Goodbye ECN? Advantage Business Marketing Closes
I was really sad to see the news that Advantage Business Marketing has closed. Although this news has yet to be confirmed, the lack of a response from Advantage Business Marketing (ABM) suggest that unfortunately the publisher is closing and with it ECN may disappear. Of course there is still a chance that ECN could be acquired from the ashes of ABM, although now that Arrow has stopped its acquisition frenzy we don’t seem to be overloaded with too many organisations looking to buy an electronics publication.
I would like to relate the situation directly to the electronics market, but in this case, I don’t think I can. Although ECN was a major part of ABM, it probably wasn’t dominant enough to cause the failure of what was a substantial organisation. In fact, ABM position ECN as just one of the “five pillars” – the five publications on which the business had been built.
It does leave some worrying questions about the American electronics publications that remain standing. Can they survive? Will niche B2B publishing even survive in the US?
The good news is that some publishers are still more than confident about the future and may even see a smaller field of titles as an opportunity to grow market share. In fact, Julia Stocks, one of the owners of Power Systems Design seemed even more optimistic than ever about PSD’s future when we emailed about the closure of ABM.
Let’s hope that this is an isolated event. With much of the ownership of electronics media in the USA concentrated in the hands of Arrow, we don’t want to see an oligopoly form as competitors shut down. The result of a concentration of media ownership is rarely good, and competition is something that everyone should welcome as a way to force the electronics media to become even better than it is today.
Napier and Armitage: the inside story
Today we announced that we have merged with Armitage Communications, a really exciting development that takes the existing Napier Group (Napier and Peter Bush Communications) to the next stage of our journey and means we can be an even better agency for our clients.
We aren’t perfect… but we’re very, very good
We are always looking for other agencies that can bring new things to the Napier Group. Although we invest a lot of time and money into training, once you realise that perfection is unachievable, the opportunities to combine the best bits of two great organisations becomes very compelling.
What Armitage brings
There are so many things about Armitage that made me want to do the deal, but they can be summarised by three things:
People: the talent in Armitage is truly amazing. I’m blown away by many areas in which they excel, including the quality of their writing; their design and animation; and their marketing automation and database expertise. These skills are basically a reflection of the talented people at Armitage. The team are also nice people. I want to only work with people I like, and the Armitage team are wonderful from David Armitage downwards.
Culture: Armitage has a culture that in many ways is like Napier. They care about doing a good job for the client and are proud of the work they do. They also bring a culture of real creativity that generates some of the best PR concepts I’ve seen. It’s going to be great to be a part of this culture.
Markets: the business reason is that Armitage is a B2B technology agency, just like Napier, but works in slightly different markets. They are much stronger in industrial automation than we are and have an impressive communications practice. There is no point in an agency getting together with another one that has conflicting clients, and this isn’t the case with Armitage.
Napier’s contribution
A company acquisition is always hard for a managing director. It’s easy to run after the new, shiny business and forget about the great organisation you had before. I’m confident this won’t happen as I’m still excited about Napier, even after 18 years. If I was a client, I can honestly say I would hire Napier: perhaps this isn’t surprising, but I’ve always thought of running an agency as being a job where you try to create an agency whose fees you’d happily pay if you were on the other side of the fence.
Like Armitage, Napier has great people and a strong culture. In addition to the complementary markets, we bring expertise in processes and efficiency; an outstanding approach to training and development and loads of experience working in other European countries. Peter Bush Communications has a team with market expertise that is synergistic with Armitage’s markets and I’m sure the two business units will work together closely.
Isn’t this all about size of the business?
No.
Let’s face it, one of the nicest things you can do is to give people jobs. And I would be lying if I said my ego wasn’t massaged just a little by the chance to run a business like Armitage, as well as Napier and PBC. But there have been many other, probably easier, opportunities to grow by acquisition that we’ve had over the last few years and we’ve turned them down. If we were looking for other agencies to get together with just to grow the business, the Napier Group would already be three times the size.
Getting together – it doesn’t matter what size you are, it’s always difficult
I was talking to a client who was involved in multi-billion-dollar acquisitions, who said to me that he felt that size of deal didn’t really impact complexity, and that it might even be easier to negotiate a huge deal because you had a bigger team. He’s a really nice guy, and I don’t for a minute believe he really meant what he said (the deals he worked on have transformed an industry), but there is an element of truth.
Once you start trying to bring two businesses together, you get lawyers involved. While they do a really good job, things are always more difficult, more complex and slower than you ever imagined. We thought that it would take two months to get everything completed and it took more than twice as long. It’s been a nightmare having to keep quiet about something that is so exciting and such good news for so long, and I’m relieved I can finally talk about Armitage publicly.
What happens next?
Fortunately, we have some experience: getting together with Peter Bush Communications was extremely successful and we are looking to repeat the success with Armitage. We’re moving to single systems for our back-office, but initially there will be little change in the way that any of the three companies in the Napier Group work on a day-to-day basis. Each business is rightly proud of their brand, and we want to develop and grow the Armitage brand as part of a strong group of companies. The priority for me, however, is to ensure we share the areas of unique expertise of each of the three businesses with the other two.
From a client point of view, it probably means that very little will change in the short term. Hopefully in the long term we will be able to help you with more projects and have a larger team with an even broader range of skills working for you.
The teams will have an opportunity to work with more colleagues on a wider variety of clients and project. There will also be the chance to learn new skills.
Any other mergers or acquisitions in the pipeline?
As I mentioned before, we’re always looking for other agencies that could make us a better company. So, I certainly wouldn’t rule out another deal in the future. But we’re very picky. Extremely picky! It took us about five years (during which time we said “no” a lot!) to find PBC, and another five to find Armitage, so don’t hold your breath waiting for news of another deal!
If you have any other questions, please do ask me. We’re excited about how getting together can benefit all our clients, and I’m looking forward to lots of interesting conversations over the next few months.
B2B Technology Agencies Napier and Armitage Communications Merge
Napier Partnership Limited announces that it has completed a merger with Armitage Communications Limited, creating a group of three specialised B2B technology agencies comprising Napier, Peter Bush Communications and Armitage Communications.
The three brands bring together an extensive portfolio of clients across a wide range of B2B technologies and industries including semiconductors, industrial automation, software development and communications.
