Interview with Inge Hanser, Managing Director CPO HANSER SERVICE
Ms. Hanser, you have been a congress organizer for 40 years, what exactly does your business consist of?
Inge Hanser:
We organize national and international congresses in Germany, Europe and worldwide. These are mostly scientific congresses, but we also organize non-scientific events. The scientific congresses are primarily medical congresses. We started our business in Hamburg with the company “CPO Hanser Service Hanser & Co GmbH” and half a year later we founded a second company in Berlin. Berlin is very interesting as a location with a very large congress center and very many international congresses. We offer a so-called “full service”, i.e. we organize congresses from A to Z, starting from the question where can the congress take place up to the budget preparation, scheduling, concept for marketing and advertising, hotel reservations, personnel in any form, technology etc.. We take care of the exhibition, the sponsoring, we organize supporting programs, so everything that belongs to a congress all around up to the fiscal aspects and afterwards statistics and invoices.
Did you have a lot of competition back then?
We originally started in Hamburg and initially focused on congresses that took place in Germany. There weren’t that many competitors here at the time; they only came along over the course of the next few years. Today, we have to deal with a great many competitors, including competitors with an international reputation, but also a great many small, so-called PCOs, which do not actually deserve this name (Professional Congress Organizers), which organize correspondingly small events.
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Inge Hanser |
Are these small PCOs trying to get into business via low prices?
These companies are forced to do business through low prices, which of course also troubles us, because there are a number of companies that have to watch the money very closely and mistakenly think that if they accept service from a small PCO with lower prices, they will get the same quality, which is not true.
Who takes care of the abstracts and the speakers in terms of content within the framework of the congress organization?
This is usually done by the professional society with a scientific committee that sets the program and also selects the keynote speakers and then tells us who they would like to invite. From there, we mostly conduct the correspondence with the keynote speakers and arrange the further details. But this is only part of the content planning of a congress: In connection with a “Call for Papers”, scientists from all over the world are invited to submit contributions; these abstracts, short contributions of possible sessions, are collected by us and handed over to the scientific committee, which reviews and evaluates these abstracts and decides which of them will be accepted and which not. There is a subdivision into “oral presentations” and “poster presentations”, because it is not possible to represent all abstracts that have been accepted in a congress within one session, not least because the room capacities are not sufficient for this. So the actual content of the program is usually determined by the association and then we continue to implement organizationally.
How have congresses been financed in the past?
There are hardly any professional societies that can invest funds to hold a congress – or they don’t want to. A congress usually has to be self-financing, through attendee fees, through contributions for attendee registration, and through industry involvement, i.e. through sponsoring or participation in exhibitions… But there are also congresses that receive additional support, be it through certain foundations, be it through funding from the EU or sometimes, when congresses take place in certain cities, through subsidies from the respective city or state.
How has it been in the past with participation in industry symposia and the industry exhibition, has there been criticism from the medical profession regarding pharma involvement or has this been well received?
In the past, everything was usually very positively received, and in the past the industry also very often invited the participants to take part in the congress. That has changed a lot these days because with the different pharmaceutical codes that are out there, the industry is no longer allowed to invite physicians so easily, not to mention not allowed to invite them at all. So participants now have to fund their own attendance at the congress and in many cases that means that congresses today often, not always, have lower attendance compared to the past.
What else has the Transparency Code brought with it?
The codes of the pharmaceutical industry have already made themselves very felt. First of all, there are different codes from the pharmaceutical industry and the device manufacturers, and they also contradict each other in some cases, which does not make it any easier for us to deal with. As a rule, it is primarily a matter of complete transparency. Now, an important factor is where the pharmaceutical company is located: If the company is based in the U.S., for example, the regulations there are usually even much stricter than for a company based in Europe. Experience shows, however, that the stricter regulations in the U.S. set the trend here, which is also reflected in Europe a short time later.
Basically, companies are encouraged to publicly disclose how much money they support a convention with. This information is published on a website, additionally in some publications. How much money did the company invest in hosting a satellite symposium, how much in an exhibition booth… this also goes so far as to distinguish which speaker is in which dependency to certain companies, which funds they receive – but not only for the industry symposia, but for any scientific program today the speaker has to disclose exactly where he is funded by whom. No more gifts may be distributed to participants; in the USA, a company that distributes a ballpoint pen must even register by name to whom the pen was given. Catering is no longer allowed to be sponsored, meaning coffee breaks or lunches have been mostly eliminated. We recently had a case where a company was also no longer allowed to serve coffee at its exhibition stand.
