This article is part of KrASIA’s partnership with Web Summit. Written by Ciaran Bruder.
Scaling operations while raising funds and ensuring that you’re keeping pace with the rest of the market is a tricky balance that many companies fail to find.
From startup to maturity, tech is an essential measuring stick to gauge how you can take your business to the next level. That’s why we’ve invited tech specialists and business leaders from leading enterprises to join us online to talk about business development. Web Summit 2020 is one of the world’s biggest data science conferences, and a place where you can find content on everything from HR to SaaS solutions.
Five business development talks you need to watch
1. The European Commission’s digital vision for the EU
The EU faces a fight for survival the likes of which it has never experienced before. The UK’s impending exit from the union, alongside the battle against the effects of COVID-19, presents a raft of challenges on top of existing concerns around consumer data security and digital literacy. With a population of nearly 500 million people, how can the EU ensure its citizens are equipped for digital transformation?
Join Margrethe Vestager—executive vice president of the European Commission for a Europe Fit for the Digital Age—in conversation with Wired’s editor-in-chief, Nicholas Thompson, as they discuss what lies in store for the EU’s online future.
2. Using data to deliver improved workplace diversity
Workplace equality and inclusion get paid a lot of lip service. “Diversity” has become a buzzword, even while many organizations do little about it in practice. But what if you could measure real steps toward greater workplace equality and turn it into a business metric?
This talk gathers Danielle DeRuiter-Williams, co-founder and head of growth and expansion at the Justice Collective, SurveyMonkey CEO Zander Lurie, and Emma Hinchliffe, associate editor at Fortune, for a discussion on how businesses can do more for real diversity change.
3. How can we better protect customer data?
As our lives move increasingly online, the amount of raw data exchanged increases too. From passwords to personal social media channels to bank account information, we are dependent on the security of our online data. The EU’s GDPR measures are a starting point, but many digital advocates believe that more needs to be done to protect customer data.
Dashlane co-founder Emmanuel Schalit and B Capital Group general partner Rashmi Gopinath will dive into this topic at Web Summit. They will touch on topics such as how businesses use customer data, and the SaaS tools that can support safer use of this information.
4. Blitzscaling: The key to scaling massive companies
Knowing when and how to scale operations at minimal cost, while simultaneously maximizing effectiveness, is one of the most crucial skills a business leader can learn. But knowing how to do this quickly while, at the same time, keeping everything business-as-usual is a balance that many never manage.
Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies is the guide businesses have been waiting for. Joint authors Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn co-founder) and Chris Yeh join us at Web Summit to discuss their book and elaborate on how its insights can be used to scale massive companies in any industry.
5. How can businesses navigate the COVID-19 pandemic?
Organizations in industries globally have been hit hard during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even those able to pivot operations and trade within lockdown restrictions have struggled. So how do you lead during a crisis in a way that steadies the ship and moves your company forward?
Stephanie Mehta, editor-in-chief at Fast Company, brings together the chairperson and CEO of Clear, Caryn Seidman-Becker, and Revolution CEO Steve Case, to ask the hard questions and work out what the most navigable route to success is for businesses during tough times.
How can I access Web Summit’s online talks?
Web Summit attendees will have access to more than 100 hours of livestreamed content and more, including live Q&As with our guest speakers, as well as roundtables and masterclasses with tech experts. Web Summit’s apps were designed for a two-screen experience—users can access the mobile app to plan the talks they’ll attend, then use the web app to watch them.
Our talks are divided into six different themes to make content easier to find. These themes are then split into more than 30 topics relevant to different industries and professions. Users can also search through our Tracks to find content based on the Web Summit live stages they usually appear on, or use the Channel search to find specific talks on our online event platform.
Want to know more about the business development talks we are hosting at one of the world’s largest data governance conferences? Check out the full Web Summit event schedule now.
Main image courtesy of Web Summit.