Deutsche Messe's Man of the World

In April, Andreas Gruchow moved from his position as senior vice president of Deutsche Messe's international affairs section to two new roles simultaneously: executive manager of the firm's managing board and head of its international tradeshow division. He is now responsible for all the firm's foreign subsidiaries, its international alliances and, of course, its events held outside Germany.

All that represents a fairly quick career ascent for Gruchow, who went to work at Deutsche Messe 14 years ago equipped only with a newly minted Ph.D. in mechanical engineering. Gruchow spoke with Contributing Editor Gary Tufel in his Hannover Fairs office during the 2008 Hannover Fair about Deutsche Messe and its place in the global exhibitions industry.

Question: How did the messe that happens to be located in Hannover get the grand-sounding name of Deutsche Messe, and how do the messes in other German cities feel about it?

Answer: They may feel that it's a threat.

Before World War II, the fair business was concentrated in Leipzig, which after the war was in East Germany. The British, who occupied this area (around Hannover), wanted to improve and re-establish the German economy. We had a plant for aluminum production here and little bombing damage. The plants' production machinery was dismantled and taken to the Allied countries, so we had empty halls.

When the British ordered fairs to resume in those empty halls, we were called Deutsche Messe because we were the first fairgrounds to be re-established in Germany. Many years later, we were also the first to get the messe.de domain. It all gives the impression that we're the only, or pre-eminent, trade fair organization in Germany.

Q: What was that first show produced after the war?

A: Export Fair, in 1947. It was renamed Hannover Fair and became an annual event. This year was our 61st show. Many of our events were originally part of the Hannover Fair and later spun off as separate events, including Ligna, CeBIT, Bauma, Light & Building and CeMAT.

Q: How many exhibitions does Deutsche Messe host, and how significant is the international element?

A: In 2007, a total of 111 events and group pavilions, of which 54 were staged outside of Germany. In 2008, the number of events will be similar.

International participation is the main criterion for success for our company and a key asset of our flagship events' global competitiveness. In a globalized economy, the web of business relations extends over all individual regions and markets.

Q: Did Deutsche Messe always have that international component?

A: Hannover Messe Intl., our subsidiary, produces our overseas shows and had organized fairs abroad with no correlation with fairs in Hannover. At the end of the '90s, we wanted to grow faster abroad, so we decided to export CeBIT, Biotechnica, Domotex, Ligna and others because we had excellent knowledge of those industries and had developed a worldwide network from our shows in Hannover.

We used those synergies to change our strategy and focus on the fastest emerging market: China. We became part owner of the Shanghai New Intl. Expo Centre, which we see as a tool to organize fairs with, but we generally won't invest in fair sites. We focus on shows.

Q: What are the challenges the German exhibition industry is facing today?

A: Germany's exhibition industry has been suffering from a display space overcapacity. That's gradually becoming less acute, but still causing a massive distortion of competition among the German exhibition companies. As a result, the competition has become much more intense.

The exhibition industry also faces the challenge of changing media and information behavior. Pure space rental does not play the same role it once did. Today, exhibitors are interested in holistic communication concepts, in which their tradeshow appearance serves as an essential element, but is embedded in the broader context of customer relations and communications.

Q: Does Deutsche Messe have any specific, unique challenges?

A: One key challenge involves the relative disadvantage of not being the beneficiary of any public subsidies, in contrast with other German competitors, forcing us to compensate for this with even more intensive cost-management programs and additional creativity, service-mindedness and customer orientation. This is a path we will continue to pursue even more in our recently intensified foreign activities.

Q: Given the weak U.S. dollar, what kind of advice do you give your U.S. customers about participation in your exhibitions?

A: That our customers from the U.S. give careful consideration to their attendance or appearance at our tradeshows. Naturally, the current euro-dollar exchange rate is conducive to American sales in the euro zone. I continue to encourage our North American clients to familiarize themselves more closely with our events.

A lot of our American customers are extremely impressed with the international business potential our events offer. The public impression versus the reality of our shows may still be at variance, but this simply means we have more communication work to do.