Look Forward - Lessons Learned from the Pandemic

Some lessons are learned the hard way - the ongoing pandemic has certainly underscored that reality.?Rather than dwelling on the past, identify the takeaways from your experiences. Simply put, define the future and don’t allow the past to dictate your destiny.

As you can imagine, the past few years have profoundly impacted the events management industry. When the pandemic initially hit, in-person and live events were instantly frozen. No one knew what Covid 19 held in store; and events were postponed and canceled, practically overnight.

At the beginning, we were not certain how long this scenario would last. Would it be days? Months? A year? One thing we knew for sure: we needed to shift gears, assess the situation, and provide answers to our team and clients. It was our responsibility to be proactive and provide solutions.

There was no roadmap or strategy in place to manage a pandemic. One thing was clear: we had to rethink the future and view our company as a start-up to get there. Our team put on their creative thinking caps and viewed the situation as being full of new possibilities and opportunities. But we had to act in order to keep moving forward.

We transformed our way of business at the speed of light, creating systems and protocols that normally would take years to develop. We accelerated our digital roadmap, consolidated our inventory, made changes to systems and structure, and carefully managed cash flow.????

As a team, we worked hard to improve in every way. We viewed Freeman, a global event production company, a bit like a start-up. Rather than being passive or slow to react, we moved quickly. Our customers needed us to do so. We could not afford to rely on the systems and ways of doing business that had worked for us for the last 94 years.

There were countless lessons learned, and I think going forward the biggest takeaway is that as a team we assessed the situation, recognized opportunities, and implemented them immediately. Through trial and error, the team came up with many innovative solutions, and as a result, we were able to offer new programs and services for our customers.

We also partnered with our clients — we helped them navigate the changing waters of online, live, and hybrid experiences by providing data, insights, and transformational solutions. Companies needed to keep connecting to customers, so we worked together to find ways to keep them connected. We implemented new offerings in a matter of weeks, an effort that may have taken years to introduce before the pandemic.

Looking ahead, as a company and as a team, we know we can implement changes and pivot where needed and where our customers need us. And while the last few years were challenging, we survived and thrived, coming out as a smarter, stronger team supporting our customers and knowing we are getting through this together.