Managing director, Mike Maynard leads the Napier group of companies. Suzy Kenyon takes on the role of director of the electronics practice, while Dave Ingle is director of the industrial automation and IT practice. Armitage Communications’ founder, David Armitage continues to work within the business. He will be driving the strategy for Armitage Communications’ clients.
“Armitage Communications brings a successful and talented team with outstanding content generation expertise and expands our client base and capabilities in the industrial automation and communications sectors,” commented Mike Maynard. “By joining forces, the new organisation becomes one of Europe’s leading B2B technology agencies.”
“Joining Napier is the next step in Armitage Communications’ journey,” said David Armitage. “Napier’s focus on increasing the speed that clients can convert awareness to opportunity, and its extensive marketing automation expertise complements the skills of the Armitage Communications team.”
“All three companies in the group deliver high quality technical campaigns based on deep insight,” added Mike Maynard. “Together they offer a comprehensive range of services including media relations, content generation, media buying, marketing automation, design, animation, video and translation.”
The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Seven B2B Technology Marketing Predictions for 2019
At Napier we used to write predictions for the coming year, but have got out of the habit. This is mainly because everyone writes predictions, but also partly because B2B marketing doesn’t always adopt new trends first: as an industry, we like to use tactics that work rather than simply chase the latest, shiniest idea.
Writing the predictions, and then seeing how wrong we were, was fun. So, we’re re-starting our predictions for 2019. In an industry that avoid the hype, it’s perhaps easier to see the future, but hopefully these predictions will still give you some interesting insight. Here’s what we think will happen in 2019…
ABM Adoption Grows Rapidly
What will happen: Account-based marketing is dramatically more effective than less-targeted marketing tactics and the tools available today make it easy to implement ABM. More and more B2B tech companies will add campaigns that target key accounts or major prospects in 2019.
Why we believe this: Let’s be honest, a lot of mumbo-jumbo is talked about ABM. It really doesn’t have to be that complicated, and often the simpler tactics are the most effective. We think this year companies will realise they don’t need complex campaigns or expensive tools to target specific accounts, and this realisation will drive a massive increase in the use of ABM tactics.
Persona-based Marketing also Grows Quickly
What will happen: Companies that don’t currently use persona-based marketing will adopt it as a way of better targeting their campaigns and tactics. Although many companies already use personas, a surprising number of B2B tech companies are not fully committed to personas, but this will change in 2019.
Why we believe this: Firstly we don’t think ABM is going to kill persona-based marketing (unlike Marketing Land). B2B companies will want their marketing to reach beyond their list of target accounts and persona-based marketing is the most effective way to achieve this.
Personalisation Continues to Increase Rapidly
What will happen: It will be less and less common to interact with a B2B brand and have the same experience as everyone else. Hyper-targeted advertising (including ABM), dynamic content on websites and highly personalised email will be the norm as brands communicate with you on a much more personalised level.
Why we believe this: Frankly it’s not that hard to personalise. Modern tools enable high levels of customisation without much work, making the benefits of a more targeted and personalised approach impossible to ignore.
Picking the “Best” Martech Tool is Less Important
What will happen: Marketing technology (martech) tools will all offer adequate functionality for most users. This means there will be significantly less advantage in picking the best tool, with results more dependent upon the creativity behind the campaign than the tool itself.
Why we believe this: Frankly most marketing tools are pretty fabulous. Generally, you can get 90% of your functionality from any of a number of tools, whether you are looking for social media monitoring or marketing automation. Spending less time worrying about the tools you use and more time on the campaign will be the right approach. Of course, there will be a few exceptions with horrible tools that are painful to use and don’t deliver basic functionality – why not ask us for our list of the tools we wouldn’t touch?
Magazines Don’t Disappear for Most B2B Industries
What will happen: If there isn’t any dramatic macro-economic change – i.e. no major recession – we don’t see print magazines disappearing anywhere in Europe. Revenue will continue to drift online, but publishers will preserve their print offerings.
Why we believe this: It’s pretty clear that magazines are not collapsing. Putting ink on dead trees and then getting people to distribute the information physically seems like something that should have died out, but we can’t see any evidence of it happening. There’s certainly no evidence that people want to read magazines on tablets. So, we just don’t see any decline in print readership or advertising this year, although we do question the long-term future of print in B2B.
Social Media Still Doesn’t Deliver as a Primary Channel
Please be clear – we’re not saying that social isn’t relevant to B2B – it’s an important channel and you ignore it at your peril. In B2C, however, social has overtaken traditional media for many brands: we just don’t see it making that much of an impact in B2B.
What will happen: Well, not very much. Although social is an effective channel for B2B, it doesn’t have the same impact as it does in consumer markets. Although there are a few industries, particularly software development, where social media is important, in most cases engineers don’t share much about their work publicly, meaning that social is rarely one of the top 2-3 marketing channels for any B2B tech company. This isn’t going to change in 2019 (although LinkedIn will see an increase in advertising due to the uptake of ABM).
Why we believe this: With the inevitable desire for secrecy during product development, the difficulty of sharing information about complex systems in bite-sized social media format and the difficult of applying social to B2B technology (would you want to publicly “like” a new M5 fastener?), social is going to struggle to dramatically grow its influence in B2B.
Clicks are No Longer the Most Important Metric
What will happen: There are still a huge number of B2B companies that measure “clicks”, with no reference to quality. This will end in 2019 as companies increase their focus on the impact their marketing has on business results, rather than vanity metrics.
This trend is already well under way, pioneered by companies that offer online sales and so can measure their business impact easily. In 2019 companies that don’t sell primarily through direct ecommerce will adopt goals and metrics that are much more meaningful that traffic generated. The impact will be huge: companies will need to balance quality and quantity of content as well as the sometimes conflicting demands of the SEO consultant and needs of the end user. Thinking more holistically about campaigns will require a much more strategic approach but will generate far greater returns.
Why we believe this: The focus on maximisation of traffic isn’t working. Marketing teams know this and understand that moving conversion rates from 2% to 3% will have a much bigger impact on their business than the last 10% of search engine optimisation. This is going to demand marketing strategies that look across the whole customer journey and optimise for maximum return. Ecommerce and SAAS companies are already there. this year B2B marketers who can’t directly track the impact of their activities on revenue will introduce much smarter metrics to get a better handle on the return their campaigns generate.
We’d love to know what you think 2019 has in store for B2B technology marketers. Have we got it right? Do you think there are other trends we should be watching? Alternatively, perhaps you don’t believe some of our assertions. Whatever you think, why not contact me, tell me what you think and ask me to explain more about how you could benefit from these changes in 2019.
