The IELA Operations Summit provides a platform for operational staff of IELA Member Companies to exchange ideas and experience and to pursue common goals in the industry. The next edition will take place from February 13th-15th 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand.

IELA's Operations Summit is a funded event exclusively for IELA Members and it is the only dedicated forum for exhibition and freight forwarding operation professionals, offering valuable perspectives on improving operational efficiencies, enhancing service standards, optimising worldwide relationships and increasing bottom lines.

The 2020 edition’s main topic will be the digitalisation of our workplace with experts addressing the topic and demonstrations of best practices by IELA Members. It will include 10 hours of lectures and 5 hours of 1-2-1 networking, with many additional opportunities for informal networking.

Bas Wiendels, IELA Education and Training Programme Working Group Chairman explains “The best way to realise how your future daily work will be is to look back at how it was 10 years ago. So just imagine what digitalisation will bring us in the next 10 years. I think that we have no idea about our work in 10 years from now. I do however think that the direction in which we are going is clear. Every step in the development of our day to day work will involve digitalisation.”

We have changed from Fax Mailings to e-Mail & Whatsapp, from advertising on paper to Social Media, from backup disks to using the Cloud. But with what kind of threats & opportunities does our operational staff need to cope in the next years? From the digital screening of volume to Venue Monitoring going as far as Digital Traffic Management, these technologies will probably be standard in a few years, or will they?

Lectures and workshops will be held by expert IELA Members and external lecturers like:
-    Digitalisation of our Industry -  Oscar Cerezales, MCI Group
-    Digital Operation -  Christoph Fritsch, Sempex AG
-    Venue -  Mr. Balasubramanian, BIEC India
-    Country File India - Max Fernandes, Informa Markets India

The IELA Operations Summit also offers each participant company with the opportunity to present themselves and their services to all fellow IELA members by taking part in the Poster Exhibition. This exhibition enables you to accentuate why you are unique in your field, what special skills and competences you offer and why you are a valuable associate.

During the 2018 edition, IELA offered a fully funded event to 61 delegates representing 53 IELA members from 27 countries and provided 10 engaging lectures by IELA experts from all over the world. Valuable insights were given from Konstantin Stathopoulos, Head of Sales & Handling South China, Hong Kong & Taiwan at Lufthansa Cargo AG with his presentation about Airline operations. There was also the talk on logistics requirements and solutions of exhibition centres presented by Ian Hume, Director Department Event Technology & Logistics at Messe Düsseldorf.

Vicki Bedi, 2018-2020 IELA Chairman, explains "IELA is committed to building skills for excellence. The ever-changing world with new technologies and processes presents opportunities as well as challenges. Personal skill upgrading is ongoing to achieve progress. The measure for one's progress is not by comparing with others, but by improving compared to yesterday. In this context, the IELA Operations Summit is focused on enhancing skills of member employees. I urge our members to send their nominees for a unique training opportunity where learning and networking will happen side by side."

Hunter Waddle from Airways Freight Corporation, USA, and participant at the 2018 Operations Summit explained “It is useful to come to these event to meet the colleagues with whom we work from other countries. It is very helpful to put a face to a name and also to see how other colleagues in other countries do their operations. I think it helps me to become a better employee and operator back home in my own office.”

Give your team members and colleagues the chance to experience IELA‘s benefits and spirit!

How to register:

• Login to the Member Zone www.iela.org
• You can skip this step if your delegate already has an IELA account. Go to My Team and create an Account. Once we send you the confirmation, you can continue.
• Click on “REGISTER FOR THE EVENT” on the "Operations Summit Button" at the Homepage of the Member Zone.
• Fill in the registration form for the delegate of your company.

Please Note: Only the company admin is able to register team members. The Operations Summit in Bangkok is a fully funded event (hotel + participation fee) for one delegate per member company. If you have joined two or more of the last three IELA Congresses, you will not be able to register personally. Join us in Bangkok in February 2020!