Today is the final day of Technology Services World Las Vegas, and I'm back to take a look at the top attended sessions from yesterday. Our 1,600+ attendees had more than 75 breakout sessions to choose from yesterday, crossing all of our service disciplines, with a good mix of tactical and strategic topics. I always like to point out the top attended sessions, because people vote with their feet for the hottest trends and topics.
Top 5 Attended TSW Sessions
As the research executive who oversees our partner program, I have been talking a lot recently about how important our partners are to the TSIA ecosystem. Not only do they provide the technology infrastructure and services our members rely on to be successful, but they also pitch in to help with member inquiries, answering hundreds of member questions per year. A proof point to the importance of TSIA partners in providing content and leadership to our members is the fact that each of yesterday's top attended sessions was presented by a TSIA partner, often in conjunction with their customers. Here’s a look at the top attended sessions from yesterday:
- “Next Generation Customer Success Management," presented by David Yoffie, Managing Director, PwC. Considering TSIA just launched our Customer Success discipline 2 years ago, it is remarkable how popular this topic has become. In fact, of the 2,500+ member inquiries we've received this year, half of the top 20 service business challenges (SBCs) are related to customer success.
- “Trends in Omni-Channel Customer Service through People, Process and Technology Integration,” presented by Kevin Kenny, VP, Sutherland Global Services, and two of their customers: Aaron Law, Chief of Staff, Intel Security Group, and Sandeep Karandikar, Director of Web Strategy, eService, Lenovo. Sutherland has made the top attended list at the last few TSW conferences. With so many large clients covering a wide variety of business process outsourcing strategies, they have their finger on the pulse of all the hot trends and always provide great content.
- “Reconstructing the Customer Experience to Ensure Positive Customer Outcomes and Proving the ROI of Your Customer Success Team," presented by Allison Pickens, VP, Customer Success and Business Operations, Gainsight, and David Chia, Regional Manager, Strategic Customer Engagement, Red Hat. Another session led by a TSIA partner and one of their customers, these customer case study sessions are always popular with conference attendees because they go beyond vision and theory to provide real-world examples of what works and what doesn't.
- “Scaling High-Performance Professional Services in the New Economy," presented by Chris Scalia, Sr. Vice President, Professional Services, Mavenlink, and their customer, Nick Anderson, VP Global Business Operations, Cornerstone OnDemand. I'm certainly not surprised to see a professional services topic make the top attended list, with next-generation professional services automation (PSA) bubbling up as a very hot subject within the PS community.
- “Hidden in Plain Sight: How to Drive New Revenues from Existing Customers,”presented by Dan Santiago, VP Strategy, ServiceSource, and David Burns, VP Sales & Solution Design, ServiceSource. Dan and David discussed the best practices of Revenue Lifecycle Management and how best-in-class companies turn this great opportunity into an even greater outcome.
I think this top 5 list is a great snapshot of the biggest business challenges and opportunities facing technology service organizations today, including improving customer success, improving renewals and expand selling, automating core processes, and building effective engagement strategies. Congratulations to all of the speakers who hosted these top attended sessions!