Bear Analytics partners with Microsoft Power BI to accelerate decision-making for event organizers

Bear Analytics empowers organizers to make data-driven decisions that enhance in-person events such as trade shows and conferences. When COVID-19 halted in-person events that the company supported, Bear Analytics embraced the opportunity to reimagine its traditional consulting business with technology innovation based on its years of experience. The company created and deployed a groundbreaking software solution, Bear IQ, that provides dynamic, near-real-time data insights for event planners by collecting and analyzing traditionally underused data. With Bear IQ and support from Microsoft, Bear Analytics is transforming the event industry and enriching in-person experiences with unique data insights.

Reimagining event planning through technological innovation

Bear Analytics is passionate about the power of in-person events and how they foster interpersonal connections and spur innovation. Before 2020, the company delivered deep analytics on audience acquisition to event organizers. When in-person events were canceled or replaced with online events because of COVID-19, the business landscape changed, and Bear Analytics recognized an opportunity to expand its offerings with more data sources and engagement points. “COVID-19 wiped out about 85% of our business in six weeks because we were only in-person, face-to-face events at that point,” says Joseph Colangelo, Chief Executive Officer and Cofounder of Bear Analytics. “We realized that events were going to take a very different shape after COVID-19.”

In-person events generate considerable data on engagement between attendees, between companies, and with content. However, the event industry had not developed a cohesive way to deliver data-driven insights that organizers could act upon. “Event planners are data hungry because it’s been under-measured for so long,” says Colangelo. “They need a more aggressive handle on their data than ever before, but there’s not a well-defined industry standard.”

Bear Analytics made a bold decision to pivot from a traditional consulting company to a technology-powered firm that could offer a comprehensive software solution to gather and analyze data. The company hoped to lay a foundation to expand its customer base after in-person events resumed. “We didn’t know when, but we knew that the face-to-face experience would come back, and we needed to be ready,” says Colangelo.

Offering customers unrivaled data insights with a personalized touch

Bear Analytics began conceptualizing a software solution that could empower event planners to optimize the in-person experience with data-driven insights. The company needed an agile, scalable infrastructure to gather, clean, and manage data from disparate sources, and it evaluated several options before settling on Microsoft solutions. Bear Analytics was excited about the potential for ongoing innovation within the Microsoft ecosystem. Working with Microsoft, Bear Analytics developed a flexible architecture and a minimum viable product.

After 18 months of planning and demonstrating more than 200 new virtual event tech solutions, Bear IQ, an enterprise-level events analytics platform, launched in 2021, providing weekly data insights for customers. Bear Analytics took an iterative approach to the platform’s development and knew it wanted to meet the challenge of providing near-real-time insights. In 2023, the company launched an updated and expanded version that enriched its data engineering capabilities with near-real-time data analysis and reports. Bear IQ uses products in the Microsoft Azure environment, such as Azure SQL Database, to manage and analyze vast amounts of data. Customers receive daily updates on key metrics, such as registrant pacing, booth sales, and lead retrieval and engagement, through a series of event-centric dashboards developed in Microsoft Power BI.

Bear Analytics regularly adds new features that help optimize event organization and engagement. The company is quickly delivering new services to its customers using the AI capabilities of Microsoft Fabric, a complete data analytics platform. The collaboration with Microsoft helped Bear Analytics create an agile, scalable infrastructure that can evolve to meet long-term needs.

“We developed what I think is the first common data model in the physical engagement space for trade shows, events, and conferences,” says Colangelo. “We can take data from the event tech—things like registration systems, apps, attendee tracking, and badge scanning systems—and centralize it in Bear IQ for our clients.”

Connecting with data from more than 50 event and marketing solutions

Bear IQ gives organizers access to enriched, granular data that refines event planning and enhances the in-person experience for attendees, exhibitors, and sponsors. “Our modules in Power BI deploy automatically, but the content is personalized for each customer,” says Colangelo. “We serve events across all industries, and Bear IQ is smart enough to recognize variable fields, whether it’s registration types, demographic questions, or marketing codes. We structure that data for custom event decisions, so our clients feel like they have a dedicated data analyst.”

For customers, the setup time in Bear IQ is minimal because the solution automatically connects with event technologies that track data. Bear IQ uses application programming interfaces to collect data from more than 50 event and marketing solutions, compared with only two before 2021. After a customer has used Bear IQ, the solution saves their data to help plan the next year’s event.

Realizing a remarkable 300% increase in supported events

With its digital transformation, Bear Analytics has created a niche in the events industry and realized an astonishing 300% increase in the number of events it supports. The company expanded its customer base from large trade shows and conferences to include event organizers in the for-profit space. “We probably worked on 100 to 120 events in the five or six years before the pandemic,” says Colangelo. “In the three years with Bear IQ, we’ve had more than 540 events in the platform.”

As AI-driven services evolve, Bear Analytics is eager to incorporate more automation into Bear IQ and expand even further as a solution for more types of events, like executive roundtables. With innovation and customer service at the heart of its digital transformation, Bear Analytics is reimagining the event industry. “The team we’ve assembled is excited and motivated by the work and likes the fact that we’re the first ones through the forest on this one; we’re absolutely charting our own path,” says Colangelo.

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