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EADA Annual Meeting 2016: The value adding connectivity

Everyone being connected in the digital era is nothing new. Evidence of this comes in the multiple options we have for interacting with brands or communicating with anyone, anywhere in the wold. However, both from a business and a personal perspective, we still don’t appreciate the value this connectivity adds, and the experiences we can share. 

To explore this concept of connectivity, so common yet with so little known about it, EADA has organised an event with several experts, which will show the options at our disposal for connecting with others. The EADA Annual Meeting 2016, the big EADA Alumni event, will be held on 18 November in Barcelona, at the Palau de Congressos de Catalunya. 

“The event, which will launch the EADA academic year and will also serve as the graduation ceremony for last year’s graduates, has been set up as a platform where both our Alumni and the current participants, and institutional and business partners, will be able to reflect on the value of connectivity, the strength generated by contacts when contributing to society,” says Melissa Claire Handley, director of EADA Alumni and Professional Careers. For this reason, she adds, “we’ll have speakers who’ll explain, based on their own experience, the value added by connectivity both online and offline, and we’ll also have the chance to put this into practice in situ via a networking session.” She continues that, “this way, we’ll meet the demand from Alumni to promote networking in EADA’s most important institutional event. 

Co-create with brands 

One of the first talks will address the value that companies give to customers when the two co-create, when they work on the same strategy. Alexis Mavrommatis, a lecturer in Marketing at EADA, will reflect on this subject, emphasising “the opportunity entailed by new technologies to connect with customers, create value, generate engagement and share experiences.” In his opinion, “companies must exploit this technology to listen to their target markets and speak to them.” He adds, “it is not sufficient to listen to them, we must create value with them.” How? Well, “connecting with them, creating an emotional bond -engagement- and living joint experiences.” 

Alexis Mavrommatis will provide several keys
to co-create with customers through technologies.

According to Mavrommatis, “this should be the main aim of digital transformation in any company, because they all have a wide range of digital channels available, offering valuable information about the target markets, which they can use to co-create with them and constantly surprise them.” Along this line, the EADA lecturer adds that “they can use these channels to meet one of the most emerging demands among modern consumers, such as participating in the companies’ creation processes or meeting the requirement to add value to the society with their products”. 

From his perspective, “companies increasingly stand out due to their ability to connect with customers and add value". Indeed, "we’re talking about a new form of leadership and business strategy that focuses on the customer, known as customer centricity or customer creating value”. In this sense, “companies that don’t listen to their target market’s needs will slowly disappear.” 

Social value

We’ll also hear the fascinating experience of EADA Alumni Fouad Karam –who studied the International Master in Marketing between 2006 and 2007–, and in 2008 started to work at the Red Bull office in the United Arab Emirates and made his dreams come true. Firstly, working in the Marketing department, and secondly, being the project leader of the Red Bull BC One, the annual competition held by Red Bull to select the best B-Boy –the name given to break dancers–. Actually, Fouad is Area Culture Marketing Manager at Red Bull, a department that helps talented youngsters to enhance their creativity. 

“My work involves creating value to improve society,” Fouad says. He believes that “nowadays all brands have the opportunity to transform society and change people’s lives, and therefore they need to connect to them, identify their needs and help them to improve their quality of life.” 

Bibiana Ballbé, founder of TheCreative.net, will tell
us about her project which aims to connect talented
people and business world.

Along the same lines as Red Bull, the EADA Annual Meeting 2016 will showcase another example of co-creation and a social project. TheCreative.Net is a platform that identifies, connects, interconnects, offers visibility and projects Catalonia’s creative talent. One of its priorities is connecting all this talent with the business world, thus promoting the necessary symbiosis between company and creativity. To talk about this, Bibiana Ballbé, the platform’s driving force and known by many due to her extensive media presence, will be in attendance. “This project arose two years ago due to the growing demand to connect creative people and talent in the business world.” She adds that “after two years, we’ve created an extensive network of different creative profiles highlighting the country’s greatest asset: creativity.” 

Networking 

Lastly, all Alumni can implement the speakers’ recommendations during an entertaining Networking Quiz, an interactive game with tablets where teams must answer questions and tests related to EADA, and the programme they studied. They’ll be grouped in teams according to the area where they registered to attend the event. There are eight different areas in total, each corresponding to the educational specialities of EADA programmes: entrepreneurship, innovation and technology, sustainability (CSR), consultancy, marketing & retail, banking and finance, Human Resources & Talent Management, and Operations & Supply.

Apart from participating in an entertaining
Networking Quizz, our Alumni will have
the opportunity to take photos alongside 
the 'E' of EADA.

This final part of the event will be led by another EADA Alumni, Fernando Le Monnier, who studied a Marketing Management programme between 1991 and 1992, and is currently the Director in Spain for Green Hat Challenge –a Swedish company leading the way in Europe in interactive solutions for meetings and events, corporate gamification, business games design and developing team building activities–.

“The idea is to put people into contact, who might not know each other, so they interact, produce a collective value, enhance their creativity and build joint experiences,” says Fernando.

The following day, 19 November, international Alumni can continue networking at the Collbató Residential Campus. These Alumni, from different years, will also attend several EADA faculties.