5 Reasons You Need Event Partnerships in Your Lead Gen Strategy
Customer buying behavior is changing. Sales cycles are lengthening, and budgets are tight. Now, more than ever, you need to quickly and effectively generate leads to meet your business goals.
Events are one of the shortest and most effective lead generation paths. Here are five reasons events partnerships should be part of your lead generation strategy.
- Events Raise Your Profile
Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business.
- Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief, Forbes
When your target audience is looking to purchase tech tools, you need to ensure your business is front of mind. Customers now source their own information before approaching a company to make purchasing decisions. Ensuring your business is part of the conversation around the markets you serve is crucial to making an ICT buyers shortlist.
Events are a good way to introduce and/or position your business to new and existing clients. An event is an opportunity to engage with key decision makers and influencers and demonstrate your expertise in the context of the market. Being part of an industry event gives you a chance to shine as a thought leader and display your authority to your target audience.
- Thought Leadership Influences Buying
It’s not enough to just put out information on your products and services. Tech buyers have rising expectations about the quality of the information they receive. In IDC’s 2023 B2B Tech Survey, vendors ranked thought leadership as one of the top 3 buying influencers. Foundry’s 2023 Customer Engagement Survey found that 71% of IT decision makers may get a negative impression if a vendor does not supply valuable educational content.
Thought leadership is about demonstrating expertise in your market. You should educate prospective buyers not just on the benefits of your products and services but also about the market. This provides value to buyers and increases your authority in your markets.
Industry events enable you to be front and center with your target buyers. An event grants you space to demonstrate your thought leadership to an engaged audience. It allows you to follow up with audience members in person, giving them a chance to ask you questions.
Explore the key points to consider in the IDC eBook,
Empowering Lead Generation: The Quickest and Most Effective Path to Building a Strong Pipeline
- Get in Front of Key IT Decision Makers
IDC’s B2B Tech Buyer Survey revealed that B2B tech buyers expect to buy more through ecommerce and deal less with salespeople over the next three years.
With fewer face-to-face engagements occurring, you need to take advantage of any opportunity to get directly in front of decision makers and influencers. Such exposure allows you to personally engage key personnel on the benefits your business can provide during a digital journey. This omni-channel approach gives you a chance to differentiate yourself from your competitors and build relationships.
- Obtain Customer Insights
People attend events to network with peers and gain insights into the markets in which they operate. They want to understand the trends and drivers that are impacting them. They want to benchmark themselves against the market and competitors.
Directly engaging with decision makers at events offers you a window into their thinking and a view of the factors influencing their buying decisions. These insights and knowledge will help you further define the needs and goals of your target audience and help you position your business in alignment with their priorities.
- Measurable ROI
ROI is a key metric for all your marketing and engagement strategies. It is often said that B2B marketing does not push for the immediate sell but is aimed at positioning your business at the top of mind for when the buyer is ready to purchase. As such, ROI can be a tricky topic for marketers.
Getting budget for activities that do not directly link to ROI can be a struggle. Event partnerships give you the ability to demonstrate measurable return. They enable you to link events to opportunities obtained through networking and meetings with event attendees.
More Important Than Ever: Events Partnerships
To summarize: Events offer you space to demonstrate your thought leadership directly to key decision makers. They provide you opportunities to network, learn market information, and raise your brand awareness by talking directly to customers and prospects. Such contacts can give you insight into customer needs and goals, enabling you to better align your business. And events allow you to show ROI through opportunities gained through these activities.
Explore how IDC | Foundry events can help you get in front of key IT decision makers and build a strong, effective lead generation pipeline that converts. Download the 2025 events portfolio and contact us today.
How to Accelerate Your Digital Accessibility Roadmap
Today’s business leaders have a new area of priority: environmental, social, and governance (ESG), which is a hot topic from boardroom to blog page. In the recent IDC Worldwide CEO Survey conducted in February 2024, 42% of European CEOs stated that meeting ESG goals is among their top 3 business priorities and requirements, with social sustainability representing a pivotal point.
Moreover, CEOs think that the changing ESG targets and regulations are among the top three external factors impacting organizations over the next 12 months.
However, we haave noted a sharper focus on the environmental and governance aspects than on the social side. Even when the social side is the subject of focus, the initiatives considered most often typically relate to gender diversity, belief respect, cultural integration, and similar areas.
One important aspect that has been and is still too often neglected is the accessibility of organizations’ digital workspaces and workplaces.