Win a Copy of ASML'S Architects
Last month we shared a book review on the fabulous book by Rene Raaijmakers. Based on more than 300 hours of interviews, ASML’s Architects is an incredibly entertaining and interesting read that describes the history of ASML and the semiconductor industry as a whole.
From today, the book is now officially released, and we were lucky enough to receive one of the first copies from Rene. This is why we are offering you a chance to win your very own copy of ASML’s Architects through our prize draw!
For a chance to win your own copy of the ASML’s Architects book, fill in our form! A winner will be drawn on the 6th December and we’ll contact you via email if you win.
Good luck!
ASML’s Architects Book Review
At the end of November, a fabulous book by Rene Raaijmakers will be released, that describes the history of ASML, the company that now dominates the semiconductor production equipment market. The book provides a fascinating and engaging introduction to the history of ASML, and the semiconductor industry as a whole.
We have been kindly given some early proofs of the book to take a look at, and were hugely impressed by the honest storytelling, readable style and comprehensive research. Journalists tend to be a rather cynical bunch, yet it was clear that Rene was surprised by the rise and rise of ASML. A Dutch company, launched at the time when Philips was seen as the jewel in the Netherland’s technology crown, decided to take on companies like Canon and Nikon that dominated the industry and could bring incredible resources to compete with startups like ASML.
Rene promises a second book that describes what businesses of all kinds can learn from ASML. But this book is about technology, and isn’t your typical dry textbook: for example, she describes how Fritz Klostermann, at the time a young engineer at Philips, was frustrated in his desire to develop step-and-repeat cameras: a key element of semiconductor manufacturing equipment:
“…he’s responsible for an entire service department, with all the accompanying bureaucracy and administrative headaches. His world has narrowed to eliminating dust and vibrations. There’s no room for building new gadgets.”
Rene has said that ASML has been driven by three characters with the charisma and insight of Steve Jobs: Gjalt Smit, Peter Grassmann and Martin van den Brink, the current president and CTO of ASML. These characters are not your normal dull engineers: take Gjalt Smit, who is introduced as an “airplane builder, cosmopolitan, lover of espresso and Italian cuisine”. Like many early technology pioneers, he doesn’t lack self-confidence nor a healthy disrespect for rules. The stories about him include how he used the Philips logo in job adverts without authorisation to build credibility for ASML and bravely demanded $100M from the board in 1984, despite a recession in the Netherlands at the time. To put this into perspective, the average NFL salary was just $160,000 (and that was after increasing around 50% over the previous two years). Today the average NFL player is earning 15 times as much!
Rene says that the book has taken seven years to write and is based on more than 300 hours of interviews, givng an indication of the detail within the book. Despite being a long read, the book is incredibly entertaining, and we’d strongly recommend it as a Christmas present: not just to geeks, but anyone who is interested in technology and loves a good story.
You can pre-order ASML’s Architects today on the TechWatch website.
Guest Blog Post - Ian Poole -Secrets of Making a Good Video on a Budget
Following on from the well-received 'Does Video Work' guest blog post written by Electronics Notes editor Ian Poole; I was more than happy to receive a second blog post from Ian, which explores the secrets of making good video on a budget.
Secrets of Making Good Video on a Budget
In our post a couple of months back I looked at whether videos were worth doing. Videos can be a great way of getting a message over, but sometimes they can look bad if they are not well made or at the other end of the scale they can be hugely expensive. So are there ways of getting a good video on a budget?
There are lots of things you can say about making a video, but one of the pieces of advice that was given to me and has stayed with me is that there are two important aspects to any video: lighting and sound. If you can get these right, then the video is going to be much better - get them wrong and the video won’t be a success and people will quickly move on.
So what equipment is needed. Yes you can have a huge video camera on a large tripod with a couple of large lights and a huge fluffy microphone and two or three people to operate it and carry it around. But all of this is not really needed for most of the videos that are to be posted on the Internet. There are some very high quality videos that have been posted on YouTube and they have been made with quite modest equipment.
There are many YouTube video bloggers or vloggers that make technically very acceptable videos so it helps to take a look at what they use.
In terms of the camera some use a camcorder, and there are some very good camcorders, but a lot use DSLRs and many others just use a mobile phone. So let’s take a look at them in turn.
Today most DSLRs come with HD video capability and some can even capture 4k, although unless you ding a lot of post processing, this is not normally much use. Virtually all current DSLRs have the ability to take external microphones and also for headphones to monitor the audio. Even comparatively modest DSLRs are going to be able to provide video that is more than good enough for YouTube.
Mobile phones can also provide a good option. In recent years phone manufacturers have invested a huge amount of development into the phone camera technology. The latest phones give clear crisp video and the image stabilisation is second to none. I once heard that a BBC engineer looking at some footage shot on a modern phone was definitely broadcast quality.
The mounting used for the camera can also help. The wobble-cam video of years ago is definitely out of vogue now. The natural solution for most video shots would require a tripod. Fortunately as the cameras tend not to be too heavy, unless you go for a really top end DSLR, and they can be mounted on a very light tripod. If you don’t want to pan or have any other fancy capabilities, some of the really cheap tripods are light and easy to carry as they are plastic. They can be more than adequate.
For mobile phones you can get tripod attachments, but you may also want to consider a gimbal. These are handheld devices and hold the phone in place. They link to the sensors on the phone and keep it steady, straight and level as well as enabling smooth panning and other capabilities.
Audio is the next challenge. Forget the on-board microphones as they don’t have the quality required for video and they pick up too much surrounding sound as they are too far away from the subject. Even if you are in a quiet room, they pick up too much echo. There are several options. A good handheld microphone can work well. Go for a reasonably priced one from a well known brand and you cannot go wrong. For interviews an omnidirectional microphone is normally best. Most microphones for singing, etc, have a cardioid response and this may not work so well if the person talking is slightly off the main response.
Another idea is to use a shotgun style microphone. These can be mounted on a DSLR and are directed in the direction of the camera. Again, go for a known brand and you should be fine.
Lavalier or lapel microphones also work well. They have the advantage that they will be close to the speaker and won’t have so much background noise and this can be particularly useful when interviewing at exhibitions and conferences.
More information about microphones for video can be found here.
