Going virtual
TD SYNNEX moved early to decide all its events should go virtual. ‘We were quite quick off the mark,’ said Linda Patterson, Group Marketing Director UK and Ireland for TD SYNNEX. ‘Early on, we went to our vendor partners and said we think there might need to be a delay, and initially a lot of the requests were to push events out and defer them to the next quarter. However, as it became more apparent that we might be in this for a bit of a long haul, there is more openness – certainly with the vendors I have spoken to – about using different methods.’
‘It’s been a real blessing that TD SYNNEX is very technologically advanced and in having the resources and technology to allow people to work at home and events to be staged in a virtual environment.’
Webinars and collaboration tools are being used quite extensively and even round table group meetings are being held virtually. There is even some prospect of the big TD SYNNEX Live event later in the year being staged as a virtual event, but this is yet to be finally decided.
As things stand, all TD SYNNEX events will be run virtually and that may lead to more events being run in this way in the future, but that does not mean that the face-to-face gatherings will be abandoned.
‘It’s just not practical for us to hold off doing all events and training for six months. People still need to learn and develop their knowledge. We need to adapt to this new and hopefully, temporary situation and find a way to do these things. The great thing is that we do have the technology and we can make it happen. We’re not saying that we won’t go back to face-to-face meetings, I am sure we will, but for now it’s all going to be virtual.’
But after experiencing virtual events, there won’t always be an assumption that events must be held in a fixed location to which everyone must travel. ‘We have to work out the best options and formats for different types of events. It’s been a real blessing that TD SYNNEX is very technologically advanced and has the resources and technology to allow people to work at home and events to be staged in a virtual environment.’
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