[Insight] At CES 2025: Prioritize Your Business Model Over Your Booth

The Reason Innovation Awards Don’t Always Lead to Success I

CES 2025, set to take place in January, will be a fiercely competitive global stage for innovation. The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which organizes CES, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with a new logo and theme, and the number of participating Korean companies is expected to hit a record high. As a result, preparations for the exhibition are heating up across the country.

Many companies recognize CES as the world’s top technology trade show. Thus, they often expect that simply participating will lead to attractive offers from global buyers and investors. However, CES is no genie that grants any wish. Even companies that win innovation awards sometimes fail to secure deals with buyers because they do not provide the answers customers seek.

In other words, for a successful CES experience, it is essential to prepare a solid business model before focusing on booth design or product displays.

Companies should prepare their pricing strategies, local technical support plans, and local sales support strategies.

If you can anticipate the questions buyers and investors might ask on the exhibition floor, you can prepare well. Typically, the questions you'll face fall into three main categories.

First, pricing strategies. Pricing strategy is a critical factor in determining success in the local market. Regardless of how excellent your technology or product is, providing a price point that aligns with the local market’s economic situation and consumer purchasing power is crucial to securing success. The priority is to prepare a pricing strategy tailored to the local market, including bulk purchase discounts, long-term purchase agreements, and discounts based on contract terms.

Second, local technical support is vital for ensuring long-term success after CES. It’s not enough to introduce your product and close deals; you need to emphasize that you can provide seamless technical support after the purchase. Failing to offer prompt local technical support, especially with high-tech products, will erode consumer and buyer trust. Therefore, it’s necessary to establish a regional technical support network and communicate this to potential buyers.

Third, local sales support. For your product to achieve lasting success in the local market, it’s crucial to go beyond simply promoting it at the exhibition. You must establish partnerships with local sales channels and ensure ongoing marketing and sales efforts are in place. Collaborating with local distribution partners, planning marketing support, and providing after-sales services will significantly increase buyer trust, which you should highlight during CES.

Ultimately, companies must prioritize building a solid business model tailored to the local market over focusing on eye-catching booth designs and product displays to succeed at CES. Preparing these three core elements—pricing strategy, technical support, and sales support—in advance and communicating them clearly to buyers and investors is essential for achieving sustainable success.

(C)VM Consulting