Lighting is the last issue. This is not quite so critical as it used to be as the camera technology helps out a lot. May be the first requirement is to position the interview in a place where there is plenty of light - not too much backlighting otherwise the speaker will be in shadow and the background will be blown. Also, these days it is possible to buy relatively cheap LED video lights that fit onto the camera on the hot-shoe. These can be used to provide fill in light or occasionally provide the main lighting. LED lights provide a really convenient solution, but make sure you have some spare batteries with you as they can quickly and suddenly run out of juice.
Just a few ideas for better videos. Check out some of our videos on our Electronics Notes YouTube channel.
The GDPR Questions You Should Ask Your Agency
At Napier, we’re not offering a service to magically guarantee GDPR compliance. It’s just too complex a topic to be able to offer any kind of standard solution that will work for more than one client. The regulation is also so wide-ranging that as a marketing agency, we can’t tell you what to do, or even whether you are compliant or not. We are, however, keen to help our clients ensure compliance with this important new regulation, and have had some great conversations where we’ve been able to give both advice and support that simplified the work imposed by this new regulation.
In a nutshell, the new regulations will come into force on 25 May 2018. Between now and then it is therefore crucial for companies – and their marketing teams – to change the way ‘personal data’ is obtained, stored and secured, to ensure compliance. GDPR, of course, extends well beyond marketing, but we will focus on the impact on marketing activities as this is where your agency should be able to give advice.
As every company has a slightly different situation, we thought it would be worth listing the questions you should be asking your agency – they should be able to give you answers that are informed and helpful, but if they can’t help you can take a look at our comments below.
Is there an easy way to ensure GDPR compliance?
Some very small organisations probably will be able to achieve compliance without much effort, but large organisations will need to spend a considerable amount of time. A recent survey by Trustarc found that 1 in four companies with over 5000 employees expect the cost of GDPR to exceed $1M. Even companies in the 1000-5000 range are budgeting eyewatering amounts, with 1 in 5 of them expecting to spend more than $1M.
Does GDPR affect me?
GDPR is a very wide-ranging regulation. It affects any organisation processing (or gathering) data about EU citizens, whether or not the organisation has servers, offices or employees in the EU. This “extraterritoriality” of the law may prove difficult to enforce for organisations that have absolutely no presence in the EU, but it means that almost every large organisation is going to be impacted by GDPR.
What are you doing about GDPR?
Your agency should have a good GDPR compliance plan, otherwise how can you trust them to advise you? The work the agency has done might also save you a little time too!
Another factor is that data processors have specific legal obligations. If your agency isn’t going to meet those obligations while processing data for your campaigns, it could open you up to prosecution, as the “data controller” (i.e. the client in this case) has a responsibility to ensure processors comply with GDPR.
What are the GDPR rules for how long I can keep data? Does GDPR require opt-in marketing communications?
GDPR doesn’t work by defining timescales, and this is why it’s impossible to provide a straightforward list of requirements that you need to meet. GDPR requires organisations to look at the personal data they hold and determine the right way to handle it. Although there are best practices emerging, organisations need to make decisions for themselves.
GDPR doesn’t even require opt-in for marketing communications, despite what you might have heard. You can claim that direct marketing is a “legitimate interest” for your organisation, allowing you to use an opt-out policy, but you must make sure that the justification is documented clearly.
Are my marketing activities compliant? If not, how do they need to change?
Your agency should have a good idea of whether your current campaigns would need to change to be compliant. They should, at least be giving you advice on where they can see potential issues.
Do I need to delete contacts from my database?
This really depends on how you have used your database. For example, if you’ve not conducted direct marketing to a contact for some considerable period, it’s going to be hard to claim that there is any relationship to justify direct marketing in the future. Although there was some talk about grandfathering existing databases (i.e. you can keep anyone who was in your database before GDPR came into force), the final regulations did NOT include this provision. So, you must consider whether your current databases are compliant.
Does GDPR mean I have to stop email marketing, unless a contact explicitly opts-in?
There is a common misconception that email marketing is going to be decimated by GDPR. In fact, you can claim that direct marketing is a “legitimate interest” of the business, justifying sending emails to a contact without explicit consent. Yes, the regulations really do say, “The processing of personal data for direct marketing purposes may be regarded as carried out for a legitimate interest.”
However, it’s not quite that simple. Firstly, data subjects have the absolute right to object to processing (to opt out), and if you are using direct marketing as a legitimate interest, you’d better make sure that this is very easy to do. Furthermore, you must balance the right to privacy of the data subject with your legitimate interest of direct marketing to decide whether claiming the legitimate interest is reasonable. And this is where things can get very tricky!
How do I know if I can claim direct marketing as a legitimate interest?
The simple answer is to refer to the GDPR text, which says:
At any rate the existence of a legitimate interest would need careful assessment including whether a data subject can reasonably expect at the time and in the context of the collection of the personal data that processing for that purpose may take place. The interests and fundamental rights of the data subject could in particular override the interest of the data controller where personal data are processed in circumstances where data subjects do not reasonably expect further processing.
There is no hard and fast rule! It does mean that organisations will decide to interpret this part of GDPR differently, depending upon their perspective and the level of legal risk they are prepared to take. Whatever happens, if you want to claim a legitimate interest, then you need to have clearly documented rational for doing so.
What’s all the talk about transparency?
One of the key elements of GDPR is the need for transparency. If you collect data, you need to be absolutely clear about how you will use that data, and you can’t use the data for any other purposes. This means that your privacy policy better be up to date, and you cannot get away with catch-all uses of personal data such as “any other business purposes”: we’ve seen this sort of clause on privacy policies, and it clearly fails the requirement for transparency. So, although it’s not the most exciting page on your website, you should be reviewing your privacy policy now!
You also need to make sure that it’s very clear how the data will be used when you collect it. We anticipate most companies will choose the use of an opt-in check box when collecting data to enable documentation of consent by the data subject, but stronger approaches such as double-opt in are also likely to be popular.
What rights do the contacts on my database have?
These contacts (data subjects in the language of GDPR) have eight specific rights:
- The right to be informed
- The right of access
- The right to rectification
- The right to erasure
- The right to restrict processing
- The right to data portability
- The right to object
- Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling
So, this means that any contact on your database can ask for the information you hold on them, demand errors are corrected, tell you to delete their data (have you thought about what you do with backups?), stop you processing their data or even ask for their data in a format that allows them to transfer the data to another system!
