Buyers Deploy Internal Meeting Portals As Compliance, Education Tools

Internal corporate Web portals for meetings management—online gateways to tools, resources and education for internal stakeholders—are becoming more sophisticated as online technology develops, and are becoming essential to strategic meetings management initiatives, corporate buyers and consultants said. However, challenges remain in driving stakeholders to the approved intranet site and in keeping portals up to date.

Corporations that take a nonmandated approach to getting employees to use a preferred process for holding meetings said they are using portals as an internal marketing tool. A basic portal includes a meetings request form, a copy of the company's meeting policy and contact information. Additional features on some portals include meeting resources, sourcing tools and Web- or audioconferencing tools.

However, most corporate meeting portals in existence today still are very basic and without the available bells and whistles of automatic sourcing tools and resources, though there is a steady trend to expand and update these internal sites and a growing market opportunity for third-party providers, said Rodman Marymor, CEO of Berkeley, Calif.-based meetings technology consulting firm Cardinal Communications and a principal in Tech3 Partners.

Several corporate meeting buyers at the National Business Travel Association International Convention & Exposition in July addressed portal content. Michele Snock, manager of global meeting services for San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco Systems' Americas operations, said the most important reason to have a portal is to increase compliance in the company's environment.

"In a nonmandated environment, such as Cisco Systems, it is critical to 'sell, not tell,' " Snock said, adding that education on the value of meetings management initiatives and how they tie into overall corporate objectives is the best way to increase compliance. "Encouraging employees to use preferred suppliers helps support our initiative to leverage key suppliers who are following our sourcing and cost-tracking guidelines."

Increasing compliance with a Web portal can be as easy as sending an e-mail to targeted stakeholders and then tracking who takes the requested action, and who needs a follow-up reminder, Marymor said. This type of tracking technology already exists and is in use today by many corporations, he said.

"The main thing that is being focused on these days both by the corporate departments and the vendors who provide the online travel services is compliance," according to Marymor, "That's the biggest issue, because the software is getting pretty good. Upper management—all the way to the top—is really starting to embrace the value of travel services related to meetings. The issue is getting all the people, particularly in a larger organization, to actually use the tools the way that they're supposed to."

Cisco posts a "meeting resource library" on its portal that includes online forms for sourcing and logistics support for meetings either on its corporate campus or offsite. Additionally, the portal includes a list of preferred vendors, suggestions for teambuilding activities, links to useful Web sites, a budget estimator tool provided by Philadelphia-based StarCite Inc. and approved templates for employees who want to manage their own meeting logistics.

Another advantage of online meeting portals is the ability to build in access levels for meeting services, Marymor said. Senior executives may have higher-tier properties from which to choose in submitting a meetings request, while other employees automatically may be directed to in-house space or lower-tier properties—all through the same portal.

"The most useful portals, in addition to having tools to request meetings, source meeting space and find vendors, also are going to have a document archive that's accessible to the users," Marymor added.

On its portal, New York-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. lists preferred meeting vendors, travel policies, pharma industry and Sarbanes-Oxley guidelines, information on meeting space at Pfizer-owned conference centers, business properties and day meeting programs. The portal also offers alternative meeting solutions such as Web- and audioconferencing tools, online booking information, planning tips and a glossary of meeting terms, said Phil Dunphy, director of global travel at Pfizer.

"We have a meetings portal that houses a great deal of information about our various divisions and the meeting resources available to them," Dunphy said. "The portal is a very effective means of communication and is a key component to our communication and marketing strategy."

Though most corporations use internal information technology departments to create and maintain their meetings portals, there may be a growing market opportunity for third-party providers to sell portal services, Marymor said.

Like most technology products, the issue is price, Marymor said. Creating a meetings portal usually isn't the top priority for IT, and so many changes or additions to the site must be put on hold as meetings departments queue up for tech services. Meetings departments generally have to wait longer for IT services because they are not considered revenue-generating departments, he said, despite the evidence of cost avoidance. However, most companies loathe purchasing a product they can build internally, so any proposal to do so must have clear justifications, he said.

"Whatever the price is, it still needs to be justified," he said, "but I think there is more opportunity for an external supplier to provide this and sell this service than there would be to have the internal IT to build it. Internal IT doesn't know anything about meetings anyway."

Web-deployed tools have great advantages for buyers in flexibility and speed over software applications, according to the NBTA groups and meetings committee. A portal can be quickly and easily changed or expanded as new online tools are developed. For instance, when the Apex Toolbox, a deliverable of the Convention Industry Council's Accepted Practices Exchange initiative, is updated and made available for distribution online then meeting managers may add the set of templates and guides to their own internal portals.

Deb Matarazzo, head of data and spend consolidation and meetings management department for Hewlett-Packard Co., said listing preferred suppliers on the meetings portal helps to drive compliance, "communicate across regional and global boundaries and is crucial for new employees, mergers and acquisitions."

Whether provided by an external or internal source, meeting portals all need the same strategy in driving stakeholders to the site.

"It all boils down to creating the internal policy that you're going to use with these systems; secondly, that you provide and intuitive, easy-to-use interface for users; thirdly, that you provide them the training that's needed and the reasons they need to be using it; and fourthly, that you provide ongoing help and support so that if they have a problem they won't just throw down their hands and pick up the phone," Marymor said, adding that an online help section could be as easy as a frequently asked questions page.