A Showcase for Business – Fifth Edition of the Expo Set for Nov. 4 in Springfield

T
he final countdown is underway.

Indeed, the fifth annual Western Mass. Business Expo, produced by HCN and BusinessWest, is almost here, and the final details are falling into place. The show, which will showcase more than 150 area businesses and feature more than eight hours of programs that will be informative, educational, and inspirational, will bring together popular elements from Expos past, and introduce some new ones.

“Since we started the show in 2011, one of the slogans we’ve used to promote it has been, ‘why would you be anywhere else?,’” said Kate Campiti, HCN’s associate publisher and sales manager. “And that’s especially true this year. On November fourth, the MassMutual Center is the only place you’d want to be.”

If you were anywhere else, you’d miss what promises to be an enlightening and entertaining start to the day at the Springfield Regional Chamber’s October breakfast. It will feature Dan Kenary, CEO and co-founder of Harpoon Brewery, in a “casual conversation” with HCN and BusinessWest Editor George O’Brien. Kenary will also take questions from the audience.

If you were elsewhere, you would miss a timely and thought-provoking talk by Alison Lands, senior manager in Deloitte’s Strategy & Operations practice. She served as a co-author and editor of the New England Council and Deloitte’s recently published report, “Advanced to Advantageous: The Case for New England’s Manufacturing Revolution,” and her talk, focused on that document, will be part of a multi-faceted effort to spotlight the region’s precision-manufacturing sector and the myriad opportunities and challenges confronting it.

If you were anywhere else, you couldn’t take in any of the 16 educational seminars scheduled on four tracks: Sales & Marketing, Workforce Development, Entrepreneurship, and Hottest Trends. The 45-minute talks, scheduled throughout the day, include “Building a Pipeline of Sales Opportunity,” “Inside Tech Foundry: Workforce in Progress,” “Bullying in the Workplace,” “How to Work with Humans: Harnessing the Power of Employees,” “Securing Your Business from White-collar Crime,” “7 Essential Elements of a Successful Business,” and much more.

And if you happened to be elsewhere, you’d miss a number of special features and programs: the return of last year’s highly successful Retail Corridor, the ever-popular Pitch Contest staged by Valley Venture Mentors (VVM), a Healthcare Corridor, robotics demonstrations by students at area schools (see sidebar, page 10), a Technology Corridor, the new Business Support Center, a ‘Green’ Corridor; the day-capping Expo Social (one of the best networking events of the year), and much more.

The Pitch Contest will have a new and intriguing twist. This year’s event, which represents a partnership between VVM, the Economic Development Council of Western Mass., and the Small Business Administration, will feature the debut of the InnovateHER pitch competition.

The InnovateHER Challenge is a national prize competition aimed at unearthing products and services that impact and empower women and families through local business competitions. The winner of the Nov. 4 VVM Pitch Contest will advance to the next round of the national InnovateHER competition, with a chance to compete for $70,000 in prize money.

The five contestants at the VVM competition, who will have booths at what’s known as Startup Row and thus can be visited throughout the day, are:

• AuthenFOOD, which enables customers to order food online and reviews local chefs and bakers;

• Bhlue Publishing, LLC, which provides career guidance for young people that focuses on success without a four-year degree;

• Do+Make Business District, an online community and school for what it calls “solopreneurs escaping the 9-5”;

• Hot Oven Cookies, which promises to “deliver comfort in a cookie”; and

• Wonder Crew, a toy company that “offers boys a more expansive play experience, one where they can be strong and emotionally connected.”

Expo attendees will have the opportunity to choose which of those five they think will prevail in the competition. Those who guess correctly will win a door prize.

The region’s healthcare sector will be prominently displayed at the Expo, with a designated corridor. It will be populated by Holyoke Medical Center, HealthSouth, MedExpress Urgent Care, Porchlight VNA/Home Care, Ex Physical Therapy, and many other area companies.

A returning feature will be the Retail Corridor, which made a popular debut in 2014. It will feature a host of area companies featuring holiday gift items in a range of categories, from therapeutic massage to chocolate; cosmetics to jewelry; fruit baskets to Springfield Falcons tickets.

Meanwhile, new this year is the Business Support Center, which, as that name would suggest, features a number of exhibiting economic-development-related agencies that exist to support business owners and managers.

Participating agencies include the Economic Development Counsel of Western Mass., the Mass. Office of Business Development, the Kittredge Center at Holyoke Community College, the Mass. Export Center, the Holyoke Innovation District, and the Mass. Small Business Development Center, among many others.

The Expo will again be presented by Comcast Business, which has been the show’s lead sponsor since HCN and BusinessWest began producing it in 2011. Director-level sponsors are Health New England, Johnson & Hill Staffing Services, MGM Springfield, and Wild Apple Design Group. The Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst is the education sponsor, 94.7 WMAS is the media sponsor, Peerless Precision and Smith & Wesson are the robotics and manufacturing sponsors, and Meyers Brothers Kalicka is entrepreneur sponsor.