Meet the Manufacturer is a rare occasion where leading channel professionals from the world’s top mobile computing and EPoS vendors are gathered together in one place. Combined with the range of products on display, MTM is an ideal opportunity to introduce new members of your team to the wider industry, or to enhance your employee’s existing knowledge.

This year’s event, to be held on Wednesday 27th April at The St. John’s Hotel in Solihull, will see the likes of Zebra Technologies, Honeywell, Datalogic, Panasonic and many others attending as exhibitors. The event is also attended by UK IT channel professionals from a wide range of system integrators, solution providers and resellers.

Speaking ahead of the 2016 show Stephen Henry, Director of Aberdeen based healthcare solution provider Sciamed, said “It’s a great opportunity to immerse new starters into our Industry. There are so many facets to our industry and so many applications and vertical markets that people are involved in.  From EPoS to healthcare to manufacturing and parking enforcement –it’s a great opportunity for new starters to get to grips with how vast our industry is in terms of the solutions we can provide.

“The applications are so diverse that it is impossible to understand them all but you never know what you are going to come across in your next customer meeting. The amount of times I’ve been in a customer meeting and I’ve thought to myself that I’ve seen that somewhere before and it was probably at the Meet the Manufacturer event.”

This view is shared amongst representatives from the manufacturers who will be exhibiting at this year’s event. Speaking at MTM 2015, Rob Alcock, Print and Media Specialist at Honeywell said, “There are some very knowledgeable and experienced people at this event. There is a limited talent pool and it’s a very specialised industry so to see some of these partners taking young people, training them and bringing them in to the industry is great to see.”

As well as training new staff, MTM is an opportunity for all industry professionals to keep up to speed with the latest developments to affect the IT channel. Sciamed are regular attendees at Meet the Manufacturer and Stephen Henry believes the event to be a valuable fact-finding experience as well as a great networking opportunity. He said, “It’s an opportunity to catch up with the manufacturers which is obviously the core of the event, but it’s also an opportunity to network with our peers.

“We work very closely with Datalogic but it’s always interesting to see the other brands as well. Honeywell have a vast array of equipment available now so it’s important to keep up to date. It’s essential for us to get the right piece of kit for the solution we are providing for our customers rather than just what we know.

“At one of the events we had a thorough talk on the Internet of Things and the Zebra Zatar portal. We could then implement that with some of our customers. It was an invaluable opportunity to meet with some of the Zebra technical staff like Gary Malcolm to get his take on the opportunity and how it could be implemented.”

The number of exhibitors attending the event adds to the appeal of Meet the Manufacturer for Sciamed, saving valuable time that would otherwise be spent arranging and travelling to meetings all over the country, as Stephen explains. “We put great store on the relationships that we have with our suppliers,” said Stephen.

“You can’t put a measure on how important it is to have that face-to-face connection and that relationship. MTM gives us the ability to see so many manufacturers in one place. Ordinarily to arrange to see that many people you might be away from the office for a week or more with all of those appointments.  But at MTM everybody is there in one room and it’s a great day to try and get round as many people as you can. Some of the discussions become quite involved.”

“We’d never underestimate the value of coming down from Aberdeen to wherever the event is held. There is usually myself and one or two other people who join me and we find it to be a worthwhile investment to make that journey because we learn so much whilst we’re there.”

Meet the Manufacturer is free to attend and will be held on Wednesday 27th April at The St, John’s Hotel in Solihull. To see a full list of exhibitors, event details and to register to attend please click here.