This has huge implications for marketing and CRM databases: not only must you be able meet the technical challenge of ensuring personal data is erased completely, but you also need to remember that anything on your database might have to be shown to that individual. If you don’t think this is a problem, are you sure that no sales person has documented their challenges in dealing with a difficult person at one of your major accounts in your CRM?
What about data security?
This is something that has been widely discussed: GDPR puts a lot of requirements on organisations to keep personal data private. If you’re hacked, or carelessly leave a USB drive on the train, you must report the data breech. You also must think about controlling access to your data through individual accounts and passwords.
How do I show I’m compliant?
The regulations are pretty clear about this. To show compliance, you must:
- Implement appropriate technical and organisational measures that ensure and demonstrate that you comply. This may include internal data protection policies such as staff training, internal audits of processing activities, and reviews of internal HR policies.
- Maintain relevant documentation on processing activities.
- Where appropriate, appoint a data protection officer.
- Implement measures that meet the principles of data protection by design and data protection by default.
Why can’t you just sort out compliance for me?
We’d love to be able to ensure our clients are compliant, but there are several reasons why this isn’t usually possible. So perhaps this isn’t really a question you should ask, although we understand many clients will want to ask it!
As a marketing agency, however, we simply don’t have enough visibility into our clients’ activities. Of course, we can review the marketing automation system to see whether there is clear documentation about the source and consent of a contact, but what about the excel sheets that the sales team have been emailing? A marketing agency is unlikely to be able to track this, let alone determine if it’s possible to remove someone from the email backup system (honestly, would you want your marketing agency messing with your IT systems?).
What about the lead sheets and business cards from the show last year that are sitting with the sales team? GDPR includes paper records, and an agency is unlikely to know what sheets of paper have been distributed.
So, it’s hard for a marketing agency to know everything that needs to be done, or for a client to give access to all the systems that contain personal data – which includes any folder containing files with contact details!
Some aspects of GDPR involve weighing the data subjects’ rights against a legitimate interest: we’re confident there will be many companies claiming direct marketing as a legitimate interest. Although we can give our opinions on how to balance these rights, so our clients are fully informed, in the end it’s a decision we believe they must make based on advice from their legal counsel, and one that should never be outsourced to a marketing agency.
What can you do to help me?
If you’ve read down to this question, you might be feeling a little depressed: there’s so much to do in just a few months, and we’ve said that you’re going to have to do the work yourself!
But don’t worry, your agency should be able to help you and take most of the hard work away. They should:
- Give advice and information, although we’d always recommend using your company’s legal counsel as the highest authority on this (and any other legal matter).
- Support analysis of the current situation. A data protection impact assessment (DPIA) is one process for helping organisations to identify the most effective way to comply with their data protection obligations and meet individuals’ expectations of privacy, and involving your agency in this process could save you a significant amount of work.
- Provide a perspective on what policies you should adopt. The agency should be able to talk through things such as what your policy on retention of existing contacts will be, whether you will seek explicit consent from existing contacts, how you will ensure the number of databases is manageable and what your privacy policy should include.
- Review the data collection processes and data that is visible to them. Although there will be some data that the agency can’t be aware of, they probably see a significant proportion of your marketing systems, and can review whether they are likely to be compliant.
- Crunch the data. Your agency should be able to process data based on policies you’ve decided, or to ensure things like opt-out data is synchronised between systems (although really this should be happening already). We’ve crunched databases of 1M+ contacts for our clients: it’s really not that hard when you know how!
- Help you to design-in privacy to your marketing campaigns. One of the principles of GDPR is that privacy should be designed-in, and there are a lot of ways to ensure this can be achieved.
In Summary
The bad news: GDPR is coming, and if you’re reading this blog post, it almost certainly affects your organisation. There is a lot of work for you to do before the legislation comes into force, and it’s highly unlikely that you can just call in a company to make you compliant.
The good news: although GDPR does place some onerous demands on marketing & information technology, as well as limiting what can be done with personal data, it is possible to comply and continue proactive and effective database marketing/marketing automation activities that drive revenue for your company. Although your marketing agency can’t do it for you there are many different points in the process at which they can help. There’s still time to meet the deadline if you’re able to call in knowledgeable help and support.
Request our Guide 'The New GDPR Regulations - A Study by Napier'
Request our guide to find out how you and your marketing teams should be changing the way your personal data is obtained, stored and secured. Click here to request your copy.
Mouser's Graham Maggs - Marketing Expert Interview
Graham Maggs, Vice President of Marketing EMEA at Mouser Electronics, is the latest marketer to take part in our marketing expert series. From Graham's view on the most-over hyped marketing tactic, to his favourite football team, we asked Graham a variety of questions to learn everything we could about our latest marketing expert.
- What are your biggest marketing challenges?
The biggest challenge for Mouser is ensuring the right information is provided to the right people. Mouser spends a considerable amount of time and money on building our customer databases, as it is imperative to ensure that we are not perceived as sending ‘spam’.
Of course, the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules that are due to be enforced in May 2018 mean extra challenges, but we see this as an opportunity to build better databases and forge closer relationships with our customers.
- Describe the future of trade media – will it thrive or are there problems ahead?
I think it is a challenging time for media companies right now, as traditional advertising spend reduces and all companies look for more statistics. However, I believe there will always be an appetite for information, especially for media who become more interactive with their readers.
- If there is one thing you could change about the electronics press, what would it be?
I wish the electronics press in general would include more live links within their copy. They should be less afraid of losing traffic from their site. Mouser is actively looking to increase its partnership (media spend) with media houses that include the active links that we supply with our PRs and other material.
- What do you think is the most effective and least effective marketing activity you, or your company undertakes (in terms of ROI)?
The most effective is SEM leading to SEO through organic Google searches. However, you have to consider the activities that lead people to search.
The least effective might be considered print advertising – but then again, this is difficult to quantify because it is not really measurable. Again, we know that in some countries, print publications are very influential.
- What is the most over-hyped marketing tactic?
Probably exhibitions. However, you do need a mix of marketing activities to achieve different goals at different times with different groups of individuals.
- What was the best campaign you’ve run?
We did an excellent campaign with the Intel Galileo board through Elektor. We ran a competition and everyone who signed up got a Galileo poster. We had to print an extra 3500 more posters than we had planned.
- Tell us about a campaign you ran that didn’t work, and what you learnt from it.
There was a UK show which we tried which had hardly any visitors – we learned not to exhibit again!
