IAPCO MINI CONFERENCE AT ICCA – Monday 3 November 14.00-17.30, Antalya, Turkey
Session leaders:
Roslyn McLeod, arinex, Australia
Michel Neijmann, K2 Conference & Event Management Co., Turkey [IAPCO President]
André Vietor, Barceló Congresos, Spain [Chair IAPCO Training Academy]
Audience:
Specifically designed for meetings management sector delegates; also of interest to other delegates wishing to gain deep understanding of PCO issues.
ICCA and IAPCO have collaborated to organise this extended, in-depth session on some of the most critical issues facing the meetings management professional today, especially in relation to the international association market. Using IAPCO’s extensive educational and research resources, you will learn new ways to structure your business, to negotiate with clients, to draw up effective strategies, and to reduce risk.
Key topics:
Topic 1:
“Have associations become too vulnerable or risky for PCOs to handle?”
Session leader: André Vietor
Are associations too reliant on single events and push their partners, in particular PCO’s, to carry more and more risk on their shoulders? Is it the responsibility of the PCO to take on risk for association meetings? Will it be profitable in future to provide certain services to associations? Is the full service PCO model dead in the association sector? And, most importantly, how are we able to increase our profit margin by providing added value services to our clients? These are only a few of the critical questions PCO’s will have to ask themselves in order to adapt to a business model that works for each individual company. The objective of this session is to debate and to identify how we as a professional community (not individual corporations) effectively communicate our value to clients and to analyse to what extent taking on risks by PCO’s really pays back.
Topic 2:
“How do you report your performance to your clients?”
Session leader: Roslyn McLeod
How does a client distinguish between tenders to decide the best value PCO appointment for their needs? What are the deciding factors and how does the PCO guide this process to win the business? Does transparency correlate with quality – how is this detected at selection stage? Does the client need a bad experience to recognise a good opportunity or is the ‘good opportunity’ a bad experience? How does a PCO report performance to their clients when tendering and when the job is complete?
Topic 3:
“The times are changing – and so must we. Changes in the meetings industry and their impact on conferences, planners and suppliers”
Session leader: Michel Neijmann
This is a follow up to the debate and outcomes from an IAPCO session run during IMEX America. The original debate was focusing on the changing needs and demands of conference delegates as well as those of sponsors and speakers. Today they all have different and most probably higher expectations than just a few years ago whilst industry regulations are shaping a new conference management environment. These changes will have a major impact on the business model not only of PCO’s and planners but other partners within the meetings supply chain. We will share with you the results and focus on some of the findings in more depth, whilst providing an opportunity for delegates to raise other critical issues that were left out in the previous discussion.
