It’s safe to say that when we entered 2020, full of hope and excitement for the year ahead – our first full year in business – we couldn’t have foreseen what lay ahead of us.
Our business was set up to create and manage cross-continent conferences and events, one so reliant on travel, personal contact, and helping to build face-to-face relationships for our customers. No-one could have predicted the devastation that lay ahead, however, just six months after being registered as a company, InfoTeam International was being forced to rethink everything.
We successfully launched our first event in Stockholm, Sweden, back in September & November 2019, and this opened up great opportunities to the business from both a sponsorship and client point of view. We knew our concept of small, niche events would be popular based on previous research, but as with every event we’ve run since, we took our first delegate feedback and started to shape the future accordingly.
February and March 2020 saw our launch in more new regions with events taking place in Norway, the United Kingdom, and the Benelux region.
And then, bam! COVID hit Europe and we were forced to cancel upcoming events across the continent. Troubled times for everyone, and after some weeks of trying to assess the overall situation and understand what would and wouldn’t be possible, we decided that the short-term future for us had to be virtual, so we launched our Smart Webinars.
We wanted to not only fulfill our sponsor’s commitments but also ensure we continued to provide a platform for thought leaders to get together and discuss the key topics of the day – and with large swathes of the modern world suddenly working from home without the usual security infrastructure, it has been a year of rapid escalation and change in the world of Cyber Security.
Our Smart Webinars were a huge instant success. hundreds of participants across a number of countries registered, with sponsors, speakers, and delegates alike continuing to share best practices in Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, and yet another new territory for us, when we launched CISO DACH in Germany.
Further new ground was broken in November 2020 with a successful launch in both Ireland and France, after a brief flash of ‘normal’ life, when we managed to hold a successful, socially-distanced event in Denmark, whilst restrictions were more limited! We were very grateful to those who attended, with everyone fulfilling their commitment and it’s safe to say everyone enjoyed meeting others in person, whilst being able to make those crucial connections face-to-face.
We finished the year with yet another hugely exciting launch, with the Philippines joining the InfoTeam roster with a new CIO event and our first international office, based in the capital, Manila!
The determination in getting the business off the ground and innovation demonstrated in pivoting in March and quickly organising the Smart Webinars, led to peer recognition with nominations for two awards; firstly in the Great British Entrepreneur Awards as Pivot Business of the Year, and this was followed by a nomination for Cyber Start-up of the Year at the Wales Start-Up Awards – two fantastic moments for a fledgling business and a sign for our team that things are definitely heading in the right direction!
As well as our uniquely intimate events which will continue as the core business going forward, InfoTeam are also driving to support our customers with day-to-day services, positioning ourselves as your Information Technology Ambassadors. Early in the new year saw the launch of our first service, our Growth Management Support package, where we help to organise targeted one-to-one meetings with prospects, saving you time and effort.
We built on this throughout the year and now offer additional services through carefully-selected partnerships with high-quality providers of Data Loss Prevention and Threat Hunting Solutions, amongst other marketing and functional services and support options.
Despite all the challenges facing us we are looking ahead to an even more successful 2021, and we have a number of exciting plans to move forward with.
Having applied for funding through the European Commission, we’re working on a new partnership to be part of the new proposed Smart Cities Europe Initiative, whilst we’re focused on not only building on our existing territories but launching in even more regions, including Finland, Luxembourg, Spain, and Italy.
Our small team of five has enjoyed the challenges of the year behind us, but are looking forward to an exciting future, and with three more being hired this spring to bolster the team, it will enable us to expand our services further and provide an even greater level of service to our customers.