By Mary Tucker | Senior Communications and Content Manager | IAEE
Exhibitions and events are changing fast, and competitive organizations need to change with it. Old-school team hierarchies and one-size-fits-all sales models are increasingly holding companies back from the growth and efficiency they’re capable of. So what does a modern, high-performing organization actually look like?
Matthias “Tesi” Baur is the CEO of MBB Consulting Group and a 24-year veteran of the global trade fair and business-to-business (B2B) industry. With leadership experience at Messe Frankfurt, Reed Exhibitions and UBM/Informa, and a track record building international teams across the United States, United Kingdom and Asia, he has seen firsthand what separates organizations that scale successfully from those that stall.
In IAEE’s webinar, Global Approaches to Organizer Structure: International Practices to Drive Growth and Efficiency, Tesi explores the frameworks he has used to help organizations achieve high double-digit growth. While competitors are still relying on structures built for a different era, attendees who join this session will walk away with a practical playbook the rest of the industry hasn’t caught up to yet: how to build a business-centered company structure that actually drives profitability, develop a sales team agile enough to move as fast as the market does and establish high-performing teams across international markets without losing alignment. Organizers who miss this session risk falling further behind those who don’t.
Here, Tesi shares his perspective on what’s driving structural change in the business events industry, how leading organizers are building agile, business-centered teams, and what it takes to align sales, operations and marketing across international markets.
You’ve worked with some of the biggest organizations in the industry. What first convinced you that organizational structure (in addition to strategy or sales talent) is the real key to growth?
Tesi: The first time I learned about the power of structuring a company right was when I started my job at UBM (now Informa) as Portfolio Director of the Food Ingredients portfolio. UBM organized its portfolios in a kind of matrix structure where shows from different business units worked together in industry-related groups. UBM created a powerful cross-country structure that was a true competitive advantage. Better strategy building, rebooking, forecasting, etc., were just some of the benefits that were supported by the agile matrix structure.
What are the clearest signs that a company has outgrown its current structure and what should leaders be watching for?
Tesi: For me, a sign of a healthy or unhealthy structure is how teams and business units identify themselves. You will find that this identification point in a siloed structure is often the location in which the team in one location bonds versus the teams in another location. That can result in a show portfolio serving one industry in which shows in different countries follow different strategies, different pricing, etc. Another sign is when a global show portfolio is managed by HQ only, ignoring that shows always serve local markets.
You’ll be talking about building a “business centered” company structure. What does that mean in practice, and how is it different from how most organizers are set up today?
Tesi: A business centered structure always puts the business, and therefore the customer, in the center of each process design. I have seen structures where teams have been assembled following the setup of the company’s Board in which the international business is under the wing of one Board member and domestic business under the wing of another Board director with no agile links between the teams. If one show or show portfolio is managed by isolated teams, it is not hard to guess that the business will not bring its horsepower to the road.
Agility gets talked about a lot in sales, but what does an “agile sales team” actually look like especially in contrast to a traditional sales team?
Tesi: There are two base rules for an agile sales team: Firstly, everybody can sell everything and, secondly, each salesperson must sell products he or she was not hired for. In my experience, salespeople can handle this agile sales element when they do this for around 20% of their working time, which is one day per week. Once this culture is established, the sales team can join rebooking teams from other shows, sales days to bring back underperforming shows or any other sales actions that require a shift of resources.
Building teams across international markets comes with its own challenges. What’s the biggest mistake companies make when structuring teams across borders?
Tesi: The two biggest mistakes are being too strict with HQ rules and procedures, and not being strict enough with HQ rules and procedures. That sounds illogical, but the balance of how to bring different cultures together is indeed a thin one. If you copy all reporting rules to your business unit in a different part of this world you will lose the buy-in from your local sales team. However, having no rules at all will end up in chaos. You need to “pick your battles” extremely wisely: give the local offices room to do sales their way, but establish the standards that are important to operate the sales procedures.
For an organizer that feels stuck with a traditional structure, where should they start? And, is this the kind of change that happens gradually or does it require a bigger overhaul?
Tesi: There are two ways of changing structure: quickly, by an executive decision, or you involve your team in process definition and execution. The first way is the quicker way. You might lose some colleagues when you choose this way, but it adds clarity and, executed well, reduces inefficiencies along the way. The other way is a process in which you work out the new structure, processes and standards with your team. It depends on your business situation which way is better. In the webinar, we discuss the pros and cons of both ways.
