Why we Sponsor Retail CIO Connect
We spoke to Tom Summerfield from Peak to see why they sponsor Retail CIO Connect. Peak helps the world's smartest companies put the power of AI at the center of all commercial decision making with Decision Intelligence, a brand-new category of AI technology.
Who: Peak
Where: Retail CIO Connect
When: June 2022
Benefits: Outstanding method to make your brand completely identifiable and overtake competitors by showcasing products.
This is our first time sponsoring Retail CIO Connect, although we have been to other eTail events before. The reason we chose to sponsor in 2022, is because we thought it would be a great place for us to start some conversations with technical leaders for potential new business.
Being back at a live event has been awesome, every conversation we have had has been very productive. It’s been very useful having the screen at our booth too, as we’ve had a slideshow going round during the day, which people have stopped and asked about. Then, anyone that wanted to see the product, we’d jump on and give demo’s, which really helps.
The quality of delegates on site have been great, with a been a good variety. Overall, we have had around 12 meetings, including ones that weren’t scheduled in. Out of the 12 meetings, we already have follow-ups verbally agreed with 80% of them. The chats we’ve ad, the delegates have been very engaged and interested, so we are confident that most of these will be genuine follow ups.
Meeting people at these events is beneficial for the sales process. Someone mentioned to us earlier “if you had emailed this to me without us having this conversation, I wouldn’t have read it and would have just deleted it” whereas now, we have been able to build that credibility that you just don’t get with sending emails. Also, it speeds up the process as there is more urgency to follow up after meeting. It could potentially turn a four week follow up process into two weeks.
We had a speaking session, which went very well. Off the back of the session, we also had an unplanned meeting immediately after, as someone stopped by our booth and wanted to find out more after hearing us speak. Having a speaking session definitely helped speed up the introduction process, as people already knew who we were and what we did. We even have another unplanned meeting scheduled in as a result of attending our session, which is great!
We have also attended some of the morning sessions ourselves, which we have found very useful. Particularly one of the roundtable sessions, we got really stuck in and it was great fun. The content of this event in particularly has been very fresh. Sometimes art conferences, you think “another person talking about sort of cliché topics," but that has not been the case here, so that's been good.
The organisation of the event overall has been very good, and we have loved the venue too! Sponsoring Retail CIO Connect will definitely have a positive impact on our 2022 business goals. It is a significant investment, so we needed to make sure we got the most out of it we could, which is why we have been so present at the event. We’ve put a lot of energy into being here and feel we have had a great return. There’s definitely going to be a healthy impact on the second half of our year.
We will definitely consider sponsoring Retail CIO Connect again next year. We have had so many positive conversations, that we are confident this is a great audience for us. I would happily suggest we sponsor again.
If you’d like to join as a sponsor at Retail CIO Connect, then get in touch and find out more about how you can get involved.