Capital Group Companies is one of the world’s largest investment organizations with a presence in North America, Asia, and Europe. “We’ve been around for 90 plus years and manage more than $2.5 trillion in assets as of March, 2024," explains Ajith Krishnankutty, Vice President of Experiential Marketing. With close to 9,000 associates across 31 offices globally, meetings and events play a key role in driving client and employee experience for the organization. 

BACKGROUND

Aligning events with Capital Group’s strategic goals

In 2018, shortly after joining Capital Group, Ajith began assessing the organization’s existing events program in relation to the larger business strategy. “We needed to think through the transformation of data, technology, talent, process, and experience,” he says. Capital Group's events program, which involved over 300 annual hosted and attended events, lacked a unified approach, with largely undefined processes that were scattered across the organization. Ajith’s team identified opportunities to strategically align events with organizational goals while scaling the program through automated technology, which would in turn provide important efficiencies for the business.

First, Capital Group needed to differentiate its event strategy within a competitive landscape for the Financial Services industry. Ajith recognized the need to leverage technology and provide innovative experiences for their clients in order to set their events apart. While Capital Group had a longstanding relationship with Cvent, they primarily used only the Registration solution. Ajith explains, “We really needed to look at the possibilities of how we could essentially use Cvent as a platform, rather than a tool.” 

GOALS

A critical shift in integrating events into the marketing mix

With a consistent and unified meeting strategy in place, Ajith began assessing the Capital Group’s larger program requirements. “The focus became on looking at our clients’ unmet needs, the structure of the events, and the reason behind the execution of those events,” he says. Moreover, they needed to better understand how to cater to their clients’ industry-specific requirements. “From a financial industry perspective, it’s all about exclusive access, so how do you give that exclusive access to these investment professionals?” he explains. With strict industry regulations in mind, Capital Group needed to carefully design their events program to meet those requirements. “On the hosted side, it’s about being incredibly thoughtful and intentional about the enrichment and client engagement,” Ajith adds. “On the sponsored side, it’s about brand and reputation.” 

As a leading asset manager with a 90+ years history, Capital Group recognized the need to adapt its strategies to new market developments, such as entering the ETF space. As a result, their go to market strategies needed to evolve in how they viewed events within the larger marketing mix. They recognized the limitations of traditional tactics like white papers in being able to quickly address market volatility and investor concerns. Events provided a more immediate and impactful platform for engaging with clients and delivering relevant information. By bringing events directly within the marketing function, they could more fully capitalize on these opportunities. “Events are now an integral part of our marketing channel, and we’ve been able to touch more clients and have much more meaningful dialogues as a result,” says Ajith.

APPROACH

To address this challenge, the team adopted a data-driven approach. They analyzed average cost, lead time, and capacity metrics across their events to establish a baseline data set, and then overlaid additional criteria like experience, content, and technology needs. This resulted in establishing a three-tiered approach, namely Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 events. Each tier is defined by specific requirements like execution time, capacity allocation, and associated costs. To streamline the event planning process and facilitate decision-making, the team developed their Event Builder technology solution. This tool enables the team to collaborate with clients and create customized event experiences based on their specific needs and preferences. They can easily estimate the time and cost required for each event, allowing for real-time adjustments and modifications. 

This flexibility proved invaluable in optimizing event planning and execution. Ajith’s team is now able to streamline the planning process from an average of two or three months to a matter of weeks, resulting in a roughly 75% increase in time savings. This accelerated planning cycle allows the team to be more agile and responsive in meeting business needs. They’re also able to extend calendar planning to a rolling cycle of 18 months rather than nine months, enabling long-term strategic planning and providing a clearer roadmap for future initiatives.

In assessing each new solution, Ajith explains that the process is driven by a desire for tech stack optimization and improved efficiency. He says, “We were looking at where planners spend their time, and it came down to tasks like managing hotel room blocks in Excel and dealing with a lot of manual work.” As a result, they now use a host of solutions designed to automate processes and alleviate pain points, ultimately streamlining the workflows for their event management and marketing teams. “Even simple things like GDS integrations or Passkey can save someone a week’s time,” Ajith insists. 

