“8th Sino” Part 1: Hot to trot in Shanghai
CCL has been globetrotting again! Once again we took ourselves to the Far East, to attend the 8thAnnual Sino-International Freight Forwarders Conference in Shanghai, in the last week of September. Here’s what Rudee had to say about the event:
Having arrived into Shanghai international airport, we hot-footed it to the hotel, which was not too distant from the exhibition arena in Pudong.
The conference kicked off with an open-air cocktail reception and, for CCL, a hiccup in the proceedings. We hadn’t realised the awards for all Silver sponsors, of which CCL was one, were presented at the cocktail reception and we missed the presentation due to a prior engagement. That was disappointing, to say the least, especially as nobody had told us that the awards would be presented at the cocktail reception. Nor were we the only Silver sponsor to have inadvertently missed the presentation. We’d all expected this year would be the same as in the past, where all awards were presented at the gala dinner and awards ceremony.
We thought – or hoped – that since we’d missed the chance to receive our award at the cocktail reception, it might be presented at the gala dinner after all. But on the night, only Gold and Platinum sponsors took the stage. Cue several unhappy Silver sponsors who had inadvertently missed the earlier event.
As with many similar events, most delegates attend the gala dinner but not all arrive in time for the kick-off events. Some delegates don’t arrive until later in the evening, whilst others only check-in on the morning of the main conference. Those that did manage to attend the cocktail reception enjoyed a light-hearted chance to meet old and new friends and associates – a great ice-breaker for the intensive networking of the 3 conference days, and much enjoyed.
A team of 3 from CCL went to “8th Sino” – Brian and Anj managed the booth whilst Rudee took to the floor upstairs, in the one-to one-room, where delegates could schedule up to 12 half-hour meetings a day. This is the time to listen to your prospects and sell your services.
On Tuesday, the first day of the main event, meetings went well, all appointments turned up and everything seemed to go according to plan – not just for CCL, but for most of the delegates I spoke to. The only complaint was the failing air-conditioning, which turned the sultry heat into a key conversation topic.
Day two, and our presentation preparation paid dividends, with a series of high-energy meetings. But it was still uncomfortably hot – delegates dripping with sweat, jackets off, sleeves rolled up and ties loose. But heavy though the air was, business was well underway all around: conversations, laughter, negotiations, exchanges of gifts and photographs (you can see the shots from some of our meetings here). The event organisers did their best, spreading fans around the room, but with 1,500 delegates in the space, they didn’t make much of a contribution to lowering the temperature. And it did make you long for the coffee and lunch-breaks.
Day three, the final day, and we squeezed what we could out of it with some fruitful pre-scheduled meetings in the hotel lobby, before the journey back to the airport, and home to London.
Having been a member of the WCA Family of Logistic Networks for some years we could position ourselves strategically at the conference. Ours is a unique proposition, backed up by fact, that we are a neutral wholesale organisation that caters for the freight forwarding industry and acts as a service provider, and not a competitor.
We felt it was a good conference overall, with good attendance and plenty of companies on the look-out for alternative solutions – which is what
we offer. See our “8th Sino” Part 3 post for an unbeatable proposition that demonstrates why we are no threat to our clients, but only seek to provide a unique service.
