From Fist Bumps to Screen Shares: 5 Reasons to Keep Digital Events in Your 2023 Diary
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Anyone missing the awkward elbow-bumps now we’re all shaking hands again? Thought not - though the slightly less calamitous fist bump may be here to stay. It’s not important how we meet – it’s just important that we can.
The pandemic created wholesale changes in the way we interact, share knowledge and do business. In the midst of the mayhem, we discovered that digital interactions could become far more than just an effective surrogate for the face-to-face exchanges we had always taken for granted.
CONNECT Global
At DELIVER, we’re embracing this opportunity (with both elbows) with our digital event CONNECT Global in late January 2023, the premier virtual community for e-commerce, logistics and supply chain. You’ll have the opportunity to network online with a select group of senior global retail professionals, source new logistics partners, and meet the industry’s most dynamic innovators – all over five days of prescheduled one-to-one meetings and dynamic table talks. We look forward to meeting you there!
The digital event is very much here to stay - here are five reasons why they are making a valid claim for your precious diary space in 2023:
1 - Remote Workers Like It That Way
The virtual office is now the workspace of choice for many employees: around 60% of workers in relevant roles in the USA are working from home all or most of the time. Fully on-site work has been consigned to the pre-pandemic past, with remote work arrangements now expected to triple compared to 2019. E-commerce giants like Amazon still allow the majority of their white-collar staff to work remotely, and are not rushing their return to the physical office.
2 - Customers Want It, Too
With these changes come heightened expectations. 88% of consumers now want more digital offerings from corporations, and 70% of all customer interactions are now digital. In one survey, 70% of respondents said they will continue to attend virtual events after the pandemic, and many organisations are beginning to carve out an innovative niche in the virtual business event space.
3 - It Helps, Not Hinders, Innovation
Online conferences are now rapidly becoming the accepted norm in knowledge-sharing communities, with their innate ability to increase participation, diversity and inclusion. Virtual conferences and learning spaces are more affordable, allow greater access for the disabled, and are even becoming proof-of-concept arenas for the metaverse technologies of the future.
5 - It’s Focussed, and Sustainable
Online events create obvious savings in time, money and energy - no flights, shuttle buses, catering or accommodation to consider - but they also offer uniquely focussed opportunities to get business done quickly and efficiently. Event space coffee bar chats are all well and good - but so are curated, streamlined 1-2-1 meetings. laser-centred on a positive commercial outcome.
5 - It’s Global Thought-leadership - And Tech Giants Know It Makes Sense
Japanese IT superpower Fujitsu has just announced its global flagship online event, ActivateNow 2022, will launch in October. The event promises to highlight the company’s “vision, technology, and case studies for promoting Sustainability Transformation through digital innovation”. Digital events provide both evergreen and thought-leadership content to a wide audience around the world, who can then propagate those ideas throughout their own communities. As we explored in a previous blog post, the opportunities for learning and networking provided by the digital environment are limitless.
The Digital Event Space: Embrace the Difference
Given the ongoing success of the digital event space post-pandemic, organisations are embracing the digital arena as compliment to the in-person experience, rather than its rival. DELIVER is online, we’re ready, and we’re looking forward to bumping virtual elbows with you at CONNECT Global in January!