June 2004
Best Practices: Walk the talk

IDG World Expo automates event management processes to eliminate redundancies

By Cathy Chatfield-Taylor

Before the IDG World Expo marketing staff began using the Javelin Event Management System (EMS), doing detailed post-show analyses for technology-focused events such as Macworld and LinuxWorld consumed 20 percent of their time — equivalent to one day of every workweek.

“They weren’t sitting in the corner with an abacus, but it wasn’t much better than that,” says David Korse, President of IDG’s event business unit in Framingham, MA. “Now they can slice and dice data any way they want, and it takes minutes — an hour if they stop for coffee.”

When Korse joined IDG last June, the information technology systems were “pedestrian.” Every department had its own system, and none of the systems talked. Marketing used iConvention to host event Web sites. Sales used SuperOffice for customer relationship management (CRM). Finance used FileMaker databases for financial records. Conference management used Excel spreadsheets. And operations had no automated system.

Because at least 35 databases housed disparate information on show histories, financials, attendee demographics and exhibitor profiles, the staff of 40 had to generate many reports manually.

One month into the job, Korse hired GMD Resources, a boutique consulting group focused on the event industry, to build a customized system that would automate every aspect of the event life cycle. GMD launched the project in July 2003 with an audit of current systems. In October, they began meeting with various departments to define what they do and how they do it, then decide what processes could be improved and automated. By late December, they started installing new computers and servers. In February 2004, the entire staff began the first of three rounds of training on the new system. In March, the first two of seven new event Web sites went live.

By mid April, the project was complete, delivered on time and “a couple thousand dollars” under budget.

“We actually got a bit more than we’d asked for,” Korse says. “We didn’t budget for a fully installed intranet, but we needed it for internal communication and as a best practices repository.”

Running on the SalesLogix CRM platform, the Javelin system has one centralized database with a four-year history. The suite of event management tools, which is integrated with a Web site content management system, simplifies even the most rudimentary tasks. For example, instead of manually filling out a form and carrying it around for signatures, salespeople can automatically generate a contact, notify operations and update the online exhibitor list.

“If we commit to a client for a banner location at an event, operations automatically gets an e-mail,” says Korse. “We’re not accomplishing anything different, but we’re accomplishing it more quickly and efficiently.”

Given the estimated time savings across all departments, Korse expects the system to pay for itself in less than a year, in part because he’ll no longer be paying an application service provider to host the event Web sites.

“IDG was paying $30,000 per event for Web sites from iConvention. That’s 11 events a year,” says Kevin Gulley, GMD Sr. Partner. “That’s over half the cost of our implementation right there.”

Gulley says implementation went smoothly, even though the databases were in worse shape than expected. “Data integration and centralization was an issue,” he says. “But the real challenge we had was cultural — making sure people were involved and bought in.” By designating “process improvement teams,” GMD gave the IDG staff ownership of re-engineering their workflows. “People see that it will take steps out of their daily lives.”

Although the EMS is transparent to IDG’s customers, they’ll benefit from the improved coordination between departments.

“Our knowledge will be better, because our data is better,” Korse says. “We’ll be able to respond to requests more quickly.” IDG’s high-tech customers expect nothing less.

Cathy Chatfield-Taylor is a freelance writer/ editor. E-mail cathy@cc-tunlimited.com.