EVENT AT A GLANCE Objective: Strengthen client relationships beyond project-level engagements to increase client share of wallet. Strategy: Create a platform focused on three key event objectives important to C-level information-technology decision-makers. Tactics: Build an event that is more “retreat” than conference. Cultivate a sense of exclusivity by buying out the hotel property, limiting the invite pool, and making invites nontransferable. Focus content on peer-to-peer interaction, making attendees the experts. Results: Attendance at TCS SummIT increased 60 percent between 2005 and 2008, including 10 percent between 2007 and 2008 alone.

he information-technology role in the C-suite is — let’s face it — one of the least sexy jobs on the executive team. Not as high-profile as the CEO. Not in as much media demand as the CFO, who sees quarterly glory (or a quarterly hotseat) as financial results are certified and reported. Not as glam as the CMO, who defines image, brand, messaging, and customer experience. Even the COO, who directs resource planning, keeping the trains running across business lines, divisions, and even global regions, has strong intra-company visibility across functional groups.

But consider the role of the CTO and CIO: To manage business-process automation, global connectivity, and security risk. They are responsible for the modernization and integration of the technologies that we all rely on, every day, to do our jobs. It’s business-critical stuff that most often happens behind the scenes.

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS), an IT-services, business-operations, and outsourcing division of the enormous, India-based company Tata Group, consults with these mission-critical, but often underappreciated, IT professionals on a daily basis, helping them to adopt flexible, global business practices that allow them to operate more efficiently and to produce more value. Armed with its understanding of IT executives’ motivators, TCS saw an opportunity to solidify its various business engagements.

Established in 1968, by 2004 TCS had amassed an impressive roster of Fortune 1,000 clients. But despite its ongoing project successes, TCS personnel wanted to strengthen their relationships with their clients’ most-senior managers: the CEOs, CFOs, CTO/CIOs, and SVPs who choose their long-term partners. More important, TCS realized that its own C-level executives and SVPs needed more quality time with their C-level clients and that these clients wanted to hear from their TCS peers.

“In our business, it isn’t uncommon for clients to spread their business around,” says Patty Brown, TCS director of North American event marketing, using one company for some projects and its competitors for others. If TCS wanted to capture more — even exclusive — business from its existing clients, and win those projects away from its competitors, it needed to connect with client decision-makers in a new and differentiating fashion, and do so in a way that truly represented the value of TCS and the TCS brand.

In an effort to deepen relationships with its clients, while providing them an opportunity to connect with their peers, TCS decided to host a high-level executive event: a gathering to be known as the TCS SummIT. Problem was, its competitors had the same idea, and several of them were already hosting client events, presumably to connect with the same C-level decision makers TCS wanted to engage. To stand out and make its event unique, TCS had to tailor the SummIT to meet the needs and desires of its target audience.

“What’s important to these individuals is gaining information from reliable sources, connecting with industry thought leaders, and enjoying recognition from their peers,” Brown says. “Yet CIOs and CTOs don’t travel as much as other C-level execs, so they don’t have opportunities to make those connections.”

The TCS team knew that the TCS SummIT needed to be more than a keynote speaker, golf outing, and cocktails. It needed to walk the talk and prove that TCS did, indeed, fully understand insomniac CIOs’ concerns, and that it knew what kind of recognition their role deserves.

“We decided there were three things we wanted to focus on to deepen these relationships at the C level,” Brown says. “First, to position TCS as a valued business partner. Second, to subtly communicate our offerings. And finally, to give these CIOs the recognition that is so important to them — to demonstrate that we really understand what keeps them up at night, that we understand their challenges, and we appreciate what it takes to do their jobs successfully.”

THREE LITTLE WORDS

As it turns out, TCS’ desire to engender deeper relationships with its clients is much more than a nice-to-have item on its corporate wish list. It’s an integral part of the company’s overall strategy, and one that the late economist and Harvard Business Review (HBR) editor Theodore Levitt believed was essential to any company battling for market share in the tech sector.

In his HBR article, “After the Sale is Over,” Levitt writes, “During the era we are entering, the emphasis will be on systems contracts, and buyer-seller relationships will be characterized by continuous contact and evolving relationships to affect the systems. As the customer gains experience, the technology will decline in importance relative to the system that enables the buyer to realize the benefits of the technology. Services, delivery, reliability, responsiveness, and the quality of the human and organizational interactions between seller and buyer will be more important than the technology itself.”

With that in mind, the TCS marketing team set out to craft a creative experience for TCS SummIT that would hit home with its audience of IT executives, fostering more meaningful interactions and, ultimately, stronger relationships.

