For fast-growing, e-business giant Sterling Commerce, skyrocketing revenue growth has been a sure sign that marketing real solutions to real business challenges works, especially when that philosophy is integrated into your company strategy--including your meetings.
For more than 15 years Sterling Commerce and the company it spun off from in 1996, Sterling Software, have been creating business applications that harness technology to solve problems. Throughout that time, a key element in their strategy has been an annual customer conference for the users and developers who work with Sterling's high-level code. The goals were the same as any user conference: Cover the products and the services with serious technical education, update the audience on what's new and what's coming next, and tell a few success stories along the way.
But as the company's products and services began evolving from applications into whole strategies custom-tailored for custo-mers across indus- tries, Sterling needed a meeting that would reflect that shift.
Sterling Meeting Partners
Smith, Bucklin & Associates, Chicago--hotel space negotiations
Audio Visual Management Services, Scottsdale, Ariz.--audiovisual production
TBA Corporate Communications and Entertainment--general session production
Rogers Display Company, Columbus, Ohio--assists with the Solutions Exchange
That meant attracting more than just traditional hands-on users to its customer conference. "In the past, it was much more technical, down-and-dirty problem-solving," says Carol "Casey" Strader, manager for trade shows and conference events for Sterling's Network Services Group. Sterling wanted the strategic thinkers, the executives who influence the direction of its Fortune 500 customers, as well as the people whose opinions carry similar influence, the technology market analysts and financial analysts. These are the people paid to see the bigger picture and to understand when a solution is more important than mere software.
For the past five years, Sterling has been gradually integrating these high-level folk into what has otherwise been a programmer's conference. In 1994, the company began organizing satellite meetings, creating first an event for analysts, and the next year, one for high-level executives, many of whom wouldn't typically have an interest in a technical show.
Evolving for Executives "We evolved our conferences the way we're evolving our company," says Strader. "And then as we started evolving into all these business solutions, we also had a lot of business divisions. So then we said, 'Why don't we try and do this for all of our company under one roof?'"
Sterling saw a focused user conference, now called EC Strategies, as a perfect opportunity to bring in analysts who track the company's products and how they stack up in the industry, as well as the securities analysts who follow the company's stock. The first year, at EC Strategies '94 in Orlando, the analysts' satellite event drew only about a dozen people, but just five years later, at the 1998 meeting in Toronto, there were about 75 attendees.
In 1995, Sterling rolled out its first Executive Symposium in conjunction with its New Orleans customer conference, and, with events that included a round of golf with former President Bush, attracted 35 CEOs and other top execs.
With no trade show competing for their attention, analysts and executives at EC Strategies can be completely focused on Sterling. Consequently, the company can unveil new products and announce acquisitions without fear that the message will be lost beneath the volume of trade show hoopla. Sterling also treats its special guests to discussions of strategy and direction for the coming year from the top people at the company and one-on-one discussions with Sterling's customers. "We really try to focus on personal agendas for those people," Strader says.
A New Plan This year, Sterling is again innovating. Instead of a separate symposium for executives at EC Strategies '99, the company is integrating the presidents, vice-presidents, and chief information officers with the other guests. (Analysts will still have their own program and sessions.) Why? Because as information technology becomes more essential to the enterprise, especially in electronic commerce, these high-level managers become Sterling's new customers.
And while Sterling markets EC Strategies to them with a bit more attention and flair (see sidebar "How to Draw Executives," page 39), most of the upmarket crowd that the company hopes to attract to the 1999 conference are technologically savvy enough to be com- fortable mingling with software engineers and information technology managers.
Indeed, the line of people interested in spending the $1,000 it costs (analysts attend free, as is customary) to attend this annual conference is growing. When EC Strategies '99 convenes in May on the Chicago lakeshore, attendance is expected to be 23 percent higher than last year, topping the 2,000 mark. Included will be about 100 executives and another 110 industry and financial analysts.
Let the Customers Do the Talking Sterling's remarkable growth not only in revenues but in industries served (see "Sterling Performance," opposite page), drove another change for EC Strategies '99. Just as Sterling is now organized along vertical lines, so now are many of the conference sessions. Bankers can hear a targeted discussion of cash management Year 2000 testing, and retailers can learn about using process automation in electronic commerce. Most conference topics, however, are general: a discussion of moving to processing orders without using paper; a seminar in auditing, controlling, and tracking EDI data; and an introduction to using data warehousing to make supply chains more efficient.
Sterling has spiced up some of these current topics by asking satisfied customers to do the talking--to lead sessions themselves. For example, a representative from the Social Security Administration will talk about the agency's use of a Sterling solution to improve its communication capabilities. Fast-food retailer Chik-Fil-A will talk about managing remote systems. And health care company HealthPartners will discuss EDI transactions. Having scores of customers get up and tell their success stories has tremendous value for marketing, but Sterling also finds that it makes the sessions more accessible to those high-level guests who have come more to learn strategy than to solve technical problems. The customers who lead sessions return to do it again every year, Strader says.
