SAACI NEWS

Use a broader eco-system

The calendar of 2023 may present us with an opportunity to expand our eco-system as we look to build on the momentum of the third and fourth quarter of 2022. The business environment these past years has ensured that we evaluated our business model.

By Glenton De Kock, chief executive officer of SAACI.

We all agree that there is no viable business model without a paying customer somewhere in the equation. Our industry is one that we either make money from selling something within a business model that resembles a cluster of suppliers or selling something between these clusters of suppliers, exhibitors, and delegates.

We might call our clusters exhibitors and attendees or delegates and sponsors, but we all know that events are complex melting pots of interlinked clusters of companies and people, with slightly different goals and objectives.

The year ahead may be one that we all expand on this concept of understanding, whether someone is paying for a product which helps them in their cluster or helps them access another cluster. This is helpful in defining the business models which we may all expand on in 2023, by identifying where we may increase revenue or return on investment for our clients.

So, we consider how we work within the following frameworks:

• An exhibition is primarily a between cluster linkage — one cluster of companies (exhibitors or sellers) pays to solve a problem they have in accessing another cluster of companies (buyers).

• A conference is primarily an in-cluster linkage — a member of a cluster pays to attend a conference because it solves a knowledge problem they have.

• A research or data business is primarily an in-cluster linkage because a member of a cluster pays for information which helps them solve a problem in their own business.

• One-to-one models are a between cluster linkage — one cluster is valuable enough to another cluster that, as well as paying to access the cluster, they are willing to compensate the other cluster for their time (e.g. hosted buyer).

• Content businesses are typically between cluster linkages — they provide relevant information that readers of a cluster are interested in, paid for by advertisers who include their message either in or around the content.

The pandemic has led to organisers exploring new business models, creating new digital offers, and accelerating the roll out of one-to-one models.

With all the recent challengers, we acknowledge that our industry will continue to offer solutions for the world’s pressing problems; the challenges for us is how we grow our eco-system or clusters in ensuring that we maintain a socio-economic growth path in 2023 for all in the business events industry.