BCD Meetings
& Events has launched three self-built tools under the umbrella name Smart
Meeting, aimed at plugging what it claimed are gaps in established meetings
technology offerings. All three tools are available to BCD M&E clients
only.
Smart
Invitation creates a consolidated list of event invitees from multiple
databases, described by BCD M&E senior vice president technology Ted Stone
as "often a cumbersome manual process." Then the meetings manager can
upload those contacts onto platforms like Cvent.
Smart
Expense captures meetings expenses, especially those incurred out of pocket
instead of through a dedicated payment method. Stone said it's aimed at life
sciences events, for which spend per healthcare professional needs to be
tracked meticulously. Smart Expense includes the ability to upload relevant
receipts. "The difference to a tool like Concur is it pre-populates
expenses from the existing attendee list, so you are not starting the reports
from scratch," said Stone, "and you can't open up your normal expense
reporting tool to attendees."
And Stone
described Smart Registration, also aimed at life sciences clients, as a
lightweight attendee-management platform for smaller businesses. This tool set has
launched just as BCD M&E acquired
Plan 365, a pharmaceutical and high-tech marketing logistics company.
"We are not looking to displace or compete
with existing meetings technologies," said Stone. "We are aiming to
ease existing pain points for our clients with some niche functionality that
tools like Cvent or [Lanyon] don't provide today."