- How does marketing for a distributor differ from the marketing done by manufacturers in the electronic components industry?
That is an interesting question. Traditional distributors will focus on image building, whereas manufacturers will probably look at introducing new technology and new parts. In that respect, with our focus on design engineers, Mouser is more similar to manufacturers as we also want to introduce customers to new parts and new technologies. So, we put a lot of emphasis on becoming a knowledge centre – offering white papers, design ideas, the design ecosystem – as well as letting customers know that we have huge, freely-available parts of course.
- If there was one thing you could change about how agencies work with you, what would it be?
Sometimes it can seem that agencies concentrate more on winning new business than servicing what they already have!
- Can you explain how you define and measure success for your campaigns?
At a basic level we look at the click through ratio, however, we have to understand that some promotion is not done for immediate leads/enquiries, but to build brand and image, which leads to long term growth. In that respect, Mouser has performed extremely well, with significant double digit growth, well above industry average and other ‘high service’ distributors month on month, quarter on quarter and year on year since we began in Europe.
Print, of course is even harder to measure, but we believe that there will always be a place for print.
When is enough ‘enough’? Again, that’s hard to answer, but we do believe in never repeating banner advertising – we always have new parts to promote, so we always keep our promotional subjects fresh.
- What do you like to do in your spare time/hobbies?
It’s well-known that I do like holidays. Other than that, I am an avid Portmouth FC supporter, I play a little golf, love spending time with my grandchildren and I also read a lot.
- What football (or any other sport) team do you support?
There is only one team – surely everyone knows this? POMPEY!!!! Portsmouth FC. Play UP Pompey; Pompey Play Up!
- What other career would you have chosen if you weren’t in marketing?
Probably either the Navy, or teaching
- How did you get into the electronics industry?
My mother was very keen on me not going into the Navy (see above!) so she pushed me to apply for apprenticeships. I was offered two, but chose an electronics post with Marconi, as that seemed very interesting with lots of potential. At Marconi I had the opportunity to try many functions, including purchasing, and this led to a position with distributor Swift Sasco. From there I moved to Philips and the Bourns, first in a sales role, then in distribution, eventually ending up as European distribution manager. Then, when Mouser was looking to build its European team, I was honoured to be invited to apply. It’s been a very rewarding time, building the team and helping to shape our future and I look forward to it continuing for many years!
Why I took a cheesy American sales course
I’ve just finished a sales course run by HubSpot. Sales? I’ve done this before in my career, so why should I spend time on another course? And anyway, wasn’t the American exuberance of previous courses enough to last me a lifetime?
Apparently not! And it’s for a good reason: marketing and sales are changing fast, and if I want to ensure that Napier continues to grow then I must keep learning. So, I decided to take the HubSpot “Sales Lion” course.
You’ll have guessed from the title that the course didn’t lack exuberance. HubSpot has all the enthusiasm and energy of a young start-up (despite being a major global corporation) and there was certainly no lack of this energy from our trainer Dan. Yes, it was sometimes hard to deal with all the super-mega-awesomeness, but the truth is that the course was good. Very good.
The premise of the course is that you should sell by helping. You don’t sell by selling, you sell by helping someone. It’s very much like the consultative sales courses that were all the rage in the last 1980s and 1990s, but the approach has been updated to reflect the change in the environment. Today marketing is responsible for much more of the customer journey than it was 20 years ago, with the internet enabling customers, particularly B2B customers, to manage much of their journey without having to talk to a sales person.
The course wasn’t always about fluffy things like “helping”. There was also a strong focus on metrics: something that we’re great at encouraging with clients, but like most agencies we can be less thorough when it comes to our sales and marketing.
The course was useful, and shows the importance of continuing to learn. I find it interesting that marketing moved from pushing products to helping with the introduction of content marketing, and now there is a similar focus for sales. I still haven’t worked out quite how HubSpot seems to help so many people: it could be because I’m just super-mega-stoked by the course, or it could be that the product is outstanding. I suspect it’s a combination of the two.
I’m going to be putting the training into practice. If you’re reading the blog and are not a customer, then maybe we’ll be talking soon. If you do get a call from me, please do let me know how well I’m doing. Hopefully you’ll find the conversation useful and will want to work with us. We’d love to work with you!
We are developing chatbots. Have we gone mad?
At Napier we have a project to evaluate and develop chatbots. Yes chatbots for B2B! I have to admit that initially I was really skeptical, but now I'm involved in the development work. So bear with me on this.
Firstly here are the basics on chatbots, a short overview written by our talented intern, Amie:
What are chatbots?
A platform used as a way of communicating using a messaging service such as Facebook, the program mimics a conversation using artificial intelligence and the new way of interaction and reaching out to clients. The program responds to questions asked by a user and responds in the most conversational way possible. It’s another way of offering online assistance without the interruption of a phone call. An example is a weather bot, you would rec the weather whenever you ask, instead of having to search for it yourself.
Why use chatbots?
It’s the first time messenger apps such as Facebook are being used for more than just social networking, these apps are now being used MORE than social networks. This is a big turning point, the advice is if you want to build a successful business you want to build one where people are! Which is where chatbots come in.
How do chatbots work?
There are currently two kinds of chatbots, one that is based on rules – this type of bot can only answer very specific questions and can’t answer if the command isn’t written in a certain way. Chatbots that use machine learning are more flexible this bot has an artificial brain/intelligence. The questions don’t have to be so specific it understands broader language and doesn’t have to be a command. This style of bot grows its intelligence the more conversations it has with people.
So why chatbots for B2B? Developing a bespoke chatbot is expensive, so we're building on the Facebook Messenger Platform. Facebook? Many clients have told us that Facebook messenger just doesn't seem the right place for a conversation with a prospect, and they also unsure that a chatbot will have sufficient intelligence. Things, however, are changing fast:
Embedding chatbots on your website
With Messenger Platform 2.2, Facebook is allowing businesses to easily embed a Facebook chatbot on their websites. Currently it's being trialed with a number of major beta customers, but we expect this feature to be available to everyone in the near future. This overcomes a significant obstacle for B2B companies by integrating chat into the website that provides the primary means of interaction with customers and prospects.
Can chatbots meet the challenge of B2B?
The final question is can a chatbot really deliver value in a B2B context? With the rapidly improving features available in tools to develop chatbots, we think they can. And we'd love to know your opinion: please try our chatbot by clicking here and let us know what you think. Email me at mike@napierb2b.com to let me know if you found it useful or just annoying.