Addressing the vast aspect of digital accessibility is complex.
The Future of Work Must Be All-Inclusive
We define digital accessibility as digital technologies and services being accessible to everyone, including people with physical impairments, regardless of whether they are related to motor function, vision, hearing, speech or neurodivergence.
Until now, the breadth and complexity of digital accessibility has slowed down development in areas such as regulation, as well as an understanding of how to include in the workplace people with disabilities. Today there is a sharper focus on levelling the ground in the job market, vendors are specializing in transformation, certification, and training or taking the first steps in implementing them in their products. Some were even created with this purpose in mind — i.e., funded to assist with digital accessibility mandates and requirements.
Digital accessibility evaluates the accessibility of technologies, but technologies are also the key solution for organizations to address their digital accessibility implementation gaps. Advances in technologies, especially in generative AI, will be beneficial in further integrating digital accessibility into internal and external process, products, and services, supporting mandates on digital accessibility for consumers and the workforce – as the workforce is the organization’s internal technology “consumer”.
A plethora of hardware and software has been delivered to assist organizations in closing the digital accessibility gap, but there are even more technologies that have not been designed for this purpose, but which in everyday use will contribute to closing the digital accessibility gap. The latter includes AI and generative AI, which were designed as general-purpose technologies, but which can support closing the dig accessibility gap across numerous use cases.
The figure below showcases technologies and initiatives that could be implemented for digital accessibility across IDC’s three main Future of Work pillars.
Within the augmentation pillar, technologies support people with different disabilities, with the clear objective of augmenting them. Gesture-to-voice solutions help people with phonological difficulties to integrate in the workplace and workspace, as the technology facilitates communication with people not versed in sign language.
Technologies in the space pillar have the objective of supporting people with impairments in accessing the organization’s resources and other daily activities and tasks. eSignature, for example, helps people with impaired physical dexterity or loss of touch (hypoesthesia) to sign documents digitally, removing the need for pens or physical documents.
Within the culture pillar, technology plays a side role, but numerous initiatives must be implemented by organizations to create a more digitally inclusive environment. For example, with trainings and firsthand experiences or community recruitment for testing and allies.
5 Recommendations to Improve Digital Accessibility
Guidance in this area is clearly needed, especially as the European Accessibility Act will be enforced across the entire European Union in 2025. Here is our short to-do list for initiating or improving your organization’s approach to digital accessibility:
- Assess and audit internal and external products, tools, and services for accessibility and remediate to ensure everyone is onboard and no one is left behind.
- Create a solid community to help the organization meet accessibility requirements through firsthand experience.
- Educate your internal and external communities on accessibility and DEI with general mandatory training for the entire workforce and tailored learning paths that are function- or role-specific.
- Keep up with changing technologies and regulatory requirements, ensuring full local and international compliance, and make certain that worker and customer experience meet generally accepted standards.
- Shift to an accessible-by-design mindset, ensuring that apps, platforms, and software developed for internal use — as well as products, services, customer experience — are accessible-by-design.
Digital accessibility is a goal we are approaching incrementally, but if you are interested and want more information, you can check out our report “Digital Accessibility in Europe in a Nutshell” or reach out to the IDC Future of Work team and stay tuned for future details.
Preparing for EU CSRD Compliance: A Comprehensive Guide to Selecting the Right Technology Partners
Large businesses residing in the EU are due to publish their first ESG/sustainability reporting under the new EU CSRD legislation in 2025 and non-compliance forms a major risk. IDC’s MarketScape helps organizations select the right technology partners for the CSRD reporting journey.
EU CSRD regulation is imminent, and the risks of not being prepared for this new EU directive are significant for any organization operating within EU markets. With a majority of affected companies not sufficiently prepared, more and more companies are seeking support from technology vendors.
We recently published a MarketScape that offers a holistic assessment of the technology vendors in this relatively new space. Services and technology providers have rapidly started to build capabilities to support customers with the data and technology challenges associated with CSRD reporting and wider corporate ESG/sustainability efforts. With tech vendors expecting these offerings to form a significant future growth opportunity, the race for market share has only just started. The 2024 IDC MarketScape European ESG Technology Services for CSRD Compliance is meant to guide organizations in the selection of technology service providers offering CSRD reporting services in order to identify the most suitable solutions for their organization for today as well as tomorrow’s requirements.
