American Express Meetings & Events announced its Meetings Marketplace concept late last year, without much detail. In fact, BTN didn't cover the announcement because there wasn't enough information, either strategic or tactical. As the pieces fall into place, though, the picture has become clearer.
In January, Amex M&E announced the Meetings Express product, which ties Amex M&E's assembly of regional small meetings technology specialists into the Meetings Marketplace. Today, it announced a handful of additional marketplace technology partners: Attendify, DoubleDutch and Splash.
Attendify and Splash are new partnerships. The former is a lightweight mobile app that offers intuitive and easy-to-configure apps for simple events. Splash is a meetings and events registration-website builder that also offers attendee management software, onsite check-in technology and some real-time analytics. Attendee engagement app and analytics platform DoubleDutch is a renewal of an existing partnership, now placed in the context of the Meetings Marketplace.
But why? What's the point of the marketplace?
"We wanted a strategy that would support all of our customers, from strategic meetings managers with a portfolio of meetings and events to our clients who may have an individual product launch," said Linda McNairy, Amex M&E VP of global operations and shared services. "While there are enterprise technologies that support a lot of these needs, there is not one single provider that touches all of it. We wanted to bring forward the best solutions out there because there is not a silver bullet technology for all meetings and events. That's just the reality."
The strategy looks a little bit like meetings industry newcomer Event Tech Tribe in terms of bringing together a group of a la carte technologies from which customers can "architect" their own solutions, rather than licensing a full platform like Cvent or Aventri. Event Tech Tribe differentiates via back-end application programming interface connections required from each partner that allow event data to flow from one tool to the next.
Asked whether Amex M&E had a similar data flow and aggregation strategy behind the marketplace, McNairy said the connections would be in place "where it makes sense" but would not be a prerequisite for becoming a marketplace partner. "Efficiency is the key concept guiding all decision-making around Meetings Marketplace," she said. "Where it makes sense to have the solutions link—for example, the registration tool with the mobile app—we need to make sure the linkages are there. We'll have more announcements later this year on that and how, ultimately, it will enhance the net goal of attendee engagement. In other cases, like Meetings Express, we are linking relevant data not between the separate tools but to our Meetings Insights analytics platform. We are also doing that with DoubleDutch data, which allows us to layer engagement data on top of so-called 'traditional' strategic meetings management data from internal Cvent licenses so clients can start to look at meeting expense and drill down to how it aligns with engagement effectiveness. All in, we are looking to provide the connectivity where it drives meaning."
The ability to "layer" data gets at the ultimate goal of the Meetings Marketplace. At first blush, the platform might look like a play to attract midmarket meetings clients with a la carte tools as an alternative to enterprise meetings platforms. In fact, that is not the case. At least not entirely. Working with smaller, innovative players in the meetings technology space will open the horizon for midmarket clients but also for enterprise clients wanting to try new things, said McNairy. "Internally, we had that question of what types of clients were really right for these solutions," she said. "The response from enterprise clients has been somewhat surprising. They've been very supportive and eager to expand their capabilities through our partnerships."
Concerns about security, she said, have hindered enterprises from experimenting with new meetings technologies due to the amount of vetting many large corporations require before bringing in new providers. "Working with startups and smaller innovators in the space [introduces] opportunities for risk," she said. Amex M&E's marketplace aims to mitigate those concerns on the front end so clients have confidence moving forward with new ideas and so Amex M&E can drive successful outcomes. Our vetting process [for marketplace members] is not for the faint of heart. We make sure every partner is financially solid, and compliance is a primary focus, especially when it comes to data privacy and [the General Data Protection Regulation]. We ensure any contractors they use are compliant, we screen their workers. Obviously, we go through the legal part," she said.
Currently, the marketplace offers fewer than a dozen partners, but according to McNairy, a rapid influx of options will come in 2019. "It takes time and we want to move quickly, but we don't want to compromise key deliverables," she said.