DESMA Xpertforum: Digital Openhouse replacement with positive results

For more than 25 years the company DESMA has been organizing a 2-day open house event every three years, which has established itself internationally as a meeting point for the industry. How fundamentally the behaviour and communication of the company has changed in this short time is enormous. Digital event formats are growing disproportionately strong and hit the nerve of the time.

Due to the drastic restrictions of the Corona pandemic, the event was held in digital form for the first time. DESMA repeatedly positions itself as a pioneer in the industry and remains present for its customers even in the currently challenging times.

The impressive response of the Xpert Forum with more than 1300 participants from 45 nations surprised DESMA itself. The high number of participants of potential new customers was also impressive. All in all, the participants of the Xpert Forum confirmed that DESMA is well on the way to success with the course of the consistent digital reorientation of the company since 2015 with the focus on automation, visualization, digitization, services and product and process innovation.

The international orientation and the participation of 45 nations made the Xpert Forum a global success with three times as many visitors than those present at the last in-house exhibition in 2017. The focus of the XpertenForum consisted of professionally produced workshop videos which could be watched with an average duration of 15 minutes. With a total of 13 workshops, which covered several topics, a high number of people could be addressed. It didn't matter if one came from the field of process engineering, automation, tool or cold runner construction, maintenance or project management - there was something for all disciplines. In more than 280 live chats, both, the entire sales team and the individual Xperts, were able to contact visitors to answer any questions that arose. The platform as well as the workshops contained in it could be used 24/7 over the entire period and thus brought the flexibility currently demanded  by short-time work, reduction of hours, vacation, etc. The total video viewing period was over 66 days, i.e. on average each registered user participated 73 minutes in the workshops, which again confirmed our hope that most participants repeatedly logged in to watch workshop videos of their choice according to their own time management needs. In addition, the live character of the digital trade fair was underlined by live greetings, daily changing live events and daily Xperts Live Chats. The digital trade fair concept in the form of the Xpert Forum was rated four out of five stars by visitors in a survey.

We would all like to have you in person again at trade fairs in the near future, but the current situation is likely to keep us busy for quite some time, and whether personal attendance at trade fairs will ever again take place in the same number and to the same extent as before Corona remains an interesting question. DESMA would like to thank the numerous visitors who together with DESMA have taken another step into the future and thus laid the foundation for further digital events. All participants can be sure that the Xpert Forum was only the beginning and that many more digital events will follow.