ESG Reporting Set On An Equal Footing with Financial Reporting
At a time where sustainability is no longer a choice but a necessity, corporate reporting on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors is taking a significant leap forward with the European Union (EU) Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which is placing sustainability reporting on par with financial reporting.
The CSRD, which came into force in January 2023, mandates a phased implementation. The first set of large, listed organizations will have to report according to the 12 European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) as early as 2025 for their financial year 2024. This new directive is a much stricter regulatory framework than the previous Non-financial Reporting Directive (NFRD), which was not strictly enforced and applied to a very limited number of companies.
The ESRS key performance indicators (KPIs) are now clearly defined and are much more comprehensive, amounting to over 1,000 data points for certain industries. They will be strictly enforced, as they now require external auditing (assurance). Moreover, the ESRS not only cover data points from within the organization but also include upstream and downstream metrics, such as Scope 3 emissions which are harder to obtain in a regular and reliable way as they lie outside the direct control of an organization.
Technology Partner Help To Achieve CSRD Compliance
This new directive sets high standards for data quality, the processes and workflows related to gathering data, as well as data governance. It requires an operating model with workflows, assigned responsibilities, and accountability. Through the harmonization of ESG reporting metrics under the CSRD, a much greater level of comparability and transparency will be achieved. This will have a major impact on companies’ risk profiles and thus gains significant attention at the board and C-levels.
The required ESG KPIs creates a data challenge for organizations, as typically ESG data is not readily available or held in formats that make it hard to collect and process on a regular basis. Organizations subject to CSRD regulations are seeking help from technology service providers to get ready for CSRD reporting and ensure compliance. Those providers, in turn, are positioning themselves to support customers with their CSRD reporting efforts and developing technology service offerings.
Navigating Partner Selection for CSRD Compliance
CSRD compliance is complex and difficult to handle by companies using exclusively their internal resources. Often there is a legacy ESG reporting practice in place due to voluntary initiatives such as reporting according GRI, TCFD, SASB and/or other frameworks. The majority of businesses, however, are not in the position to fully reuse the data, processes and workflows for CSRD compliance. Several important aspects should be considered when selecting a partner for CSRD compliance:
Consider a Full Spectrum of Services and Tech Partners
CSRD partner ecosystem differs in terms of focus areas and core capabilities for CSRD reporting services, namely:
- Advisory-led vendors, typically part of audit companies that have expanded into the IT domain, have comprehensive management consulting capabilities.
- Systems integration (SI)-led vendors have broad capabilities across technology consulting, SI, and outsourcing services with comprehensive expertise in data architectures and integration/modernization of new or legacy business systems.
- Software Specialists: Specialist tech vendors include players that have ESG services as their core business and, in the current case, offer specialist software solutions (ESG reporting software) enhanced with consulting services.
- Multi-disciplinary: These vendors have a broad set of capabilities across professional services, IT consulting, SI, technology assets, and ongoing IT and business process operations.
The IDC MarketScape ‘ESG Technology Services for CSRD Compliance‘ evaluates 11 technology service providers across these areas.
Make Project and Change Management Capabilities a High Priority
Forming a new discipline, CSRD reporting is relatively volatile from the process and content perspectives on both sides – vendors as well as their clients. It is a learning journey with stringent rules and extensive requirements regarding transparent communication between the provider and its customer. Apart from business advisory and technology implementation, services and technology vendors are dealing with shifting the mindset, supporting stakeholders to make the case for CSRD reporting, adding burden to existing tasks, reskilling and training own and customers’ employees. Many organizations embarked on the CSRD compliance journey relatively late, creating pressure on internal stakeholders and external partners. Project and change management capabilities will be of crucial importance in order to lead the CSRD project to success.
Aim for Process, Workflow, and Technology Repeatability and Scalability
CSRD reporting is currently mostly perceived as a business cost item that organizations need to invest time and resources into to achieve compliance. Focus should be on the fact that the organization is also collecting valuable ESG data and insights that can be leveraged for further business transformation: a sustainable digital transformation that is able to drive future business growth. To be able to gain actionable analytics and forecasting capabilities, ESG data processes and workflow need to be digitized for repeatability and scalability. Implementation of ESG data management platforms combined with robust ESG data governance and integration with existing systems will ensure that organizations will be able to capitalize on their investments by leveraging ESG business insights for, for example, generating efficiencies and cost savings across business and/or creating new business models based on sustainability value propositions
How to Help Your Customers Through the Growing Pains of AI Adoption
Overcoming GenAI Pilotitis and Acute POC Syndrome
Welcome to the wild world of AI adoption, where companies are caught in a whirlwind of buzzwords, shiny new toys, and the constant fear of missing out. Today, we’re looking at a peculiar plague sweeping across Western Europe’s businesses: pilotitis and its close cousin, acute proof of concept (POC) syndrome.
