Last year saw the first 100% digital version of the Aeromart event for the aerospace industry, which has taken place in Toulouse for the last 22 years.
The online edition was organized to enable companies to take part in meetings, workshops and conferences despite the obstacles to international travel and the other problems in the world right now.
Our Key Account Manager Samuele Reghellin represented us at the prestigious global event and he told us all about it.
“In some ways it was surreal to be taking part in such a big initiative in a totally digital form. It certainly offers the greatest possible optimization of costs and times, but behind it all there needs to be outstanding efficiency and reliability on the operational and organizational fronts.
This was lacking in some cases and it meant that some B2B meetings in particular lost their incisiveness.
From a Buyer / Procurement Manager’s point of view, the approach offers unbeatable scope to seek out potential suppliers in the shortest time possible, with far more opportunities than at a traditional trade fair.
However, it makes it hard to gain a clear understanding of a supplier’s capacity and capabilities because you’re far apart, you’ve got a screen between you, most of the time you’re speaking a foreign language and you can’t interact in a more “physical” way.
Looking at it all from a Key Account / Business Development Manager’s perspective, there’s a risk that potential customers might not accept your contact requests and there’s nothing you can do about it because the system is completely closed in this respect, whereas at a traditional event it could be easier to present your products and services.
All things considered, we’re happy with how it went and the contacts we made. We’re already discussing possible spheres for joint projects with some of them.”
We hope that future events of this kind will be live once again, but it is very likely that things will never go back to how they were. We will be able to attend trade fairs in person in the future but they will be increasingly digital in nature, so we will have to get used to it!
