Informedia is Tops for Conferences in Poland

A typical day at Polish conference organizer Informedia Polska is chaos. "Everybody is running around, there is screaming, people are quarreling," says Managing Director Mariusz Mazurek. "But in the meantime, we are selling like crazy. We keep our production deadlines. We coordinate 10 events at a time with 15 speakers each. We prepare conference materials. We send out mailings by post and by e-mail." In short, things work at Informedia, and they work well.

Informedia speakers are media-hungry people who have unique knowledge and want to share it, together with their experience, with other high-level professionals, says Mazurek. "At the same time, we are a team of success-hungry people," he says. "It doesn't matter if we're talking about producers, marketers, sales people or an office manager. We have to be fast, focused and flexible - and we are."

Informedia Polska is the biggest independent conference organizer in Poland. The company was launched in 2004 as a conference business segment of Expomedia Group Ltd., a London-based company. But the company and Mazurek have seen their share of challenges in the six years they've been in business. Like when previous owner Expomedia became insolvent in January 2009. Mazurek was suddenly forced to look for a new investor.

"At the beginning, Bonnier Business Polska was lucky that I identified them as a potential new owner of Informedia," says Mazurek with pride. "And then I was lucky that Bonnier trusted me and my people."

Mazurek's aim a year ago was to find a new investor which could benefit from Informedia. "Bonnier with its daily newspaper Puls Biznesu was a perfect match," he says. "We have similar target groups and we have similar products, which is professional information for professionals. Despite the fact that we act as an independent company, we combine as many activities as we can: production of events, marketing, sales and sponsoring. We benefit from providing customized but comprehensive offers for all our interest groups."

Informedia Polska started in 2004 with 15 events - conferences and courses - and three years later was running 250 events annually covering most important industries and topics. The conferences are among the most expensive in Poland, typically costing attendees EUR 1,000 for a two-day conference and attracting middle- and high-level management from Poland's biggest companies.

The company organizes events under two brands: Informedia Polska and ECU Marketing. Informedia Polska focuses on vertical events for specific industries. "We have a full portfolio in telecom, real estate, pharma, banking, retailing/fast moving consumer goods and energy, as well as events targeted for specific interest groups including lawyers, human resources and logistics," says Mazurek.

ECU Marketing is a brand with events for marketing, sales, communication, public relations and customer relations departments.

Informedia Polska is currently a team of about 40 people, including six event producers, four people in marketing and more than 20 people in sales. "That places us among the biggest conferences organizations," says Mazurek. "Unfortunately, the financial crisis hit us too. In October 2008 I had almost 200 people on board." But the company still kept its head above water, and more.

Says Mazurek: "We managed. The second half of 2009 was already above the line. That proves we are a healthy business. We conquered the market in 2006, we survived in 2009 and we fly in 2010."