Picture this: eager companies, bright-eyed and full of hope, diving headfirst into the AI pool. As a recent IDC survey showed, companies are running an average of 40 GenAI POCs annually. Forty! That’s a lot — and given their limited experience and expertise, it’s impressive. But is it really getting them anywhere?
Out of FOMO, these companies sometimes act like kids in a toy store, grabbing every shiny AI gadget they see. “Ooh, look at this LLM! Check out that ML algorithm!” But as any parent can tell you: Too many toys may make you miss out on the real fun.
AI Adoption Problems
The diagnosis? Experimentation is great. It’s how we learn and grow. But when you’re running more POCs than there are weeks in a year — and some companies really do, with 7% reaching up to 99 POCs annually — you might have a case of pilotitis. Symptoms include:
- An insatiable appetite for new AI projects
- An inability to follow through on successful pilots
- A severe allergy to scaling anything beyond the POC phase
- Chronic “shiny object” syndrome
- KPI amnesia, or forgetting to define or measure success metrics for AI initiatives
The Consequences of Unstoppable Pilots
The prognosis? Well, not great. Just one-third of companies report highly successful GenAI POCs. The rest achieve mediocre results, with nearly half achieving success rates of 50–70%. It’s like getting a C+ in school — not failing, but not exactly something that makes mom proud.
And there’s more: Some companies aren’t even evaluating their POCs’ success. It’s like they’re running around in circles, not knowing if they’re making progress or just getting dizzy.
So what’s the cure for the pilotitis epidemic? First, we need to identify the underlying causes:
- The “AI is Hot and New” Factor: Companies are so smitten with the idea of AI that they forget to ask, “But does it actually solve our problems?”
- Cost Confusion: AI projects can be expensive. Without clear ROI metrics, it’s easy to keep throwing money at pilots without seeing returns.
- Skills Shortages: Finding the right talent to implement AI solutions is tough. Competences are in high demand, experts are scarce, and it may take forever to find someone you can afford.
- Coordination Chaos: IT and business teams often struggle to work together effectively, leading to a disconnect between tech capabilities and business needs.
- Fear of Commitment: Some companies are so afraid of making the wrong choice that they’d rather keep piloting forever than commit to a full-scale implementation.
How Tech Providers Can Help Their Customers
The treatment? AI technology providers and their partners have a unique opportunity to play doctor and help clients overcome pilotitis. After all, healthy clients support long-term business relationships. How can “tech doctors” cure their ailing patients?
- Offer Scalable Proof-of-Value Approaches: Help clients quickly demonstrate value from GenAI in specific use cases, then provide a clear path to scale. It’s like a doctor helping to expand a toddler’s diet — we start with grated carrots and end up eating a full-course meal in a Michelin-starred restaurant.
- Differentiate Between Experimentation and POC: Establish clear guidelines for each stage. It’s like the difference between medical research and clinical trials — in research, we’re exploring possibilities, but in trials, we’re testing specific hypotheses with measurable outcomes.
- Outcome-Based Pricing: Link fees to project success. It’s like being a personal trainer and only getting paid if your clients actually lose weight — suddenly, everyone’s motivated to see results!
- Introduce Integrated Cost Management Tools: Help clients track and control expenditures throughout the AI project life cycle. It’s like giving them a financial fitness tracker for their AI projects.
- Provide Post-POC Support and Road Mapping: Offer comprehensive guidance for scaling successful POCs. It’s like offering post-op doctor’s recommendations.
- Offer End-to-End Change Management Support: Go beyond tech implementation and help with the human side of AI adoption. It’s like being both a personal trainer and a therapist for your client’s AI journey.
These approaches will help you remember that pilotitis and POC syndrome are just growing pains. With the right approach and a little help from their “tech doctors,” companies can overcome these challenges and move from endless experimentation to meaningful AI implementation.
To all businesses out there drowning in pilots and POCs — it’s time to start turning those experiments into real-world solutions. And to tech providers: Your mission is to be the best AI doctors you can be. Help your clients understand and manage their symptoms — and watch them grow healthier and stronger.
