Proprietary tech stacks – the new trend ?
RX VP Digital Americas , Carlos Rodriquez tells Stephanie Selesnick all about the decision to develop the group ’ s own proprietary systems Link
C an a for-profit show organiser be both capitalistic and sustainable ? The answer here is , yes . It was with great interest that I read about RX Global expanding into the event tech business . Their current tech stack seamlessly automates a variety of tools exhibitors may easily use to enhance and track their ROI in real time . ( Of course , nothing we do can make exhibitors follow up on their leads , but RX does a great job in making the process easier and more robust .)
Is this a trend with large show organisers – or a one off ? In their 2017 book , The Face of Digital : How Digital Technologies Are Changing The $ 565 Billion Dollar Events
Industry , Marco Gilberti , event tech angel investor ( and more ) and Jay Weintraub , serial entrepreneur and show organiser , wrote about the need for an investment fund for event tech start-ups . The fund never came to fruition , but the book has a lot of other viable ideas and is well worth the read .
We ’ ve heard about collaborations such as the recent one with Tarsus and Smartxpo on pricing and customer retention , and Web Summit leasing out its digital event platform to the United Nations and CES 2022 – but those collaborations are still few and far between . Mostly organisers rent / contract a variety of tech tools for their shows . Some work well together , others not so much , creating massive confusion for exhibitors and visitors .
I caught up with Carlos Rodriguez , RX vice-president of Digital Americas to talk about the decision to develop their own proprietary systems ( view at www . rxglobal . com / face-face-datadriven ). It started simply enough about six years ago . Their show web platform needed some work and updates . RX ( then Reed ) looked at what features were being utilised , those that weren ’ t ( behavioural feedback ), then asked clients directly what they wanted in a fully functioning show website platform . Like everyone else when Covid hit , RX Global turned to a variety of technology companies for solutions . Rodriquez said : “ Many of the tech providers were doing essentially the same thing : providing sophisticated video meetings during specific dates and times . We found our customers didn ’ t want to have set appointments on new platforms . If they wanted to meet digitally , they wanted to do it on their own time on platforms such as Zoom or Teams that they were already using .
Top : Stephanie Selesnick Below : Carlos Rodriguez
“ We found our customers didn ’ t want to have set appointments on new platforms ... They wanted to do it on their own time on platforms such as Zoom or
Teams .”
“ We realised our own platform , Atlas , did about 90 % of the other things event tech vendors were providing – at no cost to us . Why pay $ 100,000 or more ( per show or division ) annually ? It didn ’ t make fiscal sense .”
Enter Emperia , RX ’ s lead retrieval system provided to exhibitors free of charge . Invented by the Reed Australian team in 2015 , it ’ s been a work in progress to simplify and make it work even better through the years . Rodriguez continued : “ We focused on what digital does best . Don ’ t try to crowbar it into digital events . Instead , use tech and the data collected to enhance and simplify the experience for all stakeholders .”
According to CEIR , the Center for Exhibition Industry Research , over 65 % ( or more ) leads are never followed up on . RX thinks it ’ s found a way to help lower that horrid statistic .
22 Issue 3 2022 www . exhibitionworld . co . uk