Trying to balance investments in event tech is no easy task. Photo Credit: Adobe stock/Sura Nualpradid
Measuring and proving the ROI of your event technology - from
budgeting to meeting requests to strategic meetings management, can
often be a challenge, particularly as event technology is often not
treated in the same way as other IT investments.
This thinking was explored in greater detail during a Cvent webinar
that looked at the most relevant metrics and key performance indicators
for event technology investments.
“There's a point where we can invest too much, and a point where
we're investing too little,” said Brad Gillespie, VP, sales, hospitality
cloud at Cvent. “One of the objectives of understanding return and
impact is understanding the right amount to invest. Our industry has
lacked a good framework to measure event technology.”
Total cost of ownership
One of the tools that has emerged in the events industry in recent years is the concept of total cost of ownership (TCO).
“TCO is an estimation of the expenses associated with purchasing,
deploying, using and retiring the entire lifecycle and not just the
technology, but everything that's required to use the technology,” said
Gillespie. “You need to think about future workloads or future-related
projects - not just the one-time cost to perhaps implement, but the
other things you may want to do over time.”
Factor in that event technology, especially if it's new, may also
have some migration costs attached, from moving from one platform to
another. And if you are hosting the applications, there could also be
data centre and ongoing management and staffing costs to bear too.
Gillespie also pointed out that ROI can also be looked at in terms of
the benefits derived from using event technology. For example, the time
saved by deploying a certain tech process or cost savings made as a
result of using the tech.
Quantifying benefits
“There are some real tangible ways that we can quantify the benefits
and then we have to calculate a value for those benefits,” he said.
“Technology can really have an impact on your cost objectives - it
should help save money and should help consolidate suppliers.”
One example of using technology to reduce costs was seen to great
effect during the pandemic, with those businesses that switched to
virtual meetings and which did not return to face-to-face or which
adopted a hybrid approach.
Consolidating your event technology is another option when
considering ROI. “Many of us licence more than one technology, there's
overlap in those capabilities,” said Gillespie. “You may have
opportunities in your organisation to consolidate that technology
through automation too.”