Posted by

Barry Siskind

Community Manager

 

Who are the people best equipped people to predict how trends will affect the future? It’s an interesting question worth pondering and I think I may have stumbled upon the answer – academics.

 

Your first reaction might be, how can these people understand real world situations like the exhibition business enough to be in a position to forecast where we are going and how we will get there?

 

Academics do not posses a crystal ball but they have the clarity that comes from years of research unencumbered by the muck and mire of the daily problems we all face of scheduling, planning, organizing, negotiating, selling, troubleshooting and reporting.

 

One example in point is Stephane Garelli, who will be presenting at the UFI Congress in Spain. The title of his speech is “from breakdown to breakthrough:
A competitive outlook for 2012 and beyond.”

 

Just take a minute and look at Professor Garelli’s qualifications; He is a world authority on competitiveness a field that he has pioneered for 25 years. He is a Professor at one of the world’s leading business schools where he heads the World Competitiveness Centre. He is also the associate professor at the University of Lausanne. Formerly Managing Director of the World Economic Forum and director of the Davos Annual Meetings and he has worked with such corporations as Hewlett-Packard Europe, SGS and Nestlé. He is also the best-selling author of “Top Class Competitors – How Nations, Firms and Individuals Succeed in the New World of Competitiveness.”

 

If you haven’t yet decided whether to attend this year’s Congress, perhaps this topic alone will justify you spending the time.

 

http://valencia2011.ufi.evenium.com/