Globetrotting can be good for business, here’s how

by Antonio Iglesias, Technical Account Manager

It’s 5am, and you’re staring bleary-eyed out the window of a taxi as streetlights and the rest of the world passes by in a blur. “Being awake this early should be illegal” – You think to yourself, but you remember that you’re heading to the airport. The destination is in your mind, not just the security, checked luggage, and gate-hunting before finding food (some of us must make sure the gate exists before we eat). It’s not the journey, it’s the destination.

Most of us only experience this when we have a holiday on the other side, but it’s also important for business. Virtual meetings through Zoom or Teams can only help so much with communication, as we are social animals that value face-to-face interaction. As a Technical Account Manager, it’s my job to maintain these relationships with clients – even beyond the screen.

What should businesses do if they have clients around the globe? In a post-pandemic world, some are still travel-averse, but we at Simplestream still see the value of meeting in person, and we make the effort.

Meeting, down under ?????

If you’re in the UK and need to do business in Australia, someone needs to take that 23-hour journey to the other side of the world for a meeting. That’s exactly what our Technical Director, Ashley Horne, did to meet our client, TVSN.

Working with a company that values meeting in person is more than a nice gesture at face value. Meeting face-to-face helps build relationships, trust, and can help problem-solve faster. In-person meetings are more collaborative because it’s easier to communicate effectively, without the usual distractions and digital fatigue that meeting virtually brings.

Best of all, you never have to tell someone “You’re on mute” when there’s no screen separating you ???

Multi-national business relationships ?????

It’s normal for most companies to use vendors from outside their home country for products or services. Some of Simplestream’s clients are based in the US, Canada, and even further afield.??

Having boots on the ground in your locale can be ideal, but it’s not essential. You could work with a vendor from the same city as your business that has a worse response time than one based in Shanghai. What use is having a neighbour if they’re never home???

Plan your visits and make it an event ???

International events make a great case for tying in a meeting with clients in that country, as you’re already there. Some members of the team recently attended the NAB Show in Las Vegas, which served as a great meeting point for attending clients.

Not only limited to attendees, but we also paid a visit to our clients who couldn’t make it to the show. Adam Smith, Simplestream’s CEO, personally visited a few of our clients in the US and Canada around the time of the show.?

So, should you choose to work with a business that’s only based in the UK? Yes, if they’re willing to travel ???

UNBOXED

Live events orchestration

What are the biggest challenges in managing live event schedules with content provided by multiple operators? The answer can be rather straightforward, and it comprises several key aspects, mostly related to the pain points platform owners are facing today when distributing content across digital channels.

Adam Smith, Simplestream's CEO, wrote about Live Scheduler, the latest evolution for our proprietary Media Manager. It's a bespoke enhancement for the built-in module for live events, and it provides an opportunity for platform owners of any size to bring multiple event data management capabilities under the same roof.

Keen to learn more? Book a meeting with our representatives, and discover the capabilities of our flexible tool to orchestrate live events.

SNIPPETS

?? The DTG Summit took place in London last week, and it was a great opportunity to meet face-to-face with many industry peers and stakeholders in our industry. Our Dan Finch was also part of a panel, discussing the 'great streaming evolution'. Read on, and learn more about our key takeaways from the session.

?? Global SVOD subscriptions are set to increase by 400 million between by 2028 to reach 1.76 billion. There's still remarkable subscription growth left, according to the?Global SVOD Forecasts report from Digital TV Research. Learn more here.