international fair

The challenge

Balkan Star took part in the International Plovdiv Fair (IPF) for years. Although these participations differed each time the concept was to keep all brands together representing the wide range of first-class products and services the group delivers. The considerable challenges for each fair are to ensure internal acceptance and commitment, to choose the proper service providers, to increase the profitability.

The solution

In order to ensure internal acceptance between divisions and companies it is essential to have strong corporate strategy and to show clearly the advantages of this approach to each participant. After communicating the group participation with all decision makers in details I presented a plan for resources allocation with clearly defined processes, responsibilities, deadlines and budget distribution.

Defining and taking into consideration the business goals of Balkan Star’s participation at the IPF I evaluated the basic scenarios for the participation and put them up for discussion. The implementation itself is delivered through external service providers such as fair stand construction builders, designers, caterers, staff renters etc. For the purposes of cost optimization I reorganized the purchasing procedure, in-sourced the coordination and re-negotiated the terms with all service providers.

The management of the fair participation I lead with a small project team consisting only of employees and trainees that were briefly coached for the participation. Depending on the knowhow, experience and personal interests and strengths I built couples for each critical part of the project.

For the fair itself I introduced some additional organizational rules that took care of the transparent, successful and problem-free management, for example the Manager-On-Duty. This manager had the overall responsibility and empowerment for the stand and for each day of the fair it was a different C-level manager of the group.

The outcome                                        

Integrated corporate marketing presence with homogeneous communication of Balkan Star as a group. Image strengthening for all relevant target groups: employees, partners, customers, media, public sector. Adjusted resources management that summed up in 49% financial optimization. Considering the economic, business sector and specific situation this participation was rated best cost-benefit ratio.