INBOUND 2017 Taught Me: The Importance of Look-Alike Campaigns
Most marketers are familiar with look-alike campaigns: rather than simply retargeting visitors to your website, you can build campaigns to reach people who match a similar profile. This lets you reach people who fit the profile of your engaged prospects and customers, hopefully making your advertising spend much more targeted and efficient.
Although the value of look-alike campaigns is obvious, INBOUND 2017 made it clear to me that many B2B marketers have failed to pay sufficient attention to look-alike campaigns. Perhaps this is because straightforward retargeting presents a large audience for most companies. Maybe it’s because of the excitement around CRM retargeting, which is one of the technologies taking account-based marketing (ABM) to a new level. Whatever the reason, INBOUND made me commit to giving look-alike campaigns the attention they deserve.
The first announcement was the integration of support for Facebook look-alike campaigns within HubSpot. Although it grabbed attention, we’ve seen some disappointing results on Facebook. One of the themes of the conference, however, was the move from relying on third party data, such as renting email lists, to the use of first-party data. More importantly, several presenters made it really clear that we’re undervaluing our own data.
By combining our own data with the vast stores of information at Google, for example, you can start doing some very clever things. “Customer Match” lets you use Google Analytics to create an audience profile, and then target similar people with display, search, Gmail or YouTube campaigns.
The real kicker is that this ability to target look-alike audiences transforms the economics of your advertising. For example, there are probably some highly competitive keywords that you have decided simply aren’t worth the money you’d have to bid on AdWords. When you’re focussing on a look-alike group that are much more likely to convert, the economics change and the cost of the keyword suddenly looks much better value.
Look-alike campaigns are just one way that people are reversing the traditional funnel and are using their own data to segment potential customers from a broad audience. This ability to better target advertising to generate awareness offers the prospect of a step-change in the ROI of your marketing budget. We’re certainly spending more and more time on using our own data to better target our advertising, and would love to help you do the same.
Why not take a look at other posts in our INBOUND 2017 Taught me Series?
- The Top 15 Things We Learnt at INBOUND 2017
- INBOUND 2017 Taught Me: HubSpot Finally Reveals the Secrets to Achieving Explosive Success on LinkedIn
- INBOUND 2017 Taught Me: Topic Clusters
- INBOUND Taught Me: How to Win in the ever-evolving world of Social Media
Darnell Group expands social media presence on LInkedin
Darnell Group, publishers of www.PowerPulse.net and www.SmartGridElectronics.net is launching a new and improved social media presence to compliment the redesigned PowerPulse.Net website. Interestingly the focus is on LinkedIn, with the day's lead stories being posted to the company's LinkedIn page. The promise is that the page will deliver the hottest power stories before the newsletter is emailed, giving you a chance to be in the know before your colleagues.
The Napier Approach Explained
We believe that applying the right process lets our team do their best work. We often talk about our four-step approach: Determine - Focus - Deliver - Enhance. But what do we mean when we talk about these stages? Well we've created a video to explain why our approach is different from other agencies, and why it will help you achieve your marketing goals. Please enjoy viewing this new video!
Tip Sheet Explains the Facts and Figures of Video Content Marketing
Video content has been growing steadily over the last years, and has quickly become a must for B2B businesses. A massive 93% of marketers now use video in their campaigns, with 92% watching B2B videos online.
As no stranger to creating video content marketing, with our own Napier YouTube channel, we decided it was time to address the vast amount of data that explores the continual yearly increase in video marketing. Top industry sites and big players like YouTube, analyse video engagement and are more than willing to share their findings.
Our Video Content Marketing Tip Sheet highlights the key metrics and trends for video marketing, and we want to help you become inspired, to get started or freshen up your approach to video as a useful and realistic campaign medium. From video engagement to social media and video, our Tip Sheet has all it, to ensure you use video content to your advantage.
Click here to download the full version of our Tip Sheet ‘Facts and Figures of Video Content Marketing’.
Understanding the Importance of Video...
Do you know about Napier's Video Editing Capabilties? Discover what we can do:
https://napierb2b.com/2017/07/napiers-video-editing-capabilities/
PCIM Europe 2018 Call for Papers Now Open
PCIM’s European Conference 2018 has launched its Call for Papers, inviting experts from across the industry to get involved.
The conference prides itself in forming a platform for experts to exchange specialist knowledge and learn about the latest results and developments in the field of power electronics. For 2018, PCIM has taken their call for papers one step further, inviting experts from the industry and academia to apply for a lecture or poster presentation, and become a part of the conference program.
The deadline for submissions is the 16th October 2017, and the winner will receive a best paper award at the PCIM Europe Conference opening ceremony, alongside 1,000 euros and a paid trip to PCIM Asia 2019 in Shanghai.
To find out further information and how to submit your paper, please click here.
Results are out for the Engineer’s Social Media Report
IEEE Engineering360 Media Solutions, recently conducted its annual ‘Social Media Use in the Industrial Sector’ survey. The online survey, which results were released in the Engineering360 Research Report, looked at a broader engineering section, and asked engineers and technical professionals in the industrial sector about their frequency of social media use, which social media platforms they prefer, and what work-related activities they perform on social media.
The US based survey targeted 850 respondents who are a mixture of engineers and technical professionals, and although there were no outstanding results from the survey, there were still many interesting findings that are worth the attention.
A fascinating finding from the survey is the position social media has established in the industrial sector. As social media has evolved into a reputable media channel, more engineers and technical professionals are beginning to rely on its online services. LinkedIn is the most popular platform among the sector, with a staggering 65% of engineers and technical professionals maintaining an account on LinkedIn. Significantly, the age group 18-34 years old, maintain accounts on nearly all platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Delving further into the results, 54% of respondents use social media to find product reviews, whilst 43% use social media to find out expertise.
Although social media’s postion is slowly becoming more important in the industrial sector, the results reveal that it is not a leading channel or prime concern for engineers and technical professionals. 55% of respondents considered social media to have too much noise and not enough substance, whilst 64% believe social media is inefficient when compared to other methods such as search engines, supplier websites and online catalogs.
It seems the industrial sector is reluctant to accept the full benefits of social media and integrate it fully into their work activities. Yet, with the steady increase of young engineers and technical professionals joining the industry, with a massive 66% of respondents in the 18-34 group using the popular channel of YouTube for work-related purposes, it is hard to argue against social media making a bigger impact on the sector in the years to come.
