What Sandeep Nagpal teaches about AI in marketing

So I'm writing a memoir called Stumped But Not Out. You operate in an extremely unique space. We're actually, you know, kind of trying to marry technology in the event space, which we know as a very physical format. So what are the challenges you're facing while doing it? And how is it going to help, Sabal? See, Priyanka, most of the time, as you rightly said, it's a very labor-intensive, you know, people-heavy space. And I think that's the reason why technology makes so much more sense, right?

So if you really ask me the whole of these processes that we compete with or we try and work on are the manual processes. So very error-prone, you know, takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of people, and no consistency of processes, right? Right. If you really look at it from our event management technology, so we operate basically in event management technology and hospitality management. Let's talk about event technology to begin with. That's where, you know, we can actually automate right from venue search.

So as a planner, you need to search the venue. Where do you want to do an event, right? From there to registrations, to on-site registrations. Then, you know, the experiences within the event. You know, how do you engage people? How do they consume your content? And then, you know, the social sharing of content and all of that stuff. And then post-event surveys and analysis of the event and reporting and all that stuff. Right. And all of this is what most of the companies actually spend more than 25% of their marketing budget on events.

And still, they do not have a way of managing this and putting an ROI to that. Right. And all of this system, when digitized, which we try and do, actually can be brought into their mainstream CRMs and their marketing automation. It creates a seamless journey for the customers. How is India poised today in terms of the mice industry when we do an India versus global scenario today? See, global stands at about, so overall mice business stands at about $750 billion industry, right?

But India, mice business is give and take 25,000 crore business in that sense. So Indian government has already put up some kind of a target. By 2025 in the exhibition and convention business, we will be about 2% of the global share. Currently, we are at about half a percent. So we will four times be in that space by 2025. Right. So that, so, so clearly says we are on the hockey sticks trajectory, although we are not so significant in the global world, but the adoption rate is very heavily paced.

So we spoke about, you know, getting technology in the space. And, you know, while it is great and glamorous and AR, VR is the wow factor and technology is great to have. It also comes at a certain cost. How do you strike the balance between the cost and the effects and using great technology, obviously, to make it better? Yeah, I think, I think every technology has got its own life cycle, right? You know, that, that, that is the beauty of the technology that you really have to bring in the newer tenets of technology.

AR and VR is a, is a great content dissemination processes and how you contextualize the experiences and all this stuff. So event per se is, is a great place where you can actually deliver experiences, right? And, you know, ROI is something that we always want to have a pulse on. Yes. As, as you more adopt technologies, you start realizing the potential faster, right? Now, there will always be an adoption cycle. Some of the experiences you can deliver, which will create more of a wow factor.

Some of them will be essential for the processes and some will, will actually be, you know, the baseline without which you can just play the game, right? So I think AR, VR currently is in a space where it's starting to create the buzz and it's starting to create the wow factor. Over a period of time, I think we will try, the overall costing, pricing will start coming to a level where we can make it more, you know, prevalent. So you are an avid reader. What are two of the books you would recommend to our viewers today?

Well, I've recently finished a classic called Kin and Abel. I'm sure it's a classic in itself. And then another classic is Art of War by Sun Tzu. Right. This is about the military strategy and all that stuff. And I think it is very apt in the current environment of marketing and the way we go about strategizing the marketing tactics and all that stuff. So kind of inspires a lot. How do you stay creative on a daily basis? So I'm writing a memoir called Stumped But Not Out. Wow, that's an interesting title.

Yeah, it's about, you know, it's about life sometimes trumps you so many times and you, you know, you just have to bounce back and start playing again. So I think there have been instances in life which have kind of helped me bring and collect myself together. And I think there are some things that I can share with people. So I think it's an interesting way of bringing back what you've kind of experienced to the people. Thank you.