Because of the coronavirus pandemic, almost all exposures have been cancelled. For Ciposa these events are a key part of its business strategy.

​

Exhibition organizers have been trying to find solutions to this problem. Most of them organized virtual exhibitions in a hurry. Events in which Ciposa took part.

​

But the company soon realized that this would not be enough to promote its new developments. It was decided to organize an event in October at its own premises.

​

We are going to talk with Julien, sales engineer at Ciposa, who was involved in this event.

​

Ciposa News : Hello Julien, can you tell us a bit about this event?

Julien : We positioned our new developments in our workshop, next to each machine was a panel or a video with the characteristics of the equipment, as we normally do for a traditional stand.
The second step was to invite our customers to participate separately to our exhibition. We booked the whole month of October for that.

 

​CN : If I understand right, you have privileged a face-to-face contact with your customers, in order to give them a real presentation of your machines?

 

J : Yes that's right, our machines are sophisticated and have a lot of features. It is therefore difficult to make a complete virtual presentation of them.

​

CN : Can you tell me how those days happened?

J : The idea was as follows, we only invited one company at a time, in groups of 4 to 5 people. We did it this way in order to respect the security measures and to guarantee our customers the confidentiality we are due to them.

​

CN : So you were able to take the necessary time to explain your new developments to your customers?

J : Yes, that was in fact the main point of those days. As this event was only for our customers, it was important to us that they get the most complete picture of Ciposa. We started by explaining our development philosophy, based on standard modules. Then, we presented our after-sales service department, with our new Quality Circle project (Editor’s note, the article on after-sales service talks about QC).

​

Then we made a tour of our new products, starting with our latest development, the CIMOD AS.G. A filling machine which, among other things, allows us to take rubies from bulk and to drive them into a plate or a bridge.

​

They were also able to see our ultrasonic press, of course our CIMOD AS.4 assembly platform, as well as a screwing unit, another dispensing unit and finally our new micro-component placing machine.

​

We were even able to present them our POC department, where the feasibility tests are carried out (Editor’s note, the newsletter N°1 talks about this department).

​

CN : It is in fact a visit of several hours that you proposed to your customers?

J : We did take the time to present our new products and know-how in detail. We ended the visit with a discussion in our meeting room, in order to collect their impressions on what they had seen and also to discuss about upcoming projects.

​

CN : If we had to compare this event to traditional exhibitions, what would you say?

J : The very positive side of this event is that we had a close contact with our customers. They came only for us. As we only had two visits a day, we could really take time for them.

Some even discovered expertise they didn't know we had. It is true that when they come to us, it is within the context of a project. We don't necessarily take the time to present all our know-how.

​

CN : Would you like to share a specific development with us?

J : I would like to come back to our new bulk filling machine, the CIMOD AS.G. To say now it' s functional, and available for customer trials.

​

CN : Thank you for this precision. However, I guess like everything else there is a flip side to this medal. What could be negative in this kind of event?

J : There was no negative point, the only problem is that we were not able, as during traditional exhibitions, to meet people who don't know us.

​

CN :  It's true that this is one of the main advantages of traditional exhibitions. However, I heard that you also tried to develop this point. By setting up a virtual booth online, is this correct?

J : Exactly, we set up a virtual booth on our website. On which we present through videos, our new developments. We promoted this event on social networks and on the sites of traditional exhibitions, such as the SIAMS.

​

CN : Overall, are you satisfied?  

J : The results were above our expectations, we had two clients per day during 20 days.

​

CN : Thank you Julien for this interview. One last question to finish: "Do you think that this type of event can take place outside of a pandemic period, i.e. when other exhibitions can be held? "

J : yes I think so, we haven't discussed it yet, but I think it's something we have to do again, even when the situation is back to normal