At Cisco Systems, says Carolyn Pund, CMP, CMM, senior manager, global strategic meetings management, reports are pulled, shared, and analyzed continually. “We slice and dice almost every piece of data in our Global Meetings Portal and Event Intelligence Tool for the specific ‘care abouts’ of the stakeholder audience,” she explains. The reports drive decisions on budget funding, how and where to participate in industry events, sponsorships, staffing and resourcing, partner performance for future selection, and more.
“We are moving past the days where decisions are made from legacy participation, a great tip, or jumping on a bandwagon,” Pund says. “Credible data provides a better risk for a sound investment.” She can break down her meetings data in the following ways:
• by spend
• by savings
• by authorization levels
• by risk levels
• by preferred supplier utilization
• by hotel chain
• by attendee behaviors
• by industry segment
• by geographical region
• by partner performance
• by product/solution portfolio
• by department/organization
• by audience: internal, external, hybrid, virtual
• by event type: trade show, user group, sales, advisory board, training, launch, incentive
• by out-of-policy volume