Even if the COVID-19 pandemic were to be overcome tomorrow, the local and global business events landscape will never be the same again. The pandemic has brought in its wake a new way of running business events. It has shown that it is possible to hold business meetings virtually using software such as Google Meet, Team View or Zoom. It has speeded up the uptake of business events technology. Lockdown requirements to stay home have necessitated the need to adopt event technology to keep business going during the pandemic.
Acceleration of event technology adoption
Although an Econet television advert decades ago indicated that people could teleconference and videoconference, not many business people were keen on adopting these technologies. Who would have thought that directors of Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE)-listed companies would one day hold their annual general meetings from home? The Zimbabwe Newspapers’ board of directors did this month. Such has been the way that the pandemic hastened the pace of the adoption of business events technology in Zimbabwe and across the globe.
Tech-based events have come in to replace in-person events during the pandemic with the Zoom application taking centre stage as a platform for webinars. Even the Whatsapp messenger application, which is normally used for personal communication, has come in handy as a medium for group webinars due to its affordability. Although the pandemic may go in the coming months, the new culture of technology-based business events is set to stay.
Panashe Maisva, the Managing Director of Coast to Coast Investment Consultants, which organises the building and construction show, the BuildExpo, believes that despite negative circumstances, the forced adoption of technology is good for the business events industry and other economic sectors.
“The pandemic has accelerated innovation in exciting ways for some industries. The benefits can be meaningful with statistics in some countries showing that companies can save up to US$22 000 per annum for every employee that works remotely. The biggest benefit of digital platforms is that we can sell African events to a wider world platform and raise awareness of what we are about to a global audience,” he said.
Maisva highlighted that going forward, business events were likely to evolve with more and more virtual events taking place.
“I think they (local business events) will evolve and we will see an increasing number of digital and virtual types of events because of their cost-effectiveness, pervasiveness and changing lifestyles triggered by the pandemic. I (however) don’t think that face to face business events will die,” he said.
Big event organisers like the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair Company have already indicated their intention to go technological. The company’s Marketing and Public Relations Manager, Stella Nkomo told Business Events that it had already set its sights on going technological.
“We are already thinking (in) that direction. We have researched and are excited about this opportunity especially the hybrid concept (the combination of in-person and virtual events). So we might pilot with smaller specialised expos to see the uptake,” Nkomo said.
Technological events and monetisation
One of the business areas that was hit hard by the pandemic was revenue. Call Centre Association of Zimbabwe (CCAZ) Managing Director, Rinos Mautsa raised the red flag in May over the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on the revenues of organisations that rely on business events.
“(It’s) time for our industry associations (such as) the arts industry, who rely on events-based activities, to come up with new ways to generate income,” Mautsa tweeted.
Nkomo also pointed out that the revenue that comes with face to face events was the main reason why business events organisers were not keen on adopting the technology.
“The exhibition industry was never keen to go this route because our money comes from the face to face concept. Now with COVID-19, we need to see how then we make our money online (by) coming with new business models,” Nkomo said.
Maisva believes that the solution lies in adopting technologies and adapting them to local needs. He is of the opinion that this would enable events organisers to appeal to a bigger global audience which widens their revenue bases.
“I also believe that Zimbabwe and Africa may need to create or refine virtual platforms and make them more relevant to needs that may be specific to us. The biggest benefit of digital platforms is that we can sell African events to a wider world platform and raise awareness of what we are about to a global audience.
Maisva stressed the need to work on the monetisation of virtual events against the background of free content associated with digital content.
“Where events need to be monetised, there is still work that needs to be done to justify compelling cases for monetisation as most digital content is currently available for free even for live events,” he said.
Other challenges
Although the coronavirus pandemic has brought accelerated adoption of business events technologies as a silver lining in its dark cloud, a number of challenges still stand in the way of full adoption especially in Zimbabwe and Africa.
“There is an opportunity for this (event technology) to embraced more the general limitation for Zimbabwe and Africa being cost, awareness and poor quality connectivity and penetration of digital technology in remote geographical locations,” Maisva pointed out.
Nkomo bemoaned the high costs that are attendant to the adoption of business event technology and felt that local technological experts could come in to provide locally relevant and affordable solutions.
“We also need to challenge our local software designers to come on board and set up this virtual experience for us so that we do not look outside for solutions, which is quite expensive. Live and on-demand virtual set up solutions and related applications are expensive,” she said.
The future is technological
When the pandemic is finally brought under control perhaps using vaccines life is likely to revert to pre-COVID19 settings with the temptation being to go back to the old way of conducting business events. In view of this, what will the future of business events be like?
“For expo type of activities, the opportunity for the future is probably to go virtual and technological innovation must provide platforms that allow expos to be equally exciting in the virtual world. The world of sport and the gaming industry seem to be able to do this very well attracting millions of subscribers and viewers to digital and remote platforms,” Maisva said.