From this thinking, TCS created an experience based on a set of simple, yet powerfully effective, guiding principles: Learn. Connect. Relax. Known as “The Three Words,” they are the heart of TCS’ creative strategy for TCS SummIT.

 Learn. “CIOs and CTOs want knowledge — not just a social gathering,” Brown says. Furthermore, they are still very much hands-on executives, and want to stay abreast themselves of the latest knowledge and insight that can inform their decision-making. And they expect their vendors to deliver it. “C-level customers have even greater expectations of their vendor partners than their senior staff, who are our everyday clients,” Brown says. “They expect partners such as TCS to bring value by teaching them something new. And CIOs and CTOs truly crave ongoing learning.”

 Connect. Unlike their C-suite counterparts, CIOs and CTOs tend to be more tethered to the office. “They typically have very little time to meet and discuss topics and issues with their peers,” Brown says. “Yet they crave this knowledge-sharing, both from a learning and networking perspective.” TCS was committed to helping attendees make the most of their interactions. “This is a large part of the value proposition and our strategy for the event,” says John Lenzen, TCS vice president of marketing. “By having happy clients talk to other happy clients, it bolsters our brand. And they leave feeling they are part of an exclusive group with TCS as the common bond.”

 Relax. “If you ask our customers what the TCS brand is all about they’ll likely use words like ‘confidence’ and ‘trust,’” Brown says. “They trust our recommendations and service to bring results, which frees them to focus on other strategic problems they need to solve.” TCS SummIT, then, would need to communicate a sense of business certainty and quality, as well as offer the busy CIO and CTO attendees a chance to relax a bit — something they rarely have the opportunity to do.

The deceptively simple three-word strategy actually carries quite a load, doing double duty as both subtle references to TCS brand differentiators, and to the experience CIOs and CTOs could expect to have at TCS SummIT.

EXCLUSIVE INVITATIONS

TCS tested its creative three-word strategy at the inaugural TCS SummIT, which was held in 2005. It worked — and the approach and event agenda have changed very little since this initial success.

Each year, the team targets 2,500 of its top-level clients to attend along with their spouses, reaching out to them with a four-touch invitation strategy that comprises two save-the-date e-mail blasts; a customized invitation sent via UPS that directs recipients to a registration site; and personal invitations and follow up from the sales organization. A special toll-free number is also set up to handle any questions from prospective attendees, and calls to that number are directly routed to Brown’s mobile phone. Together with its four-touch invitation strategy, the following three tactics have contributed to a 67-percent registration-conversion increase since 2005.

1. Reward the sales staff. TCS marketing has gained significant sales buy-in to the event. “We reward sales participation, and salespeople are only invited to attend if they first convince a certain number of their clients to register for the event,” Brown says.

2. Condition the target audience. TCS invites the same group of customers along with their spouses year after year, conditioning that critical target audience to anticipate event communications. That way, rather than trying to appeal to new prospects each year, who may or may not have ever heard of the event, TCS is cultivating an awareness of the event — a move that has potential benefits even if invitees never actually register to attend: Repeat attendees learn to watch for the materials, while those who have not attended receive regular exposure to the summit materials and testimonials of their peers who have participated.

3. Foster exclusivity. The invitations have a distinct air of exclusivity: They are entirely non-transferable, even within the executive’s team. A CTO, for example, cannot pass the invitation to a director on his staff. This reinforces the value TCS places on these often undervalued executives, while also preserving a certain profile among the attendee group that assures participants they will indeed be networking on a true peer-to-peer basis.

A STRATEGY IN ACTION

From the moment attendees’ planes touch down, TCS curates the entire experience, always mindful of the three words: learn, connect, relax. “TCS consistently goes back to what it knows about its target audience,” says Cindy Provenchar, national accounts director for corporate accounts at Freeman (TCS’ 2007 SummIT event partner). “They want to create a face-to-face experience that will relate to their customers’ desire to connect with and be seen by their peers as experts, and that gives them a level of attention typically enjoyed by other senior executives.”

To set the “relax: we’ve taken care of it” tone right from the start, TCS provides scheduled transportation from the airport to the event venue. (Attendees and their spouses make their own travel arrangements to the host city, but TCS then hosts all other arrangements and expenses for the event duration.)

Upon arrival at the hotel venue — which TCS always buys out to ensure every hotel guest is associated with the TCS event, all hotel signage is related to the event, and to be able to maintain full control of the on-site experience — guests are personally welcomed and handed everything from TCS-branded key cards to personalized room gifts.

An elaborately themed opening-night reception brings the “learn” and “connect” attributes to the forefront. At the 2007 Global Village-themed summit, for example, five pavilions on the resort lawn welcomed attendees to the event. Each pavilion represented a continent where TCS has Service Delivery Centers. Inside the tented pavilions, guests enjoyed food, music, and entertainment from that region — a subtle way to both demonstrate TCS’ global reach, while giving attendees an engaging virtual world tour.

