As the leading B2B marketing communication agency and event management company in Japan, we work with many global technology brands. If your company is involved in the sales of technology products and services, you should utilize live events in order to show off your latest technologies

The CTC Forum 2019 was held last year in Tokyo and hosted by CTC, also known as Itochu Techno Solutions (CTC stands for their motto of Challenging Tomorrow’s Changes). CTC is the leading supplier of IT solutions in Japan representing more than 500 products across industries such as telecommunications, finance, distribution, manufacturing, science, engineering, education, and the public sector. CTC provides the IT products as well as services such as consultation, outsourcing, and system integration to provide solutions to all phases of the IT life cycle.

This is the 4th year that we have had the honor of supporting CTC with their large B2B conference, the CTC Forum. The event began when they combined two of their previous conferences ‘Industrial Solution Forum’ (held from 1987-2015) and ‘cloudageForum’ (held from 2008-2015). The events combined in 2016 and the first CTC Forum was held. 

The theme of 2019’s event was ‘The 5G of tomorrow, changing enterprise IT.’ Bigbeat was in charge of handling the planning, organization, venue, operation, and management of the event. 

The 2019 event saw the following stats:
・Over 2,500 visitors
・94 exhibiting sponsors in 11 different categories including AI, 5G, IoT, Big Data and more. 
・over 88 sessions

As one might image, it is no easy task to organize and manage such a large-scale event, especially when the main purpose was for attendees to discover all of the newest and latest technology. We were also responsible for creating an application that would not only help guide attendees in real time, but also support the sponsors by bringing more people to their booths and speeches. This application was called the CTC Forum Tour Pass. We first created the application for the CTC Forum 2018, due to its success we implemented it again, this improving and adding upon the previous version. 

One of the most important aspects of this application was that it was not a 3rd party application but instead built on our own in-house made web technologies. At most Japanese companies, employees are not allowed to download 3rd party apps onto their work phones for security reasons. By using standard web technology and ensuring that it can be displayed on all major web browsers, we were able to support the attendees and ensure a smooth experience. 
 
The web app of course also had to provide an enjoyable experience to the visitors. The app allowed users to check which sessions they had registered for and make changes to these. It also gave incentives to visitors for visiting all different booths in different categories allowing the sponsors to meet more people and make more business connections. 

While in Japan, it is not very common to see BtoB conferences that use this kind of technology we believe that they will increase in presence and popularity as professionals look for ways to make the user experience of events more enjoyable and decrease the burden on the attendees. 

Bigbeat Inc. understands the need to adapt and change as quickly as the times do. While events that use web apps may not be the norm in Japan now, we have worked to build our own platform that matches the Japanese market believing the need for this service will only increase with time. 

If you are considering holding an event in Japan and need support. Do not hesitate to contact us here!