With 3,400+ people attending, Cvent CONNECT 2017 was our biggest ever! Our conference included some great news about how we're improving our platform to maximize the impact of your events, regardless of their size, key industry trends, and how to further leverage the power of your events. Here's a quick peek at our Top 5 Takeaways.
Cvent is committed to simplifying the user experience
Cvent is proud to offer the most comprehensive platform of products that scale across the total event program (big, small, large, complex). But that’s not enough for our developers. Cvent’s mission is to deliver more ease-of-use and convenience for our customers and users, giving planners and marketers the ability to capture and prove their impact on the bottom line.
During his keynote, David Quattrone, Cvent's CTO took to the stage to speak about the many ways Cvent has acted on that promise, including the complete redesign of the Cvent Supplier Network, making it more personalized, mobile-focused experience and improving search filters to help planners find the perfect venues and services for their events. He also introduced and demonstrated Cvent Flex, a brand-new way to build and manage our customer's events and the largest technology investment of the company to date.
You can watch David’s presentation to our attendees here
Cvent’s expanding our industry-leading platform
David also spoke about the big things in store for our customers in the near and not-so-distant future in terms of technology. With the acquisition of Lanyon, Cvent filled in all the missing pieces of our technology solutions and now offers the broadest and deepest event management platform in the industry - but that doesn't mean the innovation will slow down any time soon. In fact, it means the exact opposite.
We’re investing in technology to support your total event program and focusing on integrations so you can take all of your event data and share it all the other critical business systems you have to accelerate your growth and prove the value of your event program.
See David’s comments here.
The age of the Engagement Economy is upon us
Marketo CEO Steve Lucas joined hit the stage to speak about the engagement economy. Digital transformation has changed everything. Buyer expectations have shifted radically…leading Steve to ask an essential question to attendees: do your companies understand your customers? And if they don’t, they need to take steps to do just that. Steve pointed out that today, the attention of our customers is finite, and this drives the need for human connection.
He closed with some advice: Delivering personalized and meaningful experiences at scale will enhance the power of connection, and telling planners and marketers in attendance that in 2017, value is greater than volume for our customers and attendees. To win, we all need to listen to, learn from, and inspire our customers.
You can view Steve’s keynote address at the 33-minute mark here.
We’re helping customers prove event ROI through integrations
From your CRM system, to your expense tracking software, to your marketing automation system, you rely on multiple applications to manage your business. It’s critical for all of them to work together and offer you a unified, holistic data exchange across your tech stack. The Cvent Integration Hub allows you to do just that, creating a seamless flow of data between any of your SaaS solutions and Cvent. Cvent’s open platform allows you to integrate with any web-based program. Here are the major integration types and examples of some of the key systems we integrate with.
A Cvent CONNECT, The Ounce of Prevention Fund shared share critical insights, through a series of use-cases, about their event planning process and CRM Salesforce integration. Utilizing a relationship-based approach, the event and IT professional team built high-quality content, engaged with participants and ultimately created value for attendees and the organization.
You can see their breakout session here,
Data security and Duty of Care are more critical than ever at your events
One of the topics covered on the final day of Cvent CONNECT was safety surrounding the events industry, and Duty of Care.
While most corporate travel programs have established comprehensive Duty of Care programs — generally centered around using a centralized travel management company (TMC) and security expert firms that offer corporate services, such as International SOS and iJet — the efforts on the meetings and events side have been inconsistent.
No one can predict what’s going to happen, but if you do your best to plan meetings and events — factoring in safety and security concerns, including Mother Nature — ahead of time, then you’ve done your best in trying to protect and mitigate the well-being of your attendees and your employer.
Here are some tips about putting safety first at your events.
Also, if you missed any sessions, breakouts, keynotes or want drill down into these topics further,check out the Cvent CONNECT website.