In a departure from the event norm, the opening night of TCS SummIT also brings the featured keynote presentation. At the 2007 event, former Secretary of State Colin Powell shared his international geopolitical and business perspectives. “We always book a timely and high-profile keynote presenter,” Brown says. “It respects the attendees’ position, and appeals to their hunger for high-level information from credible sources.” Powell arrived at the event well before his scheduled presentation, and spent considerable time walking through the pavilions and visiting one-on-one with TCS’ guests. “It certainly wasn’t part of his rider to do that,” Brown says. “It was just something he wanted to do, and the customers really enjoyed it.”

After kicking off the event with a bang-up keynote address, attendees are treated to two days of learning, connection, and relaxation opportunities. To appeal to these knowledge-hungry executives, the TCS team packs the agenda with opportunities to learn about industry best practices and trends. Keynotes, general sessions, and breakout sessions offer venues for attendees to hear from industry thought leaders while also picking up strategic business insights from their TCS counterparts and fellow Fortune 1,000 leaders. All the while, TCS shines as a vendor committed to supporting its clients’ ongoing professional development.

Two general sessions, again with high-profile speakers, and peer-to-peer breakout sessions feed attendees’ hunger for high-caliber information sharing and networking, while spouses relax with a full complement of resort activities — including everything from luxurious spa treatments to cooking classes. Each evening brings attendees, their spouses, TCS executives, and speakers back together for an elegant sit-down dinner.

Exclusive activities at the evening receptions, such as custom cigar-rolling stations, a cordials coach, and a gourmet s’mores bar, add to the sense of high-level treatment TCS is affording its important guests, but does so in a way that induces relaxation and fun while offering the opportunity to enjoy a unique learning experience.

“We always try to find activities that have a local flavor that reflects the event venue,” Brown says. “Giving attendees the opportunity to do something that they wouldn’t have the chance to do at home creates buzz and helps to make the event memorable.” For example, rather than a “been there, done that” networking reception, attendees at an event in Baltimore mingled with their peers while fishing in Chesapeake Bay.

This retreat-like ambiance makes the TCS SummIT feel less like a typical conference-in-a-hotel-ballroom experience and more like a gathering of peer experts with important knowledge to share, meeting in a private environment to learn, connect, and relax. In the end, it thoroughly supports the company’s objective to burnish its brand by binding clients together with a sense of exclusivity, and with TCS as the connection point.

Throughout the event, TCS selling is subtle at best, with capabilities and services figuratively represented through elements such as the international pavilions and through the general sense of high-caliber learning, attention to detail, and relaxation the event affords.

The final morning, attendees depart for the airport on TCS-provided buses, having just spent two-and-a-half-days completely immersed in and coddled by a high-end experience fitting for any C-level executive. “Since we buy out the hotel, the staff-guest ratio is great. The staff learn the guests’ names, and there are no other distractions or competition for access to property amenities. Every single person at the hotel is there for the same reason,” Brown says.

C-SUITE REWARDS

Following each TCS SummIT, TCS sends a survey to all attendees. Remarkably, 50 percent of attendees respond — nearly twice the rate of a typical post-event survey, and extraordinary for a C-level audience. That kind of participation alone is a testament to the level of engagement that TCS engenders in attendees.

The impressive response is also likely due to the fact that TCS has established a history of taking attendees’ feedback and evolving its event based on their responses. For example, after the first year’s event, attendees reported the three-and-a-half-day schedule was hard on their busy schedules, so TCS tightened the agenda to two and a half days.

Since the event’s inception in 2005, attendance has grown from 250 to 400 — an increase of 60 percent (including 10 percent between 2007 and 2008 alone). Company executives are wholly engaged with the event as it is a huge perk for them to attend, and a perk they must earn by buying in to the event and promoting it to their clients. And attendees? As soon as one event is over, they start watching their e-mail for the following year’s save-the-date notice.

Most important, though, is the long-term value TCS is building into the relationships the company has with its highest-level clients. This value — found in the ongoing learning and networking opportunities at TCS SummIT — is contributing toward an ongoing improvement in TCS’ client retention, which naturally leads to expanded portfolio engagements. All of which, of course, contributes toward TCS’ ultimate goal: capturing and holding a greater share of its clients’ IT-support spending. In other words, that tendency to spread the business around among TCS and its competitors? It’s on the downswing. That indicates TCS’ learn, connect, relax strategy has delivered the goods its CIO and CTO target audience craves — leading to more, stronger, and deeper relationships that are directly influencing the company’s bottom line. Who knew three little words could be so powerful?e