The Parts Alliance delivers ground-breaking virtual all-staff conference

Date: Thursday 08 July 2021

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The Parts Alliance captivated and engaged staff across its nationwide network of more than 170 branches and support centres with its first Virtual Conference in June.

The conference, run on events platform vFairs, gave staff at every level the chance to explore and interact with a virtual venue over the course of two ‘live’ days on 29 and 30 June.

It contained two core elements: an auditorium featuring keynote speeches from members of the Senior Management Team at The Parts Alliance and suppliers, and an exhibition area featuring booths from the company’s support service teams and supplier partners.

Replicating the experience of a live event, attendees could explore the supplier and support services exhibition halls at their leisure, while keynote speeches were released at set times over the course of the two days.

Exhibition booths were virtually manned by representatives from the relevant supplier or support team, offering staff the chance to interact in real-time through Q&As, chat forums and private messaging.

The Parts Alliance CFO Sally Dowling said:

“The virtual conference proved to be a fantastic opportunity for us to increase the sense of community, shared understanding and engagement across our teams.

“Our experience during the pandemic forced us to adapt to new ways of working and staying connected, and this event was an excellent reflection of the success we’ve found in using innovative technological solutions to bring us closer together this last year-and-a-half.

“We approached this virtual conference with the same vigour, investment and commitment to quality that we would have done with an in-person event, which enabled us to deliver a fantastic online experience for our staff.”

The event was supported by 24 supplier partners, each of which hosted an exhibition booth and many of which delivered keynote speeches or videos released in the virtual auditorium.

The Parts Alliance Group Commercial Director Paula Huesca de Crean said:

“This was a valuable opportunity for our supplier partners to connect with our branch network on an unprecedented scale and we are incredibly grateful for their support.

“The feedback we’ve received from both our staff and supplier partners has been excellent. Our staff were hungry to explore and interact with the wealth of content available, while the impressive online system enabled us to demonstrate staff engagement for suppliers through detailed analytics.”

More than 800 staff from The Parts Alliance logged on to the event, which was accessible on any device, in any location and outside working hours. The results of a feedback survey carried out with attendees gave the event a 4.5 rating out of 5, with 95% of staff indicating they would like to see another event of its kind in the future.

Sally added:

“We are constantly seeking new and effective means to engage our staff, using their feedback to guide us and inform our decisions. This event proved to be a real hit with our teams at every level and is a superb example of our commitment to making The Parts Alliance a place that people are proud to work for and eager to do business with. It provided a great opportunity for us to celebrate the successes of 2021 so far and share with the team the exciting opportunities ahead”.

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