Roambee at Reuters Supply Chain Planning USA
25th-26th May | Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel, Chicago
The Reuters Supply Chain Planning event was held 25th – 26th May in the Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel, in Chicago USA. It was a lovely venue with art pieces throughout the hotel, the exhibition, networking and speaker rooms where grand but at the same time the event space was easy to get around. This was appreciated, having been to events that have a big floorplan or spaced out, these events are not conducive to good networking or finding people. Over 200 people attended this event, the majority of the attendees where solution providers and I would say this was the first noticeable downside to this event.
We were very excited to attend this event as it was the first one we attended in the USA. It also had 60 of our target customers registered. Sadly only 20 (1/3) of them turned up to the event. This created a heavy imbalance between service providers and customers. Luckily the decision maker level agenda of speakers where weighted more to non-service providers, which made it much easier for us to find our target customers.
This was a key difference I found in this event compared to others, the weight of the agenda was more focused on the companies dealing with the challenges. This gave me a more in-depth understanding on how our target customers are responding to the challenges we are here to solve. We could also get a clearer picture on how far each industry is along with their digitalisation journey.
It was great to see all the companies presenting had already started their digitalisation journey, some going down the route “we will do it ourselves” and others openly looking for solutions to help them get to the next level.
This was the first event we showcased the Roambee branded blazer and gave out special customised gifts. This had a huge impact in generating conversations and re-engaging people into conversations with us.
In summary, this event showcased a lot of top 100 companies and decision makers, however at this event there was a struggle to find good networking opportunities and lack of attendance by many promised top 100 companies. There needs to be more of a focus on getting high profile decision makers in front of service providers.