Easyfairs, the Brussels-based event organiser and venue manager, has been named Belgium’s “Enterprise of the year®” for 2018. Since 1996, this has been the most prestigious award “reserved exclusively for the absolute elite” of Belgian companies. An independent jury of specialists crowned Easyfairs with the award, based on the criteria of strategic focus, innovation, openness to the world, exemplary management, strong governance and financial performance. The award is sponsored by Ernst & Young in association with Belgium’s leading business newspaper, L’Echo, and BNP Paribas Fortis.

“Easyfairs stands out as the reference exhibitions organiser and venues manager in Belgium and beyond and has joined the Top 20 exhibition organisers worldwide,” commented Easyfairs Founder and Group CEO, Eric Everard. “This award is a huge vote of confidence for an amazing team effort and a fantastic boost for our future endeavours.”

Both Everard and Chief Operations Officer Anne Lafère underline that the basis for Easyfairs’ success is its talented and well-trained workforce.

Welcoming the award, Lafère said:

“The events business is first and foremost a profession for men and women. Our Easyfairs Academy enables us to share best practices and cascade them across the organisation through live events and e-learning. The objective is to bring our talents to their full potential and to keep the competence curve as high as possible. Learning and development have not only accelerated skills development but also dramatically improved employee engagement and, in consequence, employee retention.”

Since its creation 20 years ago, Easyfairs has been a veritable model of creative growth: 13% per annum, through the launch of new event brands, the development and geo-cloning of existing brands, and the acquisition of brands from other organisers. “Each year we reinvest 80% of our profits in future projects and activities,” commented Everard. Easyfairs currently organises 218 events in 17 countries and manages exhibition halls in Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden. It now has 750 employees.

Easyfairs has also developed a highly customer-centric approach, with communities driving its product development. With each of the events it organises, Easyfairs’ sees its mission as enabling people to “Visit the future”, fostering connections and offering life-changing experience.

Easyfairs also stands out through its culture of innovation, both in terms of the events it organises and the technology that supports its events and venues. And last but not least, Easyfairs has achieved stand-out organisational agility through the geo-cloning of event concepts, and the industrialisation of core processes across the Easyfairs network of offices.

“Events that bring communities together have, more than ever, a great future ahead of them, but only on condition that they put the customer at the centre of each decision and maximise the customer experience, which must be easy, sociable, innovative and transformative. And the use of new technologies must, more than ever, serve to facilitate this experience,” concluded Everard.

Pictured: Chief Executive Officer Eric Everard