Well, we’ve had 2 years of events organisers experimenting during the pandemic. But, I think it’s now widely accepted that virtual conferences aren’t that great when it comes to networking or lead generation.
It’s extremely hard to meaningfully network properly when you’re not at a face-to-face event, having lunch together or a glass of wine at the after party.
Everyone I have spoken to at conferences has confirmed that they really missed in-person events during the 2 years in the wilderness. Even though business travel has changed forever, I still think conferences will be seen as a worthwhile travel expense.
With in-person conferences now being back in full swing, it’s time to play catch-up!
An honest review of ProcureCon EU and DPW
I recently attended both DPW in Amsterdam and ProcureCon EU in Barcelona. So, I wanted to do a quick write-up about them both.
Perhaps you’re pondering which one you should go to this year?
I hope I can highlight some of the nuances of each conference. They are both very different conferences, but they serve their specific audiences extremely well.
Full disclosure – I attended both events with a media pass. However, what follows is a completely honest review and my neutral opinion of both conferences.
The lowdown on DPW
Let’s start with DPW.
This is a conference that really celebrates innovation and everything that is at the cutting edge of procurement. Startups are not just shoved in the corner, they represent the whole ecosystem being celebrated at the conference. Most of the presentations and panel discussions feature success stories of how an enterprise company has implemented a best-of-breed procurement tech solution.
No stale stories from the dinosaur legacy brands here. Interestingly, some of the companies who seemingly sponsor everything that moves were very noticeable by their absence!
What’s great about DPW?
The best thing about DPW is that you come away from it feeling really inspired. That digital really is the future of our profession, and that a lot of the day-to-day grunt work in procurement both can and will be automated. Which, in turn, will free us to concentrate on the more important stuff like SRM, sustainability, contract management and managing risk, thanks to advanced analytical capabilities.
DPW’s venue in the Beurs van Berlage was fantastic. It was laid out very well, and it was organised flawlessly as a conference. The venue is an old, iconic hall in the heart of Amsterdam. The opening party the night before in a club in the old town was awesome, with a great atmosphere and entertainment.
Likewise, the after-conference drinks on both days were great because it made it very easy to chat informally with some of the exhibitors. So, if you were attending many of the presentations and didn’t really have much time to walk around the exhibition hall, then the drinks party was a good opportunity to informally meet exhibitors and solutions providers.
Who were the attendees at DPW?
Aside from startups and solutions providers, I would say the core demographic among practitioners were more innovation-driven roles. Procurement Centre of Excellence Managers and Directors, process improvement roles, Heads of Digitisation were common. There were also attendees there from IT functions too.
My feeling was that it was less of a CPO-level audience and was more focused on the process improvement and excellence type of procurement practitioners.
The biggest downside I would take from DPW is that certainly the ratio of buyers to sellers was perhaps 50 / 50. I don’t have the figures from the organisers, but that’s just my gut feeling of walking around walking around the floor and interacting with people.
If you’re a solutions provider looking to build partnerships and alliances with other solutions providers, then it’s not an issue. I actually had conversations with three or four solutions providers after the event, and they all said that they were very content with the number and quality of leads that they picked up. So, it definitely seems to attract the right attendees.
Where could DPW improve?
In terms of the content itself, I was spending a lot of my time having meetings with solutions providers, so I didn’t get to see that much of it. I’m therefore a little bit reliant on my peers whom I spoke to both during and after the event.
The general feedback was that a lot of the speakers were in some capacity sponsors of the conference. This had an impact on the overall quality of the content that was being put out there in the presentations, with some notable exceptions that were lauded.
I heard great things about the presentation from Sam de Freitas from Mars. I really enjoyed the panel session with Lean Linking and Roche, moderated by Charlotte de Brabandt. Also, I heard great feedback from Dr. Elouise Epstein’s session.
I would also have some reservations about attending as a more general practitioner if my role wasn’t focused on digital transformation. If my main objective was to go there and network with other practitioners and benchmark where I am against my peers, then I may be a little disappointed.
What about ProcureCon EU?
So now let’s move on to ProcureCon EU. As an event it was very different. It was held in the conference suite of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Barcelona. In terms of the number of attendees, ProcureCon certainly felt more intimate. Whereas DPW had approx. 1000 attendees, ProcureCon EU only had around 350.
The venue didn’t feel empty during any of the sessions. I suspect that the number of attendees was similar to what Worldwide Business Research, the organisers of ProcureCon, expected.
Who were the attendees at ProcureCon EU?
There were a lot fewer sponsors and exhibitors, too. These were exhibiting in the adjacent hall to the main stage, which is also where they served coffee during the breaks.
Speaking to the WBR team at the event, they confirmed it was a roughly 70 / 30 split in terms of procurement practitioners versus solutions providers and sponsors.
In terms of seniority, I would definitely say that ProcureCon attracts a senior audience. Most of the attendees were Director level and there were also a number of CPOs too. Of course, this is my unscientific analysis of just looking at badges around the conference and speaking to people.
What content was presented at ProcureCon EU?
ProcureCon really did drive home the reality that most enterprise procurement teams are still struggling the same things as they were 10 years ago. For example, quality of data, issues with maverick spend, stakeholder engagement, trying to get more influence within the organisation, bringing more spend under management etc.
If DPW was about inspiration and the future, ProcureCon was about the reality of where we are right now.
The general consensus was that procurement is having to juggle a lot of different balls, especially now with things like sustainability, diversity and risk management coming more to the forefront. The same challenges are ubiquitous across almost all organisations. Procurement teams just don’t have the resource to manage all of it, so what do you tackle first?
Headline topics at ProcureCon were digitisation, sustainability (and ESG more generally), as well as attracting and retaining the best talent. I attended one of the afternoon smaller group sessions talking about contingent workforce management, which was a great insight for me personally.
What’s great about ProcureCon?
It was certainly more intimate as an event. The way it was set out also made it much easier to mingle and interact with fellow attendees during the breaks than at DPW.
In general, the content was much more centred around the challenges we’re facing as a profession, rather than the more visionary aspect of DPW. So, it was back down to earth with a bump in some ways. It made me realise that I definitely don’t miss the day-to-day of being a Category Manager!
The presenters were a senior level and generally presented well. However, with one or two exceptions, they were not expert public speakers, and that sometimes showed.
They seemed to lack experience compared to the startup founders or industry experts who spoke at DPW. But nonetheless, the content was mostly good quality. You come away more knowledgeable about what is also giving your fellow peers in corporate procurement sleepless nights.
I was able to attend many more of the talks and sessions because I wasn’t having meetings as much as at DPW. As such, I got to see and listen to and participate in a lot more of the conference.
How could ProcureCon EU improve?
The only criticism of ProcureCon EU is that planned to spend the third day in the exhibition hall speaking to a few of the solutions providers. To my surprise, the whole exhibition hall where the solutions providers were exhibiting had been completely cleared.
I don’t recall seeing this communicated anywhere in the ProcureCon app or agenda. That was disappointing, not being able to see the ones that I had not manage to speak to on the first two days. Had I have known, I would clearly have planned my attendance and priorities a little differently.
The App was also a bit clunky compared to Brella, which DPW uses.
Conclusion
What you will get out of either event really depends on what you’re looking for.
I would highly recommend both of them in terms of professionalism and event organisation. Also, it’s great just being able to get out and meet either peers or solutions providers. Everyone who I spoke to was very open to talk and interact.
Both were facilitated in such a way that there was time during the breaks to go and talk to people. Neither of them felt rushed. I certainly plan to attend both of them this year too.
If you’re going, drop me a message and let’s have a coffee or a glass of wine at the after party!
