Knowledge exchange at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre

The Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre in Malaysia recently hosted the PCMA-ICESAP Knowledge Exchange Kuala Lumpur. The educational programme brought together over 30 leading business events industry players, stakeholders and decision-makers. They shared knowledge and experience on how they are recalibrating their businesses in response to constant digital, political and economic change. PCMA-ICESAP regional business director Antonio Codinach said: “This was our first knowledge exchange event in Malaysia, which made us all pioneers! I am making it my mission to ‘open up’ the business events industry, which was one of the key purposes of this session. “Our industry makes a tremendous contribution to key educational and economic sectors, and this event provided us with a platform to debate, interact and share ideas on how we can evolve together and drive this important industry forward.” The first talk came from keynote speaker Srikrishna Vadrevu, who discussed ‘Evolving Your Business Model for Changing Times’. He concluded that the one constant in a changing business landscape is that the customer is always right, and that businesses should never assume they know what customers want. The keynote was followed by an interactive industry panel discussing and debating ideas on topics such as education, talent development and the new age workforce. Driving the panel discussion was Angeline van den Broecke, CEO of AOS Conventions & Events, Amos Wong and Srikrishna. She commented: “It would be very beneficial to also connect more closely with the customer journey and experiential delivery. Ultimately we need to create a movement and engage more with those outside our industry sector to drive knowledge transfer and grow business opportunities.”