In recent years, companies around the world have faced a number of difficulties in their operations, such as the rising price of petroleum, the shortage of energy, the Eurozone debt crisis, increasing labour costs, environmental pollution, etc.
Apart from having a well-planned business strategy, a crucial factor in successfully tackling these problems is the quality of a company’s work team.
Last year, Adsale organized an in-house staff training programme entitled“Managing and Leading Changes”, which was aimed at encouraging staff to respond to these changes with a positive mind and to regard each change as an opportunity for further development, to cultivate borderless support as a corporate culture, to strengthen team spirit among staff members, to share experience with others and to enrich their market knowledge.
In an effort to express the importance of staff training, Adsale submitted this training programme to the 2013 UFI Education Award competition organized by the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry (UFI) and finally won the award.
Stanley Chu, Chairman of the Adsale Group, says, “We attach great importance to staff development. Since 2005, we have been organizing a two full-day conference each year with the objective of enhancing the leadership of our middle level managerial staff. Past topics covered include benchmarking, blue ocean strategy, vision and mission, corporate values, innovation, motivation, etc.
Last year, our theme was “Managing and Leading the Change”. Fifty-four department heads from offices located in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Singapore gathered at the conference to contribute strategies for dealing with challenges in the future.
The objectives of the UFI Education Award are to appreciate novel results-oriented educational and vocational activities that have been developed and implemented, and to share innovative ideas on concepts of in-house education. As Stanley Chu explains, “That we stand out from several participants is largely due to the fact that our conference had a clearly defined objective and it addressed a defined target group.
"The programme design was innovative and creative. It was successful in having increased participants’ knowledge of the industry and market, strengthened their confidence in overcoming challenges and cultivated team spirit through a series of diversified activities, such as reading, group discussions, interactive games, sharing of China and the industry’s updates, etc.
"The most important outcome is that with the active participation of managerial staff from different departments, some major changes in the exhibition industry in the upcoming three years have been identified; these include changes in Chinese government industry policies, the China and international market environment, exhibitors’ high expectations on return on investment, visitors’ interest in new technology, innovation and brand development, a higher proportion of Generation Y in the company, increasing popularity of online and mobile devices, and more and severe competition.
"To cope with these changes, participants at the conference laid out their corresponding action plans and devised short-term and long-term strategies so as to maintain the sustainability of our competitive edge.”
CHINAPLAS 2013, which is going to stage its 27th edition from May 20-23, 2013 at the China Import and Export Pazhou Complex, Guangzhou, PR China, will demonstrate how the Adsale team has managed the change with a positive attitude and created another record high for the show in such a difficult economic situation.
Occupying an exhibition area of 220,000sqm, CHINAPLAS 2013 is now Asia’s No. 1 and the world’s No.2 in the plastics and rubber industries. Stanley Chu points out that currently the increasing labour cost is the issue of most concern in China and the international market. The sluggish international economic situation has led to a decrease in exports from China and the shifting of her manufacturers to the inland provinces and Southeast Asia.
"At the same time, China’s development model has changed from being exported-oriented to one that promotes domestic consumption and high-end manufacturing technology. CHINAPLAS 2013 is alert to this trend and will exhibit many high-end manufacturing machines and a range of automated equipment. The team has also increased its effort to promote the exhibition to visitors from Asia and China and in doing so captured new business opportunities brought by urbanization.
"CHINAPLAS 2013 will gather more than 2,900 exhibitors from 38 countries and regions as well as having 14 country and regional pavilions displaying over 3,200 different energy-saving plastics and rubber machines, plus a wide range of green chemicals and raw materials. It is expected that the show will welcome 115,000 visitors from around the world.
With the business environment becoming more and more challenging, exhibitors attach greater importance to the effectiveness of their participation. To meet exhibitors’ expectations on their return on investment in participating, the organizing team held a series of buyers’ activities to reinforce networking and interaction between exhibitors and buyers.
For example, plastics industry forums were held in Bangkok, Thailand, and Jakarta, Indonesia, in March, while a plastics seminar tailor-made for home appliance manufacturers was held in Shunde, Guangdong, China. All these pre-show activities were effective in mobilizing both overseas and local buyers, and helped expand exhibitors’ business networks.
Stanley Chu says, “The record-breaking scale of CHINAPLAS 2013 hinges on the positive and proactive attitudes of our staff. This further proves the importance of staff training. The participation of Adsale in the UFI Education Award competition demonstrates our great attention to training and that we regard our staff as valuable assets and partners.
"This year, the Adsale Groupcelebrates its 35th anniversary and this award marks a new milestone in the Group’s history and stands testament to the fruitful contribution made jointly by our staff.”