Other solutions such as the Attendee Hub and Mobile Event app support audiences regardless of event format. The integrated Registration and Attendee Hub solutions ensure a seamless data flow for event managers, creating a single source of truth for attendee and event data. These solutions also drive attendee engagement while allowing Capital Group to gather valuable insights. With automated data synchronization, event organizers can make informed decisions and deliver personalized experiences for their attendees.

Capital Group is also able to leverage Onsite Solutions like OnArrival to ensure a speedy check-in experience, eliminating lengthy queues and hours spent pre-printing and organizing badges. Session scanning and attendance tracking through RFID or NFC badges not only capture session attendance, but allow event professionals to monitor capacity and track attendance for requirements like continuing education credits. This consistent technology experience provides an ecosystem for Capital Group to leverage the right data and technology across the event lifecycle.  Ajith notes, “From a pre, during, and post-event perspective, Capital Group uses almost every piece of Cvent technology.”

Driving ROI through data-driven decision making 

Ajith notes that the ongoing adoption of Cvent solutions over the last several years has helped transform how the business views event technology. “There’s a fundamental shift in looking at the technology as a platform versus a tool,” he explains. “And now, we look at it as a platform.” He adds that importantly, it’s not just this Cvent technology that Capital Group utilizes. “We’ve started to integrate Cvent with many other software platforms, like Salesforce,” he says. “From a data perspective, it’s vitally important because now everything is in one place.” 

By leveraging these integrations, Capital Group is able to seamlessly manage Cvent in relation to their larger tech stack, unifying their data to get more value out of their investment. Not only does this help centralize operations so they can manage the entire event lifecycle through these integrated tools, but sales and marketing teams can learn about attendee preferences and behaviors to improve audience targeting. From the marketing perspective, this data is then integrated into the system of record to help improve customer engagement and accelerate the sales pipeline. “Data is incredibly important, especially when you're looking at data at multiple folds,” insists Ajith. 

He says they look at both operational data - how the portfolio is functioning in terms of factors like event execution and spend - and post-event return on investment. “The question is then, how do we drive a journey in terms of nurturing that lead and getting a qualified lead?” he says. Integrations with platforms like Salesforce and Marketo allow Capital Group to not only holistically view that data, but integrate it into multiple parts of the organization. “Capital Group has always done a phenomenal job in really looking at that data holistically, and Cvent has been great in helping us compile that data to make it much more consumable and actionable,” he says. 

Embracing innovation through a close Cvent relationship

Cvent has maintained a consultative approach in helping the organization identify opportunities for technology solutions to maximize operational efficiency. “Cvent really played a great role in terms of looking at where we are spending our time and how we can convert that to more efficiency using technology,” says Ajith. Bringing in their IT department to implement the technology as an enterprise solution was critical to the successful adoption of Cvent across the business. “It’s not just about technology, but rather operating smartly,” Ajith says. “I think the ability for Cvent to really show what that North Star looked like was incredibly useful, and I think it really changed the landscape and the way we thought about technology and the business.”

In considering the near future, Ajith looks forward to seeing the innovation tools like Artificial Intelligence (AI) will bring. “For me, that’s what is inspiring and I see that as an opportunity,” he says. “Understanding how to use AI to drive data insights and how technology can be used to drive more efficiency is going to continue as the world evolves.” However, he believes it’s important that we maintain a focus on the people at the heart of the industry in the midst of this rapidly changing landscape. “You have to understand your talent base and then really focus on upskilling your talent,” he advises. He sees a bright future for companies that embrace the power of technology while continuing to invest in their employees, like Capital Group and Cvent. He adds, “So I’m very optimistic in the way Cvent continues to evolve, and everyone at Cvent is amazing . I’m excited to see where the industry as a whole will go next.”

PRODUCTS USED