The power of Location Analytics: breaking down Extreme’s numbers at GITEX Global 2023

GITEX Global, which took place on October 16-20 at the Dubai World Trade Center, is renowned for its ability to exhibit cutting-edge technologies, and this year was no exception. Extreme Networks hosted its showcase at booth C10 in Hall 20, where visitors were given the opportunity to explore the boundaries of what can be achieved by leveraging networks as strategic assets, driving operational excellence, enhancing user experiences, and positively influencing organizational outcomes.

One of the standout features of the event included the live demonstration of ExtremeLocation Essentials, a location analytics tool seamlessly integrated into the ExtremeCloud management IQ platform.

Extreme’s booth at GITEX Global 2023 was equipped with four wireless access points, set up in a way to enable optimal radio coverage, as shown in the heatmap below.

As you can see, there was some overlap with the neighboring stands; However, our radio coverage radius and tracking threshold were configured in such a way as to maximize the “real” impressions and footfall traffic statistics of the Extreme’s stand.

An important note: when defining the thresholds, we tracked all wireless and Bluetooth enabled devices, no matter if they were connected to the Extreme Wi-Fi or not. This is possible due to the nature of wireless transmission, as each device sends out wireless beacons to discover nearby access points. Simply put, we were capturing those beacons and recording the devices as they entered and left the wireless range of our access points.

Throughout all five days of GITEX Global 2023, we we could see that we had approximately 83,075 visitors to our stand, out of which we saw 15,493 visitors engaged between 5 minutes to 20 minutes – showing a higher level of interest. If we compare this last number to the statistics from the previous year, we’re looking at an impressive increase of 147%, highlighting the success of our interactive displays such as the showcase of our partnership with Manchester United and our ExtremeCloud IQ demo.

We can all agree that understanding our customers better is always a great thing. Once we understand them, however, we need to strategize to optimize our resources and enhance our engagements with them.

One of the many great features of ExtremeLocation Essentials, especially for the Retail industry, is the ability to analyze changes and traffic patterns year-on-year, or even month-on-month, and track which investments are driving higher ROI.

At GITEX 2023, we saw a combined sum of 55,731 unique device impressions through all five days. Similarly, we were also able to track the number of devices that we have seen before and run a comparison against the ones that we saw for the first time – this is an interesting trend when compared to last year. We can see a far steeper decline in the number of first time visits versus repeat visits; However, the total number of visits in 2023 still massively outperforms 2022. 

Further, this data also helps us forecast and budget more carefully. By looking at our Extreme stand trends during GITEX 2023, because we had 152,482 total visitors and an increase of impressions and footfall of 40.5% (108,523) from 2022, we can see that the enhancements to our stand this year were successful and plan for the same investments in 2024.

With ExtremeLocation Essentials, we can also better manage staffing and employee tracking to accommodate footfall peaks and ebbs through the data we capture. For instance, we can see that most unique impressions (13,310) were recorded on the first day of the event (Monday, October 16), when the local government visits GITEX.

Moreover, through all five days of GITEX Global 2023, we recorded a fairly consistent volume of engagement with the people who stayed at the Extreme booth for at least 5 and up to 60 minutes. The number of quality impressions (the ‘magic’ 5-20 minutes) ranged slightly from 3121 (Monday) to 4402 (Tuesday).

Additionally, ExtremeLocation Essentials allowed us to identify the most busy hours during the event. Our analysis showed us that peak hours for our stand were between 2 and 4 PM each day, which is also when we had more visitors coming in for 5-20 minutes.

This sort of data can be particularly helpful for managing shift schedules for restaurants or hospitals. At events and trade shows like GITEX, exhibitors can plan ahead for which spaces need more staffing and on-site teams during certain periods of the day.

Tracking visit patterns can also makes it way easier to manage visitor traffic in a hotel, for example. If we can analyze where guests are spending the most time, we could identify road-blocks and administration pain-points and introduce changes that reduce wait times and speed-up visitor journeys.

The purpose of this blog is to give you a hint of the numerous possibilities and capabilities of ExtremeLocation Essentials.

The solution provides enterprises with powerful multi-tier location services that can scale to thousands of branch sites and be used to monitor workflows and assets to improve overall operation and efficiency. To that end, ExtremeLocation offers a range of accurate and granular location insights, including:

Whether combined with Extreme's enterprise-grade wireless networking, or as an overlay with your existing network, ExtremeLocation is an easy to use cloud-based platform that helps you transform your business!