Like Live Mtgs. Return, Bizzabo Charts Path

Meetings and events platform Bizzabo is adding functionality from its acquired companies, launching new wearable technology for attendees this month. The SmartBadge technology, based on an offering from Klik, which Bizzabo acquired last year, is the latest move for Bizzabo at a difficult time as the return of in-person meetings has muddled the prospects for hybrid and virtual events.

BTN Accommodations and Meetings Editor Angelique Platas spoke with Bizzabo co-founder and CEO Eran Ben-Shoushan to discuss the company’s plans and the outlook for the industry through the end of the year and beyond. Edited excerpts follow.

BTN: Bizzabo recently announced significant year-over-year growth for the first nine months of 2022 in planning activities on your platform. What contributes to this growth?

Eran Ben-Shushan: The world [is] returning personal and less companies [are] positioned to play across the gamut between in-person, virtual and hybrid. We are prepared to handle all these cases and have a strong customer base [that is] holding more events. We see virtually [as] relatively constant and then the personal supplement, not replace. So the pie just got bigger and we’re one of the few solutions that can actually play really well in all of those use cases.

BTN: How will the business develop as we enter 2023?

Ben-Shushan: First, I think, humbly, all of us over the last two and a half or three years have probably realized that we can’t predict anything. But based on all the data we have; it really looks like the personal will increase in volume. There will be a virtual component to most in-person events. My personal guess is that it will become more prominent.

Right now it seems over the top to some and seems complicated, but technology is catching up. As time goes on, it becomes easier to hold hybrid or virtual events where it exists in person, and to co-exist these two formats – as time goes on, it will become simpler and more cost-effective. In-person will return and then they will benefit from virtual formats, which are also good for periods of recession or economic slowdown.

We may see fewer mega-events in terms of participation and production costs, [but] we will see great personal events. We might see a bit more of the smaller personal events—[like] field marketing events, dinners or executive roundtables. Overall, I think the pie will continue to grow now with the return of in-person presence.

BTN: Do you see customer buying patterns changing as the live situation evolves?

Ben-Shushan: As personal events increase, [our customers] run more events but the virtual doesn’t get any slower. What we’re seeing is that there’s a delay on the virtual solutions buyer side, and those who are only providing virtual solutions are experiencing a huge delay. New [customers are] are buying new software, and those who bought software during Covid are pulling back and trying to consolidate to platforms that can do it all. During Covid if you only did virtual like [the] platform of choice, that was no problem. Customers are now moving away from these virtual-only platforms and looking for platforms that can do everything together that makes sense.

BTN: How is Bizzabo investing to continue meeting all-in-one needs?

Ben-Shushan: We are seeing new demands and needs on the analytics side. I think it’s become a much more complex world where events are mostly focused on lead generation. In these cases, data is paramount. In the virtual world, you have a lot of data because everything happens digitally and you can bring that kind of data to the surface, where personal events are sometimes more of a black box – you don’t really know what’s happening on the floor.

We acquired several companies in 2021, all focused on technology and getting product to market faster. We were very strategic about it. One of the companies that we acquired, called Klik, is a Montreal company that basically offers all of these on-site services for private events, [including] wearable devices with passive Bluetooth tracking. So you get seamless registration, peer-to-peer or exhibitor-to-attendee contact exchange, and you don’t need to do anything. It can recognize and output data during the event about where people are around the event and about the flow of the event.

Mobility has also become very important for events and we are investing heavily in this along with better registration capabilities coupled with event promotion. In-person events generally have more advanced and complex registration workflows—[especially] paid events with more sponsors and exhibitors. So we’re investing in check-in capabilities, on-site mobile services, portable tracking devices and data, all areas we see in high demand.

BTN: Bizzabo has reorganized some executives over the past six months. How has this changed the customer experience?

Ben-Shushan: We have always been customer focused… and by investing in this through real-time availability, [so we are there] for customers in the moments of truth when they needed us. It’s been a big part of how we’ve designed the organization and where we invest most of our capital and resources. We have a SVP of Customer Experience who oversees the entire customer organization in a centralized way. This was part of the structural and senior management changes we also put in place.

BTN: What are the biggest challenges facing your business and how are you dealing with them?

Ben-Shushan: Constant change [and enabling] adaptability to the customer. We are in a crazy industry that was hit by Covid overnight. Everyone had to learn everything and learn by themselves even then [had] some level of attrition in the second half of 2021, especially with options. People thought the personal came back after everyone got vaccinated, and then the delta and omicron kind of wore everyone out. Then 2022 started on a high note. And now, with some of the economic slowdown that we’re seeing, people have to re-evaluate and re-strategize. So I think the constant change on the customer side is something that also comes back to us in terms of a challenge.

We need to remain very nimble, highly flexible and consultative and supportive of our clients. And they are learning too. So we have to be resourceful to them. So I think for us it’s like being ahead of it and being faster than the customer… so we support them as much as they need.