Quantum shares the benefits of holding its biggest annual events back-to-back, and how a timely connection with the bureau led to smoother planning and more meaningful experiences.
TYPE: Corporate event
AGENCY: Events Travel Asia
DESTINATION: Chiang Mai
WHEN: May 29 – June 2, 2017
ATTENDEES: 302
Quantum is one of the leading experts in scale-out tiered storage, archive and data protection. It has global headquarters in Silicon Valley and regional headquarters in Singapore, with local sales, marketing, and service teams throughout Asia-Pacific. As a channel-based IT specialist, it works closely with qualified channel partners to promote Quantum solutions.
In such a rapidly changing field, the company finds value in holding annual kick-off sessions for its sales team as well as the channel partners they work with across the region.
Consisting two back-to-back events, the first was an FY18 Sales Kickoff for the internal sales team. The second event was the FY18 Partner Kickoff for channel partners across Asia-Pacific. For simplicity, these events shall be referred to as SKO and PKO respectively.
This was Quantum’s fourth year in a row holding a back-to-back SKO and PKO. The cost and time efficiencies are substantial. Costs are minimised by booking higher volumes of rooms, plus reducing by half costs such as the design and construction of a stage. Time is saved because it means half as much travel for Quantum employees.
Quantum’s decisions in choosing a destination prioritised safety above all else, including the risk of cancellation (e.g. force majeure), ease of travel, desirability and hotel option.
It was fortuitous, however, that Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau (TCEB) had approached them to join in on their scouting trip 10 months prior to the event in Chiang Mai, a northern city in Thailand, which many of their employees and partners have expressed that they haven’t visited and was an appealing idea to visit a destination they haven’t been to in Thailand.
On previous visits to Thailand, they had enjoyed their trips, and thanks to TCEB, the Quantum organising team saw firsthand that Chiang Mai was what they were looking for. Chiang Mai’s airport has international flights to various major Asian cities and apart from the charming night markets that are scattered throughout the city, there were several five-star hotels to choose from. The city’s many attractions can also be reached within the city by foot and they were sure that their attendees would enjoy a private visit to the elephant conservation camp.
The ETA team
Among the 302 attendees, 90 of them were Quantum employees. The SKO event began on Monday evening with a welcome reception, followed by executive presentations and smaller, breakout sessions during the next two days, including an offsite awards dinner on Tuesday evening.
As SKO wrapped up on Wednesday, Quantum’s channel partners from all over the world including Japan, India and New Zealand flew in for the PKO event, which kicked off the same evening with a welcome barbecue session at the Shangri-La.
The deputy governor of Chiang Mai opened the PKO event with a message about the importance of Chiang Mai’s safe city initiative, and the growing need for data storage.
Concluding the annual events, a gala awards dinner was held during the last night, which ended with a stunning display of fireworks and a donation of 14 monitors (these were bought new for the Quantum Advantage Technology Solution Partner Showcase) to local schools.
On departure day, partners and sales employees alike had a chance to visit an elephant conservation camp, which proved to be one of the most memorable and fulfilling experiences and memories they can leave Thailand with.
During the scouting trip by TCEB, Quantum was introduced to their events partner, Events Travel Asia (ETA). For the events, there was an estimated need of 250 rooms per night and the Shangri-La Hotel suited this requirement best.
The five-star hotel hosted 277 rooms and this meant that they could practically “own” the hotel with the majority of occupancy being their guests, easing the operations of the hotel and Quantum.
The Shangri-La was generous in allowing Quantum to maximise their branding throughout the hotel, including a most unique offer: their company logo in the poolside grass assembled from rocks, visible even from 20 storeys up! These made a great impression on their employees and channel partners.
While they knew that their event in Chiang Mai would be desirable, they underestimated just how desirable it would be to their channel partners. Their calculation of 250 rooms was exceeded by a further 50 more rooms and adjustments had to be made by putting up some employees in adjacent hotels or twin-sharing at the Shangri La. This worked out well in the end.
Due to a lesser number of direct international flights, 50 percent of passengers had to transit via Bangkok, shared ETA. However, the attendees’ desire to visit a new destination overcame the slight hassle.
The event set a new record for channel partner satisfaction with a 4.8 rating on a five-point scale. While Chiang Mai did not enjoy a more sophisticated infrastructure like in Bangkok, and negotiations with unique local transportation called Song Teaw or Rod Deang (red truck) and tuk tuk proved challenging, ground transportation was ranked 4.9 – a ranking that was initially thought as unattainable.
Most of all, Quantum received excellent subjective feedback. People enjoyed the city, the hotel, the elephant conservation camp, and of course the content that was presented was the main purpose of the events. At the end of their back-to-back events, the employees and channel partners departed more knowledgeable and excited to sell Quantum workflow storage solutions in the year ahead, all thanks to the efforts by TCEB, ETA, Gabriele Lombardo, general manager of Shangri-La and his entire hotel team.
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