By Aidan Piper
Your Free Pass to Industry Experts and Insights
Taking place over the course of two days, O2’s annual Blue Door Expo is back on 14 – 15 October, giving us access to celebrity keynote speakers, industry insights, and the opportunity to network… all from your office chair.
WHERE IS THE EVENT?
Instead of bringing 1000’s of people together at The O2 arena, for obvious reasons O2 have created a ‘virtual arena’, in which to host demonstrations, presentations and opportunities to interact, explore and network. With so much going on, O2 have created an agenda that allows attendees to drop in and out of the sessions they want.
WHAT’S GOING ON?
Hear from Welcomm’s CEO, Aidan Piper as he shares which sessions he thinks will be most beneficial for business owners.
Day One
Day one is a solid start. With three avenues to follow; Future of Work, Future of Industry and Future of Society, you can be excused for being confused which you should prioritise.
MORNING
Following opening presentations from O2 Business MD Jo Bertram, and also Ismail Alam, Chief Growth Officer at Capita, I will be heading straight to the ‘Driving Innovation’ panel discussion, listed within the future of industry agenda avenue. As a business leader, I think it is imperative that we discuss the current challenges being faced, the attitudinal changes evident in business customers, and the need to maintain relevance more so today than ever before.
AFTERNOON
Prior to the closing keynote, delivered by Mark Evans CEO at O2 and Eddie Jones, Head Coach at England Rugby, there again is the chance to select another panel discussion to attend. On this occasion, the panel I think would be most beneficial to business owners, especially given the current climate, would be ‘Embracing Change; The Opportunities from Disruption’ taking place within the future of work agenda avenue.
So many of our customers have had to adopt new technologies (very quickly) to keep afloat during the time of COVID-19. Now that your teams have adapted to new working practices, and your customer’s expectations are aligned, your business has the opportunity to maximise operations and take advantage of new disrupting opportunities in the market. Interested? I’ll see you there.
Day Two
On day two, we are spoiled for choice. With lots of sessions running in parallel, I would recommend making sure that you prioritise the time to sit in on the following:
- “The key to enabling today’s workforce” – delivered by Debra Bailey, CIO at O2.
- “Defining opportunities for employee and customer engagement” – delivered by Richard Newsome, CTO – Corporate at Sainsbury’s.
- “Cyber-security; protecting at what cost?” – a panel discussion including representatives from the police.
AFTERNOON
With the final wrap up in sight, including a partnership address from Mark Evans, CEO at O2 and Paul Pomroy, CEO at McDonald’s UK, there’s one more panel discussion choice to be made…
Whilst all are sure to offer a lot of value, my choice for business owners would be to take note of “Data driven insights; the role of AI and analytics in a very human world”. With new IoT and 5G devices meaning every human on the planet will be creating a mass of data every second, it’s important for business owners to understand the value and opportunity data driven insights can achieve to create exceptional customer experiences, whilst also respecting the privacy of your customers.
