With a dynamic crowd on the exhibition floor and conference rooms often at capacity, Day One of Land Forces reiterated the event’s position as both a catalyst for Australian industry and a conduit for engagement on Army’s future needs.
Speaking at the Land Forces 2022 opening ceremony, Chief of Army, Lieutenant General Simon Stuart, AO, DSC, said the event provided a focus for debate on Army’s challenges and future capability.
“Events such as Land Forces are such important opportunities to organise around, to come together and focus our attention on how we can collectively meet the challenges of today and tomorrow,” said Lieutenant General Stuart.
Although we didn't have a stand presence at the venue, Chironix was still represented on the video display at the WA Defence zone allowing me a quick pivot when people asked if we had a booth or not – This gave an element of buffering between the tyre kickers and people that were only interested in big players.
Day One was a whirlwind of getting around to all of the contacts that Daniel, our CEO, has across the industry. They are numerous and I'm still trying to remember everyone's names... I will get there. We also set up a number of meetings for the next few days with suppliers like BAE, Hanwha, BD, Babcock, Opentec, KLAS to name a few.
The protestors had a field day during the night and morning covering the convention centre with Red and blue paint. With the task at hand I pressed on with meetings and generally pressing the flesh, getting some marketing information together to share with Ash—our head of marketing, and also gleaning as much information as possible from all of the stalls visited. My process was simple; visit as many booths as possible that looked like they could provide us with payload or comms (Klas looks to be the front runner here).
Met with Raytheon and dispelled a few ideas that they had of what we do as a business. All up, it was a productive meeting that will help us move the needle in the defence space. Another very full day of meeting with companies and getting a better understanding of the industry and who is who in the zoo.
All-in-all, Land Forces is an event that Chironix is happy to come back to year after year. I know the team is excited to make another visit here next year and we’ll hopefully bring some of the robots with us.
If you have a hand in the defence industry in Australia, attendance is a must – you will get loads of value from it.
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