Reggie Aggarwal
Online event registration provider Cvent recently expanded its toolset with meeting sourcing tools, a database of more than 75,000 venues and updated survey modules as part of a strategic meetings management suite. With the new Cvent supplier network, the company offers meeting venues the ability to manage and respond to leads sent through a Web interface or integrated into Newmarket International's MeetingBroker. Use of the database and request for proposal tools are free for both buyers and suppliers, but the company also sells more customizeable versions to large enterprises. Cvent founder and CEO Reggie Aggarwal discussed with Management.travelthe product expansions, corporate adoption of meetings technology and growth of his 10-year-old, privately held company, which today has more than 400 employees. An excerpt follows.
Several travel companies have recently noted the steep drops in travel and meeting demand this fall. What did you notice in September and October?
We run almost 100,000 events a year, so we have a pretty good indicator. There's definitely a slowdown. People are being more cautious, whether it's fewer people attending events or canceling events. This will continue to happen in '09. I don't think it's going to pick up until the second half of 2010. We've planned for this because we went through this in '01. We have the same management team; 11 of our 12 executives have been with the company since 1999. From a customer perspective, our software adds a lot of value so people become much more efficient. When you're doing a meeting, whether it's 100 people or 60, frankly 80 to 90 percent of the work is still there. We can make people more efficient in terms of event registration, strategic meeting management, sourcing venues and finding the right place--which takes a lot of time in comparing bids. Our new suite of products has a very high return on investment and a very clear ROI within 90 days.
What about the supplier network took two years, 125 people and $10 million to build?
It's kind of everything--the database, technology, and sales and marketing. We built each profile by hand; we didn't buy the data. That's kind of unique because not many people are building it themselves from scratch, but we felt we could build the data the way we wanted. Secondly, the technology took time to build. Everyone thinks you can build it quickly. Like anything, it's a lot more complicated to use rules and processes, and you're dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars of potential revenue to a hotel and helping them push the information to the right contacts. It's much more complex than people realize. To the end users, you don't want to make it seem complex. You have to take a complex process, document it and put the flow in, but then make it easy to the end user. Obviously, developing the sales and marketing arm to rebrand ourselves as a full suite solution as opposed to being known as an event registration company also took time. There are a lot of tools out there, but the difference is that ours is user friendly. We're going to have the most traffic because we have relationships with 100,000-plus meeting planners and travel managers--the midmarket--not just the Fortune1000.
What percentage of your client base is corporations that need tools to strategically manage meetings across their organizations versus those more interested in the logistics to execute a specific meeting?
About 75 percent of our customers are corporate. Because we have Meeting Professionals International, the American Marketing Association, Professional Convention Management Association and the International Special Events Society--all those high-profile organizations using us--people assume we're an association company, but frankly the vast majority of our business is corporate. Obviously, for strategic meeting management in our large Fortune1000 clients, we have dozens and dozens of clients who are using the tool, or about to use it to source their meetings, but the vast majority of our customers are the midmarket. I'm not going to say that they're using the RFP as a point solution, but they are the types that are sourcing 10 events a year. They need it even more because they don't have a process given that they're not doing 10,000 meetings a year. That gets the venues excited because the midmarket is where they need the most help. Large clients, the Fortune500, will have a [national sales organization representative] dedicated to them, so it's not as valuable to the chains to get those leads because they have that relationship.
How fast are hotels responding to RFPs?
I was surprised at how many RFPs don't get responded to. I was actually shocked because I've been in business for a long time and I've never seen an industry where they don't respond to people coming to them for business. I'm not sure I completely understand it, but the complaint from hotels is that they get a lot of junk. The bottom line is that our tool will help them qualify leads. We physically call planners to tell them that they can help themselves get a better response by adding detail, history, telling hotels who they are so hotels will take them seriously. The other thing we do is actually call the hotel up if they don't respond within a certain amount of time, normally 48 hours. A lot of hotels out there say two to four hours response time. I have a hard time reconciling that when I see a lot of hotels not responding in 48 hours.
Is the pace of meeting technology adoption what you first expected when you began a decade ago?
Here's what I've learned in 10 years: It's always slower than you think it's going to be; it's always more difficult than you think it is, no matter how compelling, how good and user friendly your product is. It just takes people a lot of time to change the way they do things. As an example, take our supplier network. Why would anyone use Google to source a meeting or find venues over this product when our tool is better in every respect? Yet, people still use Google to find venues. As long as you have a 10-year view, you're fine. If you have a two-year view, you're not fine; you're in a world of hurt.