Agustina Quirno is Corporate Events Manager at Furlong-Fox. In this interview, she shares with us her experiences and views on the sector.
Automotive events, Meeting Planner, Pharma events
Apr 29, 2019
I started working on a project arranged by my friend, mentor, and boss Gabriela Olivieri, Meeting Manager at Furlong-Fox. In 2010, she was looking for someone capable of developing the commercial area of the department and knowing I had worked as a salesperson in advertisement from a young age, she tempted me with the offer.
In Argentina —and I believe this to be true across all levels— we are unable to plan for anything ahead of time, let alone on a medium- or long-term basis. And even when we have the means to do so, we’re also experts at boycotting ourselves. This means that inside companies and their meeting planner departments, every single need is demanded as if it was due to have been completed the day before. And even when they’re asked for ahead of schedule, clients want the answers with urgency. This makes it challenging to construct a successful Meeting and Events program—one that generates results and captures valuable data to apply during the decision making process, and that actually sticks to its lead time.
This industry has key factors that must be taken into account from the beginning. First, the need for every company within the sector to adhere to the Code of Practice. The choice of the host city, the hotel, and the program itself are defined and conditioned by the Code of Practice.
Nevertheless, it’s essential to develop a logistics management program for professionals —technological tools and human resources training— to be able to effectively reach the attendees, since of that will depend how successful the event is: that it’ll be unforgettable and that at the end of the day every attendee will feel different from what they did when they first arrived.
For small and medium gatherings, attendees prefer natural light, and a place that allows them to enjoy views of natural surroundings in between sessions. At big events, with more than 100 attendees, most clients ask for unique, engaging spaces, far from the regular, with easy access, and that allow them to work with their preferred service providers. Most importantly, the venue needs to be flexible to negotiate the setup even just days before the event goes live. If not, this lack of flexibility makes a huge difference to the final budget and the client would perceive this as unexpected addition to the expenses.
In order to become competitive, the main challenge of meeting planners is creating sample programs of events that are efficient and low cost.
The pharmaceutical industry in our country is really strong. Labs manage to maintain high levels of investment that makes them crucial players. What’s happening now is that every single one of them has highly professional Procurement Departments that demand analytics, technological tools to reach professionals, and highly prepared teams of consultants. This level of requirement, rooted in those huge investments, skyrocketed costs and fees that companies are willing to pay in Argentina. In order to become competitive, the main challenge of meeting planners is in creating sample programs of events that are efficient and low cost.
The automotive industry allows event planners to create really impactful events. With the right planning schedule, you can develop unforgettable events. We have experienced a string of successful years in terms of production – although sadly 2019 isn’t one of those years – and the industry plans numerous types of events such as product launching, test driving for the press, stands in congresses, incentive trips for car dealers, recruiting in several fields, and more. This activity gives event planners the opportunity to show their creativity streak in every aspect. Though, it’s complicated to always be original, we tend to work with the latest trends, trying different ways to communicate and impact the attendees, and create 100% tailor-made events. The clue is to have all the details of the product launch and a strong understanding of the goals the company would like to achieve with the event.
Our basic premise is to always stay updated. We research new trends, we contact suppliers from markets that are not the usual in event planning, we create new ways to introduce our ideas. We go further and manage to optimize budgets. We know that if a fantastic idea doesn’t fit in the budget, it would have a negative effect.
Our team is interdisciplinary, and we aim to integrate professionals with different backgrounds and non-conventional expertise in order to have a richer and more complex overlook of the event.
In the last few years, the Argentinian meetings and events industry has become more professional. There are more companies fully dedicated to this business, large enterprises and entrepreneurs, all working with a high level of compromise towards gaining the results. This is happening because clients and users inside companies have changed simultaneously. We need impactful but realistic ideas that ensure a tangible and specific ROI. If a client spends its money on an event, he should know what is he spending his money on and why. The answer to these questions is the meeting planners call.
I can also add a couple of crucial trends I have identified in the last few years; Firstly, the client is now ready to require qualitative and quantitative results and we should act accordingly. Secondly, event design has also faced an evolution due to the rise of social networks and hyper connectivity. Now we are meant to design events as a ‘meeting place’ so every attendee can enjoy a unique and customized experience. Every event is a kind of ‘chose your own adventure’ story for 50, 200 or 1,000 attendees, so creating a long-lasting impact on every and each of them should be the real challenge.
I knew of NH Hotel Group before I started working in the meetings and events industry because I had been travelling across my country and around the world, staying at various NH hotels. Nowadays, NH Hotel Group is a fundamental partner because it has a presence in Buenos Aires, in inland Argentina and all around the world across its different brands. This ensures always finding the right venue for any event. NH Hotel Group always manages to hand out its proposals on time and with all the info requested, and they are flexible when we need to negotiate. I have had the chance to visit some of their new properties, mainly from the NH Collection brand portfolio. I believe NH Hotel Group upholds remarkable service standards in all hotels and venues, no matter where they are located, helping us to plan and to be sure there won’t be any unpleasant surprises.
The greatest success achieved by our team is being able to keep most of our clients since this department was created at Furlong-Fox 25 years ago. We have brought in many more clients since, some of them attracted by the recommendations made by others, and many of them stay with us. We are really proud of this, proud to know they still rely on us. And that’s also our biggest challenge, to stay relative, impactful, saving their money, achieving reliable results and becoming more and more professional in an ever-changing, volatile and uncertain environment.