This was primarily a self-commitment initiative by the pharmaceutical industry. This self-commitment now ultimately leads to the fact that they can only present their research work, their products to a smaller target group at the congresses.
That’s right, it’s a self-regulation that the industry has imposed on itself. There are certain legal regulations in the U.S., but they are much weaker, but most of the regulations have come out of the industry. The response from the medical profession is heterogeneous: some physicians are in favor of the transparency initiative, while others even reject any industry support and pay for their own meals. And there are also some, as yet few, congresses that hold their events entirely without industry support. It can work, but it’s not easy.
More and more pharmaceutical manufacturers are offering training events themselves. Is this a trend?
There are a number of pharmaceutical companies that organize their own training events, which is then also very transparent. Of course, this is not necessarily about mapping the diversity of scientific research on a topic. In addition, these events are generally not CME certified.
Some professional societies are experiencing massive declines in attendees at their congresses, which above all has serious economic consequences for the societies. At the moment, we are in a transition phase where new models are being tried, often with decentralized offerings, where the central events are partly mapped digitally and events take place in smaller circles, for example broken down into practical workshops. Does this play a role in your everyday life?
We too can see that there are certain societies that have seen declining attendance at conventions over the years. But there are also congresses with stable or even growing numbers of participants. It depends heavily on the content of the congresses. There are also congresses where the frequency should be reconsidered: In some fields, there is not so much that is new that it is objectively worthwhile to hold an annual congress. We notice, for example, that there are speakers who give the same lecture several times due to a lack of current data – of course, the participants also notice this. Many societies automatically associate financial gain with an annual convention organization. This is seldom the case, however, and they would be better advised to hold their congresses only every two or three years. In addition, there are also many competing events – to prevail against them requires very good and up-to-date content, an ambitious scientific advisory board, and a good scientific committee in close collaboration with a PCO that is willing and able to determine the right topics and activities.
An attractive congress for participants includes not only the right topics but also an appealing form of presentation. Remote scientific sessions in a frontal teaching style rarely appeal to physicians in practice… So societies need to ask themselves “who is my clientele, what does my congress deliver that others don’t, and where are new exciting projects with industry”. Increasingly important are interactive sessions and other new forms of knowledge transfer where participants can contribute well, for example Hot Topics, Pro & Con formats or smaller workshops with a maximum of 20-25 people with a strong practical orientation.
So the fact that the congresses are no longer self-sustaining, even for professional societies, can certainly also be an opportunity to make better congresses, both in terms of form and content?
Absolutely. The individual scientific associations behind the congresses are structured differently. There are large scientific associations, which are also managed very professionally, for example the European Cardiology Congress with more than 30,000 participants. A staff of a hundred people organizes here in-house additionally smaller congresses in between… Smaller societies on the other hand cannot afford this and are well advised to have a Professional Congress Organizer who is not only responsible for them as a service provider, but also as a consultant. And that is also what has changed over the years: We used to be just a service provider for a congress, offering certain services – today we are more of an advisor, a professional consultant, advising the congress on how to better position and market itself, what to include in the future and the like. This is also the difference between the countless small PCOs that continue to offer only their services as service providers and the few large PCOs that have international experience and whose portfolio today includes much more than pure congress organization.
What has digitization changed?
Quite a lot… Today, for example, it is no longer absolutely necessary for a speaker to be present in person at a congress. In the past, people had certain reservations about inviting speakers from distant countries with long costly journeys and often limited themselves to one to three speakers with long journeys. Nowadays it is much easier to invite speakers who can then sit in their hospital in New York, for example, and give their talk there and even enter into discussion with the participants in the convention center. This is not only about costs, but also about time that the speakers are now spared in terms of travel. Digital also means that information can be delivered very quickly, programs can be adapted quickly, content can be announced very early on, for example via an app that delivers the preliminary scientific program very early on. Digitally, the content of the congresses themselves can be mapped in real time and further exploited afterwards.
What experience do you have with the use of digital offerings by the target group?