2016 Data Protection legislation roundup
2016 was an important year for data protection. Although many marketers still find it hard to believe that legislation will determine to whom they can and cannot send emails, some found out the hard way as regulators across Europe dealt out some significant punishments.
How up to date is your data protection knowledge? Do you remember the implications of these things that happened in 2016?
- Privacy Shield (the replacement to Safe Harbor)
- The General Data Protection Regulation
- The impact of Brexit on data protection
- Digital Economy Bill
- e-Privacy Directive (which bizarrely didn't get any privacy as a draft was leaked)
Check out the review of data protection in 2016 by Osbourne Clark to find out more about what happened last year, and how it will change your marketing in 2017.
Even electronics engineers can't avoid social media!
The Mind of the Engineer survey 2016, revealed results that everyone at Napier expected: an increase in the use of social media. As the world continues to become digitalized, many no longer have a choice, and it is expected to use digital tools to help yourself learn, and expand knowledge on a new subject.
Mobile consumption of technical data has seen a huge rise in the last two years, with smartphones and tablets increasing by 15% in Europe, and a massive 32% in China. This is due to the newest generation taking hold of the world, introducing smartphones into every aspect of life. As social media becomes a must have, engineers are turning to social media sites to ensure they stay up to date.
YouTube has grown in popularity by more than 35% in the last two years, as the importance of video is becoming increasingly evident for engineers. YouTube doesn’t just provide a platform to upload blogs, tutorials or videos, it also presents the opportunity for engineers to learn new material from a variety of sources. 87% of respondents use YouTube regularly to view a video or blog post, as well as to look up and discover new or emerging technology. Although video is now crucially important to any business, due to 4 billion videos viewed daily across the world on YouTube
Surprisingly, use of LinkedIn has dropped by a massive 10% in two years. This is particularly surprising as some of our clients have found campaigns on LinkedIn to be particularly effective. Despite the fall in usage, we believe it will continue to be an important part of any business’s social media presence.
As more young engineers are being introduced into the industry, it seems inevitable that engineer’s presence on social media will continue to rise. As social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and especially YouTube grow in popularity among young engineers, this survey has presented the engineering industry as having new opportunities and therefore having no choice but to embrace the digital age.
E&E Kompendium call for papers
E&E Kompendium 2018, the annual reference book for electronics & electronic development is looking for technical papers for its 2018 edition.
The E&E Kompendium is a crucial source of knowledge for specialists and engineers involved in the development of modern electronics products as well as executives, decision makers and technical managers in electronics & electronic development.
To share your knowledge in this unique reference book you can submit your abstract by 20th march 2017 via email f.streifinger@publish-industry.net or using the online form which can be found here: http://www.industr.com/EuE/Call-for-Papers
For more information about the E&E Kompendium see this flyer
Present at IDTechEx Show! 2017
The IDTechEx Show! Is the world’s largest end-user focused event on emerging technologies, bringing together material suppliers, manufacturers and end users, as it features nine co-located conferences, with one combined exhibition.
The IDTechEx Show! Is taking place in Germany, Berlin from the 10-11 May 2017. The exciting nine Co-located conferences will include fascinating subjects such as Printed Electronics, Energy Storage, 3D Printing and Wearable Technology.
Excitingly, there is a major opportunity open to experts within this event, with the chance to submit an abstract to present their own technology at the show. The selected speakers will receive a free pass giving access to 9 co-located conferences, with more than 200 exhibitors and 3000 attendees. The submitted abstracts should be between 100-400 words, and should include a presentation title, description of the technology and its applications, and what is new and innovative.
If this sounds like an opportunity, you don’t want to miss. Please send your short abstract to Cath Davies (c.davies@idtechex.com) for a chance to be part of this amazing event.
ELEKTRONIK REPORT celebrates 40 years
Congratulations to the team at ELEKTRONIK REPORT, who are celebrating 40 years of the publication with issue 6 this year (published on 14th November).
It has been a good year for the publication, with new hires in the editorial and advertising team. In a year when we've seen anniversaries for Power Pulse, Bodo's Power and Markt & Technik, it's good to see this Austrian publication also hit a major milestone.
Aktuelle Technik shakes up editorial team
Congratulations to Eugen Albisser, the new editor-in-chief at Aktuelle Technik, and Mirek Spicar as the new editor.
Eugen was previously editor- in- chief at the magazine ‘Technica’ for several years, whilst Mirek previously worked in the automaton field as an engineer, occasionally editing news and stories for Aktuelle Technik.
We wish them both the best of luck in their new roles.
eSAME confirms conference date for 2016
The organisers of eSAME (embedded Software and Micro-Electronics), the event previously known as SAME, have announced that this year’s conference will be held on 1st December 2016 at Campus SophiaTech in lovely Sophia-Antipolis, France.
The theme of this year’s conference will be “Connected objects for smarter life”. The conference has been branded a “Plateforme Conception”, and the organisers promise attendees a unique opportunity to learn more on future trends & new technical challenges within a high level technical environment.
This year, eSAME will be co-located with two other shows:
- JRE (Journée Régionale de l’Electronique): The 4th JRE show is a business oriented exhibition gathering more than 40 booths, discussion forum and live demo.
- S-Cube 2016 : The 7th EAI conference on Sensor Systems and Software: a single track forum for research on system development and software support for embedded sensing (held on 2nd December)
Call for papers: PCIM 2017
The organisers of PCIM 2017 have issued a call for papers. All submissions that are accepted will be published in IET Inspec-Direct, Compendex, Scopus and IEEExplore, as well as the PCIM Europe Proceedings, and there are also young engineer and best paper awards to be won at the conference.
The organisers are inviting submissions on a rand of topics, including:
- Power Semiconductors
- Thermal Management and Packaging
- Control and Drive Strategies in Power Converters
- Electronic Power Converters
- Power Electronics in Automotive, Traction and Aerospace
- Motors and Actuators
- Control Techniques in Intelligent Motion Systems
- Applications for Drives & Motion Control
- Motor Drives in Automation
- New and Renewable Energy Systems
- Energy Storage
- Smart Grid & Communication
- Power Quality Solutions
- Power Electronics in Transmission Systems
- Software Tools and Applications
- Passive Components and New Materials
- Sensors
- Metering and Diagnostics and Standards
- System Reliability
Don’t delay as abstracts are due by 18th October 2016.