As the Content Manager at Copperberg, attending Aftermarket and that being Copperberg’s oldest and most established event was a huge deal for me. I was finally going to meet the people who I was writing, researching and reading for. I had the chance to learn from experts. And I would witness my colleagues do what they do best: turning knowledge into action by connecting peers and leaders, giving them the tools to achieve their goals.
Author Muge Hizal Dogaroglu | Copperberg
Reading time: 3 minutes
As the Content Manager at Copperberg, attending Aftermarket and that being Copperberg’s oldest and most established event was a huge deal for me. I was finally going to meet the people who I was writing, researching and reading for. I had the chance to learn from experts. And I would witness my colleagues do what they do best: turning knowledge into action by connecting peers and leaders, giving them the tools to achieve their goals. It would be a lie if I told you that I wasn’t nervous. I was nervous and excited at the same time.
Who are the participants? Will they share their thoughts with me? Will I be able to understand the discussions that take place? Will I be able to grasp huge concepts such as servitization, innovation and digitalization and be able to create content that is of value to our community here?
These were some of the questions I had during my first commute to Nykoping where the conference took place from 16th to 18th of October. And as cliche as it sounds, once I stepped out of the train, a sense of calm took over me. I told myself that I would do my best, have fun along the way and I would learn from my experience.
And after an intense yet fulfilling 3 days, I’m happy to share my impressions from Aftermarket.
Day 1
The first day of Aftermarket. Our participants are enjoying their coffees before their first sessions.
A friendly atmosphere
As I arrived at the hotel, I was surprised by the intimate atmosphere of the expo area. Sure, there was a lot of work being done; final touches to stands and a lot of questions that were directed to my colleagues Emilia and Elena at the reception. However, there were lots of smiling faces who were sipping their coffee between conversations or people slowly heading towards their first workshops as well. I joined the latter as my first session which was hosted by Vendavo was about the start.
Pricing explained
Hamed Hakimian and Ramin J. Imani from Vendavo providing strategies to rethink pricing.
My first session to join was Vendavo’s workshop “Prepare your Pricing Methodology for Tomorrow’s Uncertainties.” I was very curious because the pricing was one of the topics that regularly came up with my conversations with industry professionals and I had a lot of questions of my own. It seemed that my interest was shared among other participants as well. They sought ideas to find the right pricing that would not disturb customers but also lead to profit. Not an easy task.
However, Hamed Hakimian and Ramin J. Imani from Vendavo provided many useful strategies to rethink pricing and then tactics to implement these strategies within organizations.
One of the strategies that really stood out for me was finding new metrics. The new metric strategy is all about changing how you measure and price your services according to your customer needs.
Here is one of the examples Hamed gave for new metrics: BASF, a German chemical company that provides paint for cars used to price their paints in kg. However, upon realizing that the customers were more concerned about the price of getting a car painted rather than the price of 1 kg of paint, they reformed their prices. Now they provide the cost of getting one car painted.
I believe this approach will be more prevalent and profitable as more companies are moving towards servitization.
A thought-provoking presentation on technology
Entrepreneur, Speaker and Futurist Nicklas Bergman explains how technologies such as artificial limbs can have immense influence on daily lives of people.
Imagine being able to extract the knowledge from a retiring employee who has years of valuable experience and import this knowledge into your new employee.
Or the implications of insurance companies having access to your DNA.
The entrepreneur, speaker and futurist Nicklas Bergman’s presentation, “Surviving the Tech Storm” made me feel like being the protagonist in a sci-fi movie. You know, the character (in this case, me) wakes up after being in frozen for years, gains consciousness and realizes that everything has changed: driverless cars, robots, human artificial limbs and people wearing silver overalls…
Okay, perhaps there is still time for silver overalls but others are true. Nicklas’s presentation has made me realize how far technology has come and how much of it is integrated into real life. And more importantly, he focused on what goes into the process of making these abstract innovations a part of our everyday lives and how those technologies go on to change our behaviours and our lives.
My first interviews with attendees
One of my main goals at the event was to get to know our community: our participants, speakers and partners. What better way to learn their expectations, their challenges and thoughts about the future of business than to just ask them? However, I wasn’t sure how much they would open up to me. Luckily, I have never been so pleasantly wrong in my life.
My interviewees for the evening, not only answered all my questions, but they also provided very good advice for the future. One of my interviewees even helped me fix my broken microphone equipment. (Thanks Ramin!)
After my first set of interviews, I realized I had no reason to worry about cooperation. All my interviewees were eager and happy to share their expertise with me and provided me with lots of useful feedback to create even better content for them.
A newly-found curiosity
My first day at Aftermarket ended with a newly-found sense of happiness. Surely, I was curious to meet more members of our community.
My first day at Aftermarket ended with a newly-found sense of happiness. Surely, I was curious to attend more sessions and get more first-hand experience. However, I was most excited about meeting more members of our community. Indeed, I almost missed my train while I was catching up with an interviewee.
As I was rushing to catch my train, our guests were heading to their social activity of choice; whether it was beer tasting or go-kart. Their day was not over even though mine was.
If you would like to know more about my experiences at Aftermarket, read Part 2 and Part 3 of my impressions on Aftermarket which will be available in the coming days.
