Roadblocks That Led to the Establishment of RainFocus

Kicking Legacy Systems to the Curb

The state of event technology before RainFocus was a chaotic mess. The legacy systems that event professionals were accustomed to were pieced-together technologies that required complex integrations and often took months to get up and running. During that time, event professionals relied heavily on the work of development teams to fix everything from registration to speaker management. Others branched off of one-size-fits-all software, foregoing updates and improvements in the name of customization.

After dealing with these disorganized systems for multiple years, the founders of RainFocus joined together with one mission━to be the world’s most trusted and innovative event software company. In order to achieve this goal, they set out to build a true SaaS platform, one that their customers could easily use themselves.

Opening the Doors to Fresh Data

RainFocus originated as a data management platform, built specifically to measure event performance. From the beginning, our founders knew that the most valuable thing missing from events was actionable insights. Many EMS solutions promised success yet failed to adequately measure it. Data gained from events was often scattered throughout a number of spreadsheets and documents. In short, reporting was painstakingly hard and incomplete.

One of the first companies to adopt the RainFocus data platform was Oracle. After seeing how our solution could enhance their events, the company asked us to do something even greater–build a platform that could manage their largest event, Oracle OpenWorld. Having seen the complexities of their event portfolio and their struggles to take action on insights, we knew there was a better way. Our team immediately started creating an all-in-one event management platform on top of our strong BI foundation.

Nine months later it was time to deliver the multi-million dollar event and prove whether or not our unique methodology for event management would work for OpenWorld’s 45,000 attendees registered. Fingers crossed we watched as registration numbers skyrocketed, session attendance soared and exhibitors were amassing leads. The event went off without a hitch and the talk of doing more events began immediately.

“No matter how much time was spent updating and maintaining session and content information, there were always mistakes with the way we used to do things. Maintaining data with spreadsheets and emails, and then getting that data into our different web pages, content catalogs, and mobile apps was time-consuming and left a lot of room for errors. RainFocus has solved these problems and more, acting as a single source of truth and giving stakeholders access to the most up-to-date information.” – Marilyn Good, Senior Director of Event Marketing at Oracle

Changing the Game Through Ongoing Innovation

After hearing of the success of Oracle OpenWorld, several other companies started to take interest in RainFocus; the first of these was VMware. VMware’s flagship event, VMworld, presented our company with a brand new challenge. While we had proven that our software could be used to power one event, we had yet to see if it could mold to fit the needs of another.

Prior to using our product, VMware was constantly being limited by their previous solution. Their events team needed a product that could adapt and improve quickly to meet their needs.

“While RainFocus’ product offering was already solid, it was the potential of the product and company that was most appealing. RainFocus was on a path of continual improvement, and we wanted to be on that path with them.” – Alan Luu, Marketing Business Analyst at VMware

Unlike Oracle OpenWorld, VMworld had a whole new set of requests including rules-based gamification and advanced API integrations. Despite the two events being so different, we were amazed at how well our platform was suited for VMworld. Within a few weeks, we were able to configure rules for gamification and set up integrations, which allowed for single sign-on, scheduling attendee meetings, and more. Not only did our platform solve for VMware’s unique requirements, but all the while the team was gaining rich data to guide decisions in the moment and for the following year.

Scaling to Meet Every Need

Learning that our Platform could work for multiple large events was just the beginning. Shortly after we began working on VMworld, another enterprise approached our company with the colossal task of running over 600 events of different sizes which at times overlapped. This company had been paying outrageous amounts of money to their previous EMS provider to create an entirely new solution for each event. In addition to saving money, the company hoped RainFocus could help unify their events to significantly reduce their workload.

With the company’s vision in mind, we set out to scale RainFocus down to cover events as small as 25 attendees. By integrating their CRM with our platform, we were able to service all of their events at once. Using our global data management capabilities the company was able to compare the data from all of their events and use that data to guide future events. Because every integration and every bit of data was kept within one central location, the company was well-prepared for all of their future events.

Today, RainFocus is used by over two dozen enterprise companies to drive successful events each year. As our company continues to grow, we look forward to helping our new customers surpass their own roadblocks. To learn how RainFocus can help you overcome your event roadblocks schedule a demo.