Navistar Parts held its "Power Up" Virtual Conference and Sales Expo recently, an online gathering of more than 1,600 International and ICTM Bus dealer parts employees.
Hosting the conference online offered participants cost savings and drew in more attendees than ever.

"In the current environment, incurring costs that would have been typical for previous year's annual sales conferences, didn't fit the lean, responsible model for business that we were striving toward," said Kathy Seegebrecht, vice president of marketing and brand for Navistar Parts. "Bringing people together in an online environment - a virtual trade show and education session - made sense for both Navistar and our dealers. It was clearly a win-win situation as demonstrated by the fact that our online participation was three times greater than last year's in-person attendance, at one-fifth of the cost. "

This year, Navistar Parts sales surpassed last year's sales by almost 30 percent, the company says. The conference was a forum for dealers to interact with suppliers, take part in education sessions, and finalize deals in chat rooms.

"Normally, I would send maybe three or four staff people to the annual conference," said Malcolm Pierson, director of parts operations for Westrux, an International truck dealer in California. "This year, we had 21 people from our operation take advantage of online education through Power Up. In a year where everyone's been hit hard, this made a lot of sense."

During the conference, dealers could attend to customers during the day and participate on their own time. More than 237,000 product information documents were downloaded in a single week, and 36,000 educational and speaker videos were viewed. The online platform will remain available through August, so that participants can continue to review materials or train new employees.