More Ways to Choose The 120 sessions at EC Strategies '99 are presented to attendees not only by vertical industry groups, but also as a matrix of choices offered by audience (technical, end user, business management, or general), topic (tools and technology, business considerations, Sterling Commerce vision, or operational considerations), platform (Unix, AS/400, S/390, or Microsoft), and Sterling product family (Connect, Commerce, or Gentran).
This matrix approach to topic selection makes it easier for guests to pick and choose the right sessions. No one is locked out of any session, and all of the scheduling and registration can be done on the Web. While some events are arranged solely for either analysts or executives--especially private meals and social functions--Sterling encourages mixing and mingling at other times to maximize the networking opportunities for all of its guests.
A Sterling Experience Strader creates a schedule with plenty of time in between sessions during which guests can tour The Solutions Exchange, a 30,000-square-foot walk-in display case of Sterling's products, services, and collaborations with business partners. For Sterling, it's a place to show off its top technology. For the guests, it's an all-Sterling trade show where they can network and watch demonstrations. While they're there, they can log onto the conference intranet from kiosks to catch up on the meeting's latest news and strike up conversations with customers and peers (see section on networking at EC Strategies '99). Ideally, senior executives come away from six days of relevant education and networking with a Sterling experience.
Looking at the numbers, it's hard to believe that Sterling Commerce is just three years old. Revenues have gone from zero to half a billion dollars since 1996, growing more than 30 percent a quarter for ten consecutive quarters, and name recognition, mindshare, and customer base have all risen accordingly. Already, Sterling boasts 42,000 customers, including major players across a variety of industries. In fact, you can pick a business and it's likely that the most recognizable names in that industry are using Sterling solutions. Automotive? The computers at Chrysler, BMW, and Ford Europe drive Sterling. Banking? Citicorp, Bank of America, and ABN-AMRO all put their money in Sterling. Health Care? Sterling's caring for Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, and Bayer. And telecommunications? Sterling has hooked AT&T, MCI, Sprint, and Nortel.
But it doesn't stop there. For those of you scoring at home, Sterling calls 482 of the Fortune 500 customers, plus 99 of the top 100 U.S. banks. It's no wonder the company dubs itself the world leader in electronic commerce software and services. Principally, that means tools to facilitate communications and transactions over the Internet between businesses, including electronic payment software used by financial institutions and electronic data interchange applications used to speed supply chains.
Sterling Commerce pours a lot of resour-ces into its presentations to customers at EC Strategies. But it also spends a lot of time thinking of ways to get customers making presentations to each other.
When guests at the 2,000-person conference arrive, they are handed nametags that not only have their name and company, but also the Sterling product they use and an icon showing what industry they represent. The nametags make it easier for guests to network, even in a large crowd.
Guests who visit the Solutions Exchange can use the Intranet kiosks to identify other guests who have similar characteristics. They can find each other by plugging in keywords, such as their strategic goals or product interests.
Of course, many of Sterling's custo-mers already know each other and do business. Sterling offers them meeting space to get together. In fact, a staff person is dedicated to coordinating their ad-hoc needs.
Casey Strader, manager of trade shows and conference events for Sterling's Network Services Group, knows a thing or two about attracting the highest levels of customer management to her company's annual conference, EC Strategies. Since starting an executive symposium as a satellite meeting to the conference in 1996, Sterling has repeatedly drawn more than 100 group presidents, vice presidents, and chief information officers to its 2,000-person conference. But getting busy execs interested requires careful planning and marketing. Here are four tips from Strader for bringing them in:
* Create separate marketing materials for executives that have a different look and feel from the general conference materials. Alternatively, send a general conference brochure but include a personalized cover letter from your president and CEO.
* Throw a private luncheon or reception to welcome executives to the conference. Find ways to make them feel special and get away from the crowds. This year, Strader is putting together an executive event at the Solutions Exchange, Sterling's technology pavilion, to give them a first look at the displays, demonstrations, and Sterling's strategic partnerships.
* Line up interesting and recognizable keynote speakers to help deliver the message about your company's capabilities and vision. This year, former Apple Computer CEO John Sculley and Vanderbilt University Professor Donna Hoffman will deliver mini-keynotes while the main speeches will be given by author Don Tapscott and Sterling President and CEO Warner Blow.
* Be careful with executives' schedules--their time is their most precious commodity. This year, Sterling will integrate the executives more fully in the main meeting, which required extensive planning to make sure they can get to the sessions they want and aren't pulled in many directions at once. Sterling essentially had to redesign all of the regular sessions to accommodate them.
Smith, Bucklin & Associates, Chicago--hotel space negotiations
Audio Visual Management Services, Scottsdale, Ariz.--audiovisual production
TBA Corporate Communications and Entertainment--general session production
Rogers Display Company, Columbus, Ohio--assists with the Solutions Exchange