GRAPHISOFT Japan Co. Ltd. is the Japanese corporate body of GRAPHISOFT® SE, the industry’s first architectural company to offer the BIM (Building Information Modeling) software ARCHICAD® for architects.
GRAPHISOFT is a global company that was first established in 1982 in Hungary. Besides Japan, GRAPHISOFT has offices in Germany, Austria, America, the UK, Brazil, Singapore, Hong Kong, China (Beijing), Mexico, and Italy.
GRAPHISOFT has established itself as the world’s top PC-based architectural CAD software maker, covering all areas of the world including of course the big three AEC (Architecture Engineering Construction) marketplaces: America, Japan, and Germany.
GRAPHISOFT is the world’s first architectural 3D CAD/BIM manufacturer.
Marketing Department representatives, Mr. Masayuki Hirano and Mr. Shoji Kamihara, spoke with us regarding KCC, a global event that was held in Kyoto in 2017.
Two members from GRAPHISOFT Japan’s Marketing Dept. and Bigbeat’s Account Executive in charge.
For GRAPHISOFT’s global events, there are two conferences: the client-targeted conference KCC (Key Client Conference) and the partner-targeted conference IPC (International Partners Conference).
Both are important marketing events for GRAPHISOFT.
KCC is basically held in Hungary each year, but it was held in Japan in 2015 and 2017.
Often, the events sponsored by the headquarters are held in unique venues such as the National Parliament Building, museums, and old castles in the European region.
Clients come from all over the world to not only receive the latest business information, but to also enjoy the entertainment aspect of the events. Over 250 clients were invited to the 2017 event held in Japan. Within those, more than half were clients coming from overseas.
In GRAPHISOFT’s Marketing Department, two people handle all promotion. This includes exhibitions, seminars, advertising, brochure creation, client case coverage, press correspondence, and digital marketing such as websites and social media, etc. As such, we were also entrusted the important duty as hosts for the KCC2017.
Bigbeat supported us as a one-stop service, providing everything from event planning to client and vendor correspondence, to even day-of operations and management. We have over a 10-year relationship with Bigbeat, and this time the Account Executive even cooperated as our third marketing staff member.
First was the venue selection. We immediately thought we needed a unique venue for the event in Japan. From that, Bigbeat offered the choices of Hokkaido, Tokyo, Kyoto, and Okinawa as candidate locations, and then proposed for us by providing each area’s general information, venue research, venue negotiation, and even attractions in the region. Within those choices, Kyoto was selected due to its many popular tourist attractions, accommodations in hotels and Japanese inns, convention centers, and its unique point of being urban while also preserving the structures and townscape that emanate Japan’s traditional culture and history. Thereafter, we requested Bigbeat to negotiate with the hotels and temples, secure modes of transportation, and arrange for attractions such as the tea ceremony, samurai show, and so on.
The work of Bigbeat’s event management office really helped us out. They assisted with the registration of over 250 guests, all types of communication, the arrangement of accommodations, and preparation of visa documentation, etc. For this event in particular, we had many clients and many members from GRAPHISOFT coming from overseas to Japan, so English correspondence was indispensable. They assigned an American staff member to handle the event correspondence, so we could rest easy and left the project in their hands.
Each client’s customized information was printed on the guest passes.
Reception area
For this event, we utilized numerous venues so there was a lot of movement from one place to another. However, due to the arrangement of pertinent staff workers and the preparation of an app, the operation of the entire event went smoothly and without a hitch.
Six buses were arranged for transportation between the venues.
Guide staff members were stationed at every turn to assist guests.
Including not only the clients but also GRAPHISOFT’s members, the overseas participants were extremely happy with the event. We were relieved that there were no troubles and that we were able to fulfill our important duty as hosts. The Japanese clients were also pleased since business events of an entertainment nature are few and far between. We believe this also contributed greatly to GRAPHISOFT’s branding.
Catering being prepared within the temple grounds.
Up-to-date information was delivered to the smartphone app via push notification.
Please see more about the event in the article at the link below.
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