Member Spotlight: Sponsorworks

Can you give us a brief outline of Sponsorworks as a company and what differentiates you in the market?

At Sponsorworks we enable sponsors, agencies and rights holders to automate the management and evaluation of all their ticketing, hospitality and guest registration activities.

What sets us apart is our unrivalled software platform, which is renowned for its speed to market, flexibility and the complete control that it offers teams. We can deploy a highly tailored ticket management or guest management system in as little as two weeks, which reduces manual workloads by up to 95%, streamlines guest communications and automates time-consuming anti-bribery and GDPR compliance processes. This is all backed up by our expert customer success team.

Who are your customers?

Our customers include global brands such as Diageo, BP, Qatar Airways, Xero and Aviva. We support them across their corporate hospitality portfolios as well as working with rights holders across athletics and festivals. We have also worked with numerous global brands on VIP hospitality programmes for large events, such as World Cups and Olympics. 

We collaborate with a diverse range of global and local, independent agency partners on around half of our projects.

What are the current challenges that your customers are facing?

When it comes to our customers, there are four key issues that we consistently encounter:

1. Accelerated digital transformation – We are all aware how the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated technology adoption. In the events space, there was a rush to deliver contactless entry solutions for venues, which has resulted in a fragmented market. The lack of integrated technology presents a whole new set of operational challenges for the fulfilment of mobile corporate tickets across extensive portfolios. We are working hard with the industry to solve this.
2. Lack of ROI evaluation and increased C-suite scrutiny – CEOs and CFOs are increasingly turning their attention to the impact of their corporate hospitality investments. In our experience, this is an area where in-depth ROI evaluation has often been considered impossible by sponsors and rights holders. Measuring the ROI of a hospitality programme is notoriously challenging but we have developed an innovative ROI model that can provide business leaders with a view of effectiveness over time. Having access to this data can help sponsors to make more evidence-based future investment decisions and rights holders to justify the value of their rights to sponsors.
3. Data security worries – Each year, we see corporate information security requirements become more stringent due to ever-increasing cyber security risks. Event delivery teams need to handle confidential and sensitive personal data which must be protected at all costs. Having suitable technology in place and moving away from basic systems, such as spreadsheets, is often the critical first step.
4. Pressure to increase efficiency – In uncertain economic times, many businesses are looking for ways to reduce costs and boost efficiency. While it may require capital investment in the short term, increasing the level of automation – including use of generative AI tools – addresses both of these challenges in the medium to long term.

How do you see the market changing in the next three years?

We expect to see three key trends in our space over the next few years:

1. Changing face of hospitality due to regulation – In recent years, regulated industries like financial services have reduced their use of hospitality for client entertainment to comply with anti-bribery legislation, though the degree of usage can vary widely from one business to the next. This shift has opened up opportunities for other sectors, such as logistics and cloud technology providers, which have seen strong growth in recent years. We also expect to see further transition from B2B to B2C usage of hospitality (for example, as loyalty and reward incentives) as more companies’ policies start to restrict employees from accepting tickets or hospitality.
2. Increased attention on sustainability – With businesses facing greater pressure to do their bit in the race to net zero carbon, there will be even more emphasis on reducing business travel. We don’t anticipate a significant impact on the usage of global corporate hospitality (which is a global market forecasted to increase by 23% by 2027), but certain scenarios, such as flying a whole team in for a weekend event, are likely to be limited. Client entertainment is likely to become increasingly focused on local markets.
3. The rise of corporate hospitality in women’s sport – Historically, there has been limited interest in corporate tickets and hospitality for women’s sporting events, as attracting guests has been challenging. The past 18 months, however, have seen a marked and welcome shift. Events such as UEFA Women’s Euro 2022, The Hundred cricket tournament and the Women’s Six Nations 2023 have seen record usage of corporate tickets and hospitality, underlining the growing interest in attending women’s sports. Growing inventory levels and increased demand will create exciting relationship-building opportunities for commercial partners, while increasing the value of assets for rights holders.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

We are actively recruiting agency partners across Europe and have launched a new partner programme to help agencies win and retain clients. So if you are an agency leader and interested in discussing how we can work together, please email us at hello@sponsorworks.co.uk.