Why Trade Shows?
Amidst the rapidly changing business environment driven by digitalization and the global economy, an "participatory" business mindset has become critically important in the United States. This is because active engagement—whether in a meeting or an event—allows for instantaneous grasp of challenges and needs, and enables quick business expansion by facilitating the exchange of concrete solutions.
Actively exhibiting at events and trade shows is a concrete and effective way to practice this "participatory" approach. It serves as a crucial means to rapidly appeal products to a wide and diverse audience (customers and partners), elicit feedback and advice from them, and subsequently implement swift improvements to products and revisions to business plans.
In particular, many companies involved in shaping business trends participate in US trade shows, competing with advanced technologies and ideas. Therefore, active involvement through "exhibiting" is essential to ride the next major wave of future business.
Is Exhibiting in the US Too High a Hurdle?
However, many people might feel that exhibiting at events and trade shows in the US is a very high hurdle. The following challenges are often cited as reasons for hesitation:
– Is the product itself still insufficient in terms of completeness? – How will the follow-up after the exhibition be handled? – Are the sales and maintenance systems still underdeveloped?
Conversely, the mindset of many US companies that actually participate in these events is, as explained below, quite different.
The Reality of Exhibiting at Events in the US and Europe
Exhibiting as a Crucial Source of Information
The US market is enormous in both scale and sector, and needs or uses that exhibitors (sellers) cannot even anticipate may exist—and the trade show is where these are found.
For "buyers," who often don't know what they might find until they attend a show, thousands or tens of thousands will circulate the booths over several days at large events, asking questions that surprise even the exhibitors.
Through these interactions, a wealth of new needs ad applications are uncovered.
Now is the Time When "Encounters" Are Everything
"Encounters" have always been important. However, now that doing something new no longer requires excessive time or money, thanks to the utilization of the internet and digital technology, an encounter—meeting someone or discovering something new through exhibiting—has become the fastest path to building a business.
The "Silicon Valley style" is for one encounter to lead to another, creating a network chain reaction that results in unanticipated developments.
Iterate and Adapt
Another key point is the sense of speed. The "Silicon Valley style" is to launch a business using the shortest possible path, constantly adjusting its trajectory based on "needs discovery" and "encounters," even before the product is fully complete.
While sales and maintenance systems are built up gradually to match this pace, for many Japanese companies, this kind of system development is actually part of their "new business launch." Unless they start there, they will never be able to fully penetrate Silicon Valley.