This is very different. There are societies and disciplines where we find that this is very positively accepted, but there are also groupings and contexts where this takes place very delayed. As before, younger people are generally more likely to engage with digital formats than those slightly older.
Do online CME continuing education offerings compete with congresses?
Ultimately, one can ask whether or not congresses are still necessary today and whether they are still perceived as relevant. I am convinced that the congress is not in competition with digital training offers. In addition to the variety of content on offer, personal exchange, networking and getting to know the cities play a major role in the decision to attend a congress; digital offerings complement and expand the range of congresses.
What do you think about decentralized congresses, i.e. from 1 make 5?
In some circumstances, this may be useful. Especially when one considers such mammoth congresses as the ESC (European Society of Cardiology), which includes an immensely broad spectrum of different disciplines, one may wonder whether a congress needs to have 30,000 participants. When a congress has reached a certain size, one could well think about dividing or quartering this congress and organizing some smaller congresses out of it. We have already made experiences in this respect: There are certain congresses, in the framework of which some disciplines cannot be adequately represented, which are covered with one or two sessions, which is by far not sufficient. For example, we helped to develop the Schizophrenia Congress, which was separated from the complex indication area of psychiatry, because we realized that the clinical picture of schizophrenia is “a science in itself” and developed a separate Schizophrenia Congress from it. We have done this repeatedly with the ADHD Congress. The topic has always played a marginal role at psychiatric congresses, which in no way did justice to its relevance in practice and research. Today, this congress has 2000 participants – so it’s a concept that has proven itself.
What will have changed in 10 years?
Digitalization will increasingly find its way into congress planning, design and implementation. New forms of communication, interactive formats will play a greater role. More special congresses will be developed; large congresses will continue to strengthen on the other side. Certain smaller congresses will have to fear for their existence, because they will have a hard time to survive, because they do not get enough attention, also from the side of the industry, which can participate less in a huge number of congresses due to reduced budgets. Today, the industry focuses on participating in two or three, or even four, congresses in a single discipline. Social media are also becoming more important – anyone who loses touch here misses out on many opportunities.
How are you positioning yourself for the next few years?
We invest a lot in digital media, and have also set up our own IT company that is able to implement projects for us and our customers very quickly… Registration, abstract management systems, hotel reservation systems – as a PCO, you have to adapt to the requirements set by the associations. We implement professional apps that connect the different systems, so that, for example, a participant can register with the Association using single sign-on and is then automatically listed at the congress… These technical aspects have become incredibly important today in terms of competitiveness as a PCO, as has the training aspect, i.e. the exploitation of the content of the congress as e-learning modules – and the integration of the industry into these digital formats. In the past, industry was always just the player that gave money, i.e. a one-way street; today, however, it has to be a more balanced relationship, i.e. a new, partnership-based relationship beyond the mere transfer of funds. These are certainly all important issues to consider for the future.
What makes you different from other PCOs?
What distinguishes us is that we are a company that has been active on the market for almost 40 years, a family-run company whose owners take care of the development of the congresses and of the customers in a very personalized way, providing very personalized and individualized advice on the specific problems. We are, even though we are still one of the larger PCOs today – we employ many highly motivated, long-time employees -not a “congress factory” with 2-3000 employees that can no longer be managed personally for obvious reasons. In addition, we are very strong in the digital area with our own IT company and can respond very quickly to our customers’ requirements in this regard.
You are also breaking new ground by getting involved independently of the professional societies and organizing your own events… Why?
Because we believe that we do not want to act exclusively as a service provider for a professional society. That’s what we do and will continue to do. In addition, we have certain ideas about how congresses should look in the future – and this cannot always be implemented with every professional society… We feel very committed to certain scientific areas, we think it is important to promote certain contents and to help develop them further. That is why we have decided to act as our own organizers in certain indication areas and to organize congresses at full risk, as we believe this will have a good impact in areas that have so far been underrepresented in the scientific congress landscape.
Are you competing with the professional societies or simply complementing their offerings?
I don’t think we’re competing, I think we’re breaking new ground and not necessarily competing directly with societies. We develop a new product and set new content, new focus. I see it as an addition.
InFo NEUROLOGY & PSYCHIATRY 2020; 18(1): 6-8.
GP PRACTICE 2020, 15(1): 6-8.
