Issue link: http://tourismwpg.uberflip.com/i/1221195
22 2020 Business Development & Communications plan Business development activities YW's business development activities include prospecting, in-person meetings, follow-up calls, relationship building, presentations, proposals and pitches, tracking, customized site inspections and servicing. Business retention and expansion Twenty-six local companies have been identified for business retention and expansion (BRE) interviews and intelligence gathering, for actionable insights and services offered. For 2020, 15 BRE interviews are slated to take place. Sector activities » Travel to conferences/meetings (chosen by subsector focus) where C-suite decision makers are in attendance. » Engage with investment officers/trade offices and consulates to determine what activities may be relevant in their jurisdiction that align with our subsectors. » Meet with Tech MB and New Media Manitoba on a regular basis to keep sector aligned and collaborating. » Attend local tech meet-ups and events to network with industry cross-sections. » Focus on retention of local tech firms. » Determine YW's role in a partnership with Harvest Ventures for Winnipeg. Sales initiatives CES, Las Vegas .................................................................. Jan. 2020 Mobile World Congress, Barcelona ............................. Feb. 2020 Unite the Prairies, Saskatoon ........................................ May. 2020 Collision, Toronto ............................................................... Jun. 2020 Mobile World Congress Los Angeles ...........................Oct. 2020 Smarter chatbots and workforce upskilling 2018 brought an influx of chatbots and AI-driven technology, but many of these experiences needed major improvements. These improvements continue to be bolstered by natural language processing (NLP) and sentiment analytics, where NLP assists businesses with gathering insights to improve their services, and sentiment analytics should hopefully be able to pick up when a customer is distressed about the issue at hand. The omnipresent power of data With more companies making use of collected data to influence important decisions regarding product, services and strategy, it is no surprise that data utilization forms the core of many digital-transformation trends. This driving force will only get stronger in the coming years. In the past, users had to be quite involved and skilled at analysing data, but now business-intelligent platforms, such as QlikSense and Tableau, generate meaningful business analytics and trend reports for you – a testament to the way data impacts our everyday life. A seamless multi-cloud environment Many of the cloud giants have already come to the party, with Amazon incorporating private clouds in their offering and Microsoft mixing on-premise and cloud infrastructures together in the form of hybrid Azure. This connected cloud trend all boils down to one thing – every business is striving to get the most value from their digital transformation journey, and a mix of workloads running on public, private and hybrid models is a great way to do this. Enhanced customer experience Through customer relationship management systems, client services will now be looking at deeply integrating their front-end phase from multi-channels to business processes in the background. By doing this, the middleman can fall away and the customer can be given their answer immediately, putting them at ease and allowing for a more seamless interaction between the business and its clients. Technological advancements not only alter the way in which we work, play and interact, but they also help us grasp a better understanding of our customers and their individual needs. Source: Connection telecom ICT sector trends Supporting subscriptions/memberships Tech Manitoba, New Media Manitoba ICT focused marketing activities In addition to the overall marketing activities, a custom video bid/pitch will be developed to provide a more relevant approach to target audiences and increase engagement Photo courtesy Tyler Walsh PRIMARY SECTORS 22 2020 Business Development & Communications plan