Like most tech business analysts, I’ve spent fairly a little bit of time attending conferences designed to supply prospects and companions the newest information on the sponsoring vendor’s methods, options, providers and enterprise plans. Trade exhibits, like final week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2021), are significantly completely different creatures.
Yes, quite a few analysts and reporters journey to CES (greater than 6,500 of final 12 months’s 171,000+ attendees had been members of the media) however the main function of CES and comparable occasions is to bodily join Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) member distributors/producers (4,400+ in 2020) with wholesalers and retailers, and encourage business offers.
So how nicely can a “virtual” occasion like CES 2021 help what has historically relied on face-to-face engagements and offers? Looking forward, what does this probably imply for the CE industries and markets? Let’s contemplate these points.
Challenges: Making the private ‘digital’
Getting out the phrase about what distributors hope and pray might be profitable choices remains to be vital however permitting business prospects to see, check and ask questions on new merchandise is much more very important at commerce exhibits. Though the CEA web site crew did a great job of presenting most important tent keynotes, interviews with senior executives, press releases and featured movies/articles, there have been quite a lot of hiccups alongside the way in which.
As my good friend and colleague, Daniel Rasmus, famous in his CES 2021 commentary, the CES website search operate was lower than optimum, partially as a result of the search engine failed to acknowledge strings of phrases/phrases. As an instance, looking for “personal computers” within the Exhibitors Directory turned up 132 corporations whereas a seek for “personal computer” delivered 211. However, main neither Lenovo or HP, each main distributors in that area, had been included within the outcomes. Searching for “PCs” resulted in 17 corporations, once more lacking Lenovo and HP. Entering “PC” delivered 102 outcomes, together with Lenovo and HP however the “relevance” rating appeared flawed since HP was listed on web page 2 and Lenovo on web page 7.
There had been different shortcomings, together with the Directory solely figuring out corporations by their names and logos—reaching a blurb or thumbnail description required clicking by particular person hyperlinks. That’s high-quality if you happen to’re searching for acquainted faces however lower than optimum while you’re combing by 1,959 typically unfamiliar exhibitors. Finally, among the best elements of CES to my thoughts is the flexibility of various smaller corporations, startups, college applications and nationwide commerce associations to realize visibility in venues, like Eureka Park and on the primary present flooring. Those corporations and organizations appeared misplaced within the shuffle on the CES web site or just determined to not take part within the digital occasion.
Benefits: Easy entry, replays and avoiding the insanity of crowds
With these annoyances out of the way in which, is there something good to say about CES 2021? Absolutely. For one factor, bodily attending CES has turn out to be more and more tough and costly over the previous half decade. Gridlock is frequent on the streets across the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC), as…
