“ONE THING I LEARNED FROM SPENDING TIME WITH OTHER COMPANIES WAS, DON’T MAKE THIS ADVERTISING SLOGAN OR A MARKETING CAMPAIGN”


Gayle Shepherd Gayle Shepherd’s appointment earlier this year came at a “pivotal stage”


advertising slogan or a marketing campaign’,” said Shepherd. “We really had to understand how we embed this in our business.” Te first stage is to establish


internally what ‘being the best’ means for each role at the SECC; the next is to measure performance against other venues across Europe,


all the while people and technology evolving - hopefully harmoniously. “We reckon on this being a five-year journey,” said Shepherd. It is a complex task; while the


SECC company employs 174 people, with its partner firms there are more than 1,000 people working on the campus. One innovation is


an app that will allow the disparate organisations to communicate and share information. “We are very task focussed; we can put on Beyoncé or host Commonwealth Games events,” said Shepherd, “but we are not always very good at talking to each other or at celebrating the positive contributions of others.”


As well as the focus on people,


Shepherd’s team has the job of whittling down the 90-plus busi- ness systems to a few “best in class” that will provide employees with effective software. A second, and perhaps bigger, innovation will be a ‘dashboard’ that will allow man- agement to look at any event and see in real-time progress on ticket sales, orders, staffing levels, event planning and who is responsible for what. “Even ‘best in class’ systems don’t


talk to each other,” said Shepherd, “this will show everything you need to see without having to log into seven different systems.” If success- ful, it will be an asset unique in the events industry; a proprietary tech- nology that will, perhaps, become marketable in itself. Shepherd’s appointment earlier


this year came at a “pivotal stage,” commented chief executive Peter Duthie, “as we go forward with the necessary structure and skill sets to meet our company mission of best venues, best people, best events, and ultimately our vision to be the best event campus in Europe.”


EVENTSBASE | AUTUMN 2016 | 39


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