Keep in touch with your market, especially now!

Business becomes more and more digital in all countries, and the latest situation with COVID-19 only pushed this trend. So, more and more communication switched to an online format, including client meetings and conferences. As networking is obviously important for top managers, we see that online conferences and webinars are very popular. And now, if you would like to know the opinions of leading corporation’s leaders, you do not have to buy tickets and book a hotel and travel to the city, where the conference is arranged, you only have to pay a small fee for joining a Zoom event, or even receive a free of charge link, and switch on you laptop at the right time. In Russia digitalization of business is rather high, so all top managers have access to online events.

From offline to online events

Kontakt has wide experience in arranging different events, for both clients and candidates. We invite participants from our database, and also place announcements on Facebook and LinkedIn. Before the corona crisis we organized a lot of offline events for our clients and candidates, but now we have switched to webinars. We usually use Zoom, suitable for the number of 30-50 up to sometimes 120-150 participants, depending on the topic.

Speakers are always the leading market experts among owners and top managers of well-known companies like Mars, Coca-Cola, Adidas, LG Electronics, Nestlé, Novartis and also leading Russian companies.

In addition, we arrange short interactive surveys to check different opinions during the meetings and identify hot questions. This gives us great insight into the status of our clients and interims and also what they need. We use this knowledge to offer our tailored services to both parties. It greatly enhances the quality of our services.

Value for top managers

In this dynamically changing worldwide situation, all top managers and business owners want to know about the current trends, how other companies deal with the most critical challenges and what the best practices and successful cases are. Understanding the situation in different segments and companies help to develop ‘helicopter view’ and finding the best solutions. Getting knowledge about the latest trends allows them to adapt to new insights and search for new products, services and technologies. Top managers understand their potential career development better. Interim managers see where they may apply their skills and background. And of course, networking remains important: participants can use chat for communication and ask questions to each other.

Popular topics

What are the most popular current topics? It depends on the audience. For example, business owners actively took part in our webinars: ‘Boards of directors – how to make them effective’ and ‘Transfer of company management to the next generation – risks and opportunities’. This year we organized a lot of special events for top managers from various industries like banks, FMCG, automotive and construction. The most demanded questions for discussions were:

• What is the top of the career?
• Challenges for business due to the economic situation in Russia and globally
• E-commerce trends in different industries
• Effective management of manufacturing companies
• Trends and challenges in certain industries

HR Directors are mostly interested in:

• Compensation & Benefits systems in different businesses
• How to build an effective team
• Optimization of HR budgets
• Knowledge about generation theory (X, Y, Z, A)

One-day fly?

In our opinion, webinars will stay with us for a long time as part of a consulting business.

People have the opportunity to get together in short notice, while being in different countries and continents. They need less time to present at the online event, so it is much easier to find time in a tough schedule.

Compared to offline events, communication in webinars is much easier and closer. Participants are able to ask any questions using the chat. And as a bonus, all webinars are recorded, so participants can listen back to the recording later, e.g. while jogging in the morning or at any convenient time.

Webinars and even long online conferences definitely help people, who are involved in business management, to see opportunities, risks and challenges more clear and make better decisions. At Kontakt we will keep using online conferences and webinars as an effective instrument for networking for owners, top managers and interim managers.

International cooperation

Senior Management Worldwide (SMW) regularly publishes best practice examples and insights from its partners. With associated member firms in 40 countries and partner branches in 21 countries including USA, Europe, Asia and Americas, SMW delivers services seamlessly across the world in any market. One local contact in your country plus one contact on the ground in the country where we are working. Wondering how we can help your company? Contact the SMW partners in your region: smw-interim.com.