good delivery look like ? What are outcomes , and how ’ s your event shaped ?
I think a lot of people mapped it into a direct replica of what the physical environment was , but just not as well .
There ’ s always going to be a place in all sectors for the physical environment . Engagement is a human thing , but that balance must be there . MF : Tell me about your SaaS product . SG : Over the past 12 months , GDS have been investing in a SaaS internal events platform , which is all about really helping businesses engage with their teams .
The ‘ great resignation ’ move developed a SaaS product , which is a cutting edge , game play environment through AWS , enabling your department to get together in a real environment .
I think Teams and Zoom do a great job , but what we really need to do now , as a workforce , is improve the engagement , improve the alignment , and improve the connection .
We have developed a tool that can allow you to be in an environment that ’ s real . You can present and you can bring people up from the audience .
Our SaaS product is launching in early April . We have a team of developers in Leeds , and we have a big budget , too . There are multiple uses for the product because also you can use it as an external pursuit product , but we are labelling it as the complete internal meeting and events platform . CN www . conference-news . co . uk