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Trans-Tasman Business Circle Uses Zoom Webinars to Host Engaging ‘V-vents’

Trans-Tasman Business Circle's virtual thought leadership events and boardroom briefings drew 15,000+ attendees during the pandemic.

Trans-Tasman Business Circle

Founded: 1993

Location: New South Wales, Australia

Industry: Management consulting

Challenges: Shutdown of in-person events, retaining relevance in business community during pandemic

Solutions: Zoom Meetings, Zoom Webinars

Business benefits: Quickly transitioning to hosting engaging online events, reaching a wider audience, gaining metrics on audience behavior to improve event experience

We now see Zoom as a very big part of our future. And it's enabled us to create a whole new vertical of the business, which we're going to be calling the Trans-Tasman Business Channel. Zoom has helped us totally reinvent our business, giving us an opportunity to reach so many more important and influential voices. Zoom really has saved our business.

Tanya Oziel

Chief Executive

Trans-Tasman Business Circle

Founded: 1993

Location: New South Wales, Australia

Industry: Management consulting

Challenges: Shutdown of in-person events, retaining relevance in business community during pandemic

Solutions: Zoom Meetings, Zoom Webinars

Business benefits: Quickly transitioning to hosting engaging online events, reaching a wider audience, gaining metrics on audience behavior to improve event experience

We now see Zoom as a very big part of our future. And it's enabled us to create a whole new vertical of the business, which we're going to be calling the Trans-Tasman Business Channel. Zoom has helped us totally reinvent our business, giving us an opportunity to reach so many more important and influential voices. Zoom really has saved our business.

Tanya Oziel

Chief Executive

The Trans-Tasman Business Circle (TTBC) serves as a strategic growth partner for businesses in the private and public sector in the AsiaPacific region, assisting clients by building strategic relationships with organizations and increasing its business profile through stakeholder engagement.

With a network that includes business and government leaders, TTBC is able to build on established relationships to provide clients with customized solutions that meet their business objectives. Trans-Tasman Business Circle’s Insight Program also provides a high-level platform for lively discussion on the most pressing and relevant business topics in the region. The organization hosts over 150 briefings per year with business and government leaders and serves as an important resource for businesses and governments across the Asia-Pacific region.

Shifting operations during COVID-19

A large part of TTBC’s business model relies on connecting its clients with key decision-makers in their industries and bringing together thought leaders in the business world to create new business opportunities and insights. When COVID-19 began spreading across the world, TTBC needed to shift its entire operation to maintain its network of connections.

“We knew we had a major problem as soon as they started locking things down,” said Tanya Oziel, TTBC’s chief executive. “We asked ourselves, ‘How do we continue to be the platform for conversation? How do we keep a very isolated market engaged and how do we survive as a business and stay relevant?’”

Much of the value of TTBC’s business model is derived from its ability to bring together highly influential people in the right settings. COVID-19 made that impossible, so TTBC needed to find a way to recreate those events digitally while maintaining their inherent value.

“This is an organization that has, for the last 27 years, responded to the market demand, which has been getting the right people face-to-face so we can create that chemistry and strong business relationships,” said Johnny Weiss, Founder and Managing Director of TTBC. “Despite everything happening with this pandemic, our clients are still expecting us to get these C-level executives around the same table.”

Virtual thought leadership events

When COVID-19 shut down nearly all travel, the organization needed to quickly pivot to hosting virtual events to continue delivering its services and remain relevant. TTBC chose Zoom Webinars and was able to quickly start hosting online events.

We decided to go with Zoom Webinars, and within 48 hours we were up and running. We developed an entire thought leadership program for our business leaders, focusing on resilient leadership, business continuity, and connectivity. 

Tanya Oziel

Chief Executive, Trans-Tasman Business Circle

“We went out to probably about 20 of our top business leaders who needed a platform to speak during this time and within a short period of time we had an unbelievable program of high-level boardroom briefings, which we renamed ‘V-vents,'” she added.

With Zoom Webinars, TTBC could reach a much larger audience while retaining its position as a thought leadership resource and a platform for important discussion.

“I can very proudly say that in the last 10 weeks we’ve had over 15,000 people attend these events,” Oziel said. “There were also a lot of people in the media who were in lockdown who were able to use our content for their articles, and that was the only way those media organizations could actually engage with the business community. So we became very relevant in that space.”

Zoom Webinars also had the features TTBC needed to collect critical metrics about audience engagement and behavior, creating opportunities to improve the event experience and gain insights into top-of-mind issues for its audience.

“We love the analytics we get from the Zoom Dashboard,” Weiss said. “We can see how many people registered, how many of those people attended, how long they stayed, and how many views the content received. We use it all the time and we’ve never had that capability before. We’re currently working on creating a database for that data so we can leverage it to improve the event experience.”

“We’ve also used the polling feature extensively,” Oziel added. “It gives our attendees the opportunity to express what the business sentiment is in the marketplace and helps us continue these important conversations.”

Moving forward with Zoom

By implementing Zoom, TTBC was able to transform how it provides its services to clients and deliver these programs in a seamless, engaging format while retaining its position as a resource for thought leadership. As TTBC moves forward, the organization is excited for all the possibilities that can be achieved using Zoom.

“We now see Zoom as a very big part of our future. And it’s enabled us to create a whole new vertical of the business, which we’re going to be calling the Trans-Tasman Business Channel,” Oziel said. “Zoom has helped us totally reinvent our business, giving us an opportunity to reach so many more important and influential voices. Zoom really has saved our business.”

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