I’ve always been an advocate of events as the fundamental intersection between buyers and sellers. When executed thoughtfully, events—both large and intimate—foster essential relationships that create real value for all that show up.
As the leading producer in tech events globally, IDG’s goal is to continually create experiences not only where buyer and sponsor expectations are met, but where their objectives become aligned.
At these events, I spend a lot of time speaking with and learning from CIOs, business leaders, and vendor sponsors alike, and the consensus around the power of events is ringing clear. As the enterprise purchase process becomes increasingly complex, predominantly digital, and less personal, events offer a respite in which buyers can truly assess solutions, ask questions, and build trust, while vendors can establish their credibility, form crucial connections, and greatly increase their odds of making the consideration list.
The key takeaway here: events are helping to simplify and shorten the increasingly arduous purchase process on both sides, at a time when it’s needed most.
Events certainly accelerate the market research we have to do when it comes time to narrow the selection down from 400 search results to, say, 4 solid contenders.
B2B tech buying is becoming a lose-lose game
Today’s vendors looking to steer the enterprise purchase journey face more uphill battles than ever before when it comes to grabbing attention, engaging, and converting their target audience members into buyers. One sponsor at this year’s CIO 100 Symposium & Awards told me, “Things that used to work in terms of out bounding and getting in front of the right people just feel harder and less effective than a few years ago.”
Tech vendors today are up against savvy competitors in overly crowded spaces, all vying for CIOs’ precious minutes of engagement with their brand and product. And the reality is, CIOs hardly have time for a few of them, let alone all of them.
CIOs and ITDMs are echoing this reality. In Foundry’s recent Role & Influence of the Technology Decision-Maker Study, we asked tech buyers several questions about who’s involved, at what stages, and how their organizations make decisions about technology purchases. We asked about the challenges they faced throughout the buying cycle. What we heard resoundingly was: we struggle in finding the time, resources, and skills to properly evaluate the myriad solutions on the market and narrow down a shortlist.
In short, CIOs and their teams are experiencing decision fatigue. And can we blame them?
Getting over the evaluation stage hump
Sometimes, having too many options presents just as much of a challenge as having no options at all. In the case of modern enterprise tech buying, the former is proving to be a major pain point for CIOs.
Our Role & Influence Study data found that the evaluation stage was the top area where ITDMs both said the purchase process was likely to stall (37% agreed) and where they admitted they could use some assistance from vendors (46% agreed).
Essentially, in a landscape of seemingly endless vendors all marketing similar solutions yet lacking truly substantial or constructive content, ITDMs are getting stuck at this stage. So how do we get them unstuck?
In the same evaluation stage is where they cited needing the most information sources—6 to 7 on average in 2024—to move on to the vendor recommendation stage, and where information direct from the vendor was considered the most useful. Second only to sourcing information from vendor websites, ITDMs said they want to meet with vendors in-person at this stage. And vendors are reaping the benefits of in-person too, with over half of marketers stating that in-person events produced the best outcomes for their organization.
A side door into the office of the CIO
Despite their growing mandates and workloads, CIOs and IT leaders hold quality networking opportunities in the highest regard. That includes networking with peers as well as potential vendors.
One sponsor I spoke with talked about it being nearly impossible to get time on a CIO’s calendar most weeks to pitch them a solution. “But if they’re here, now you’re in front of them. Now they’re an opportunity,” he said. “It’s a hard place to have a bad day.”
Events like CIO 100 are designed to be both intimate and impactful—exclusive enough to ensure that the right seniority and the right volume of decision-makers are in attendance, exposed to highly-curated programming, and meeting with vendors and sponsors that are vetted for relevance and innovation. Of course, not all IT industry events set these standards, but a formula that’s meant to spark inspiration amongst today’s IT leaders will also facilitate productive conversations.
As one Chief Digital Officer told me, “As the CIO becomes more of an enabler, the peer-to-peer connection is extremely important.” He went on to say that vendors contributed to the event’s value by “bringing problem-solving ideas that give us thoughts on how to innovate.”
A Deputy Chief Technology Officer told me that meeting vendors at events shortens the length of the sales cycle significantly: “Events certainly accelerate the market research we have to do when purchasing new technology. You get to see everything under the same roof, have those vendor conversations, ask and answer questions, and that truly accelerates the time it takes to narrow the selection down from 400 search results to, say, 4 solid contenders.”
Like the rest of us, CIOs only get 24 hours in a day. How they choose to spend them is a reflection of their priorities. When CIOs leave mountains of work behind for a few days to travel to an event like CIO 100, they do so because they’re genuinely open to learn and eager to participate. And that’s the best state for a CIO to be in if you’re a tech vendor.
