Marketing your company is one of the essential elements to success. One business who understands this is events company DSA, which has been helping businesses to reach out to customers for over two decades.
We spoke to Managing Director Emma Lawrence, who tells us more about how DSA became a success and what small businesses can do to make the the most of attending events and exhibitions.
Tell us about the company
“DSA specialise in developing world-class live environments for their international clients, using the latest knowledge and technology to enhance visitor engagement and deliver the most outstanding exhibition experiences worldwide from Las Vegas to Dubai. DSA have developed a strong reputation for excellence with history and experience unrivalled by others.
“The company began in 1979 and was primarily focused on exhibition stand design and build. In 1995, founder and chairman David Sargent formed DSA as we know it today, developing their portfolio to include extensive strategic support and marketing services to its clients.
“As the business has grown, DSA have expanded in size and expertise, winning large contracts with international clients including Nokia, Hitachi and Sony, building on-going working relationships with global partners. We are delighted to work alongside many well-known, international brands to generate a successful return on their investment.”
What motivates you?
“We pride ourselves on developing world-class live environments to deliver outstanding exhibition experiences. If faced with adversity, we thrive on the challenge of finding the appropriate solution.
“Being a friendly bunch, we enjoy making our clients happy by doing a fantastic job and it is the great sense of achievement which comes with this which motivates us to keep putting a smile on people’s faces.”
What’s been DSA’s greatest achievement?
“Our greatest achievement would be that we are still continuing to operate as a successful global business in 2016, 21 years from when we started. During the financial crisis of 2008, a large number of companies similar to DSA folded for a variety of reasons, in order to survive we needed to be accommodating to the dramatic changes in the market. Our clients had decreased financial budgets, and we needed to make sure that we were flexible to this when providing them with solutions.”
What challenges do you face?
“Our upcoming event schedule is certainly a challenge - we have four large-scale exhibitions with multiple installations approaching across Berlin, Hannover, Dubai and London in March. We primarily send our in-house Project Management team, but to overcome the busy scheduling challenges we tend to utilise the skills within our business, and often our exhibition designers will make the journey to assist with all the intricate design processes on site during the build.”
How was the business changed in the last few years?
“At DSA, we love to explore the new and continue to develop our expertise in delivering cutting edge, worthwhile solutions to aid successful lead generation. We have the ability to support our clients in developing a bespoke package to increase exhibition success and associated return on investment.
“Our work seeks to prove a successful return on investment for our customers. Exhibitions are a large expenditure for our clients - we need to ensure that when they exhibit, that they can clearly measure the events success, through a variety of visitor engagement tools and measurable applications.
“Our expertise in experiential live environments includes our understanding of exhibition data collection software such as Omnitapps, Poken and Akkroo. It’s always our aim to remain abreast of developments in exhibition technology, giving the best in advice, guidance and implementation.
“This year we have invested significant time and money to develop a brand new CRM system, ‘Hubspot’, which has enabled us to better manage and develop our communication with both current and potential clients. Integrating social media, regular blog posts, website management and e-mail send, the new system gives opportunity for a smooth and consistent relationship between the sales and marketing teams at DSA, allowing the two to work in partnership to liaise with and manage our relationship with clients around the world.”
What drives changes in your business?
“Our ambition at DSA is always to continue developing our passion, knowledge and expertise in the live events arena, maintaining our position as an integral and influential supplier to the exhibition industry. We aim to be well-respected and recognised as an outstanding agency who strives to achieve the best return on investment for their dedicated clients.
“We are exposed to and work alongside many industry sectors, honing our skills to serve the requirements of an expanding portfolio. We have the ability to cross boundaries and perform successfully alongside clients from an array of divisions, backgrounds and cultures; we are prepared to explore any market and continue to do so.
“Our expert team work daily with a multitude of clients with whom they have met at events across the world and have an incredible enthusiasm to develop their working relationship in order to secure business on behalf of DSA, always striving to deliver the best results we are possibly able to.”
What advice would you give to small businesses to get the most from their exhibitions and events?
“The best advice we at DSA could give to a small business which is looking to achieve the greatest result from their next event would be firstly to define clear objectives - ask yourself questions such as is your event focused on brand awareness? Are you selling a particular product or service? Is it purely a networking opportunity?
“A smaller business with a lower budget needs to inject their finances into the right areas to see the benefit, use your money wisely and allocate a generous portion of your finances to create an exceptional environment for your visitors. This doesn’t necessarily need to be a built structure, but could be the adaptation of an intuitive piece of data capture software.”
What do you think business owners need to do more often to achieve success?
“Richard Branson famously said, “If someone offers you an amazing opportunity and you’re not sure how to do it, say yes and learn how to do it later”. Our best advice would be to continue to challenge yourself to be real, be brave, and if you feel that something is worth doing then don’t hesitate.”
How does Sage help you achieve your success?
“Sage provides us with a fantastic variety of functions which the DSA team use on a daily basis. The multi-currency functionality enables us to manage our clients/suppliers within our debtors and creditors ledgers in their home currency. We use the projects module to maintain a detailed analysis of job profitability whilst the integrated reporting enables timely management and ad hoc reporting to be achieved, avoiding time consuming data entry into spreadsheets.
“Sage Payroll integrates seamlessly into Sage Accounts and the pension’s module enables us to comply with our automatic enrolment obligations on a monthly basis accurately and easily.”
What are your plans for the future?
“Our ambition at DSA is to continue developing our passion, knowledge and expertise in the live events arena, maintaining our position as an integral and influential supplier to the exhibition industry. We aim to be well-respected and recognised as an outstanding agency who strives to achieve the best return on investment for their dedicated clients.
“We are exposed to and work alongside many industry sectors, honing our skills to serve the requirements of an expanding portfolio. We have the ability to cross boundaries and perform successfully alongside clients from an array of divisions, backgrounds and cultures; we are prepared to explore any market and continue to do so.
“Our expert team work daily with a multitude of clients with whom they have met at events across the world and continue to develop their working relationship in order to secure business on behalf of DSA.”
For more information about DSA, visit their website.