Buyers Still Look In-House For Meetings Technology

Almost half of companies use or plan to use meeting planning and sourcing technology, but most of those that do choose to use internally developed technology, often to the exclusion of external products, according to a new Meetings Today survey.

According to an exclusive Meetings Monitor survey of 149 corporate meeting buyers, 39 percent said that their company used meeting planning and sourcing technology and 7 percent said they planned to start using it this year. Of those that already have, nearly half—47 percent—said they used only internally developed tools, 33 percent used both internal and external technologies and only 20 percent strictly used external technologies.

Bill Davidson, manager of corporate travel and meeting services at Sematech, said his company had "dabbled" in external technology over the years, but finally decided to go with an internal system.

"Ultimately, we decided that we could build what we wanted ourselves. It's built to complement the rest of the systems we use here at Sematech," he said.

Sematech's meeting requester allows employees to go online and fill out questions on a "meeting definition form" that can be accessed by planners, and is used as the basis for creating meeting announcements and a unique Web site for the event. It also takes payments and registrations and even post-meeting surveys.

"It's pretty robust for us. It doesn't do everything that some of the commercial products offer, but it fits our needs pretty well," Sematech's Davidson said.

In contrast to the survey findings, meetings technology suppliers and industry analysts said that internal technology is becoming passé, as such systems often can handle only basic meetings registration functions, with limited ability to interface with other forms of travel technology

"Some organizations have built in-house systems that have been quite narrow in scope, usually around Web registration or a meeting request system," according to Dale Beckles, president and CEO of meetings technology firm Arcaneo. "More and more of them are saying, 'That's not our core competence to be building these.' It just doesn't make good sense economically or in terms of the capabilities that their system can deliver."

Added Michael Boult, president and CEO of meetings technology firm StarCite, "We're really seeing a move away from homegrown, homogeneous systems. It's a trend for companies not to spend precious resources and time developing systems."

Of the respondents who use meetings technology, the most popular application was meeting registration, with 71 percent using it. More than half book hotel rooms and airfares using meetings technology tools, and use of electronic payment, online requests for proposals and budget-tracking tools all fell in the 40 percent range of those respondents.

"We've had a challenge in looking at other tools," said Heather Haley, manager of travel and meetings for David's Bridal and Priscilla of Boston.

The company's e-mail accounts don't accept externally sent e-mails, she said, so external technology doesn't work because the information comes from outside sites. Instead, the company implemented its own survey software, which allows them to create questions for necessary attendee information, such as name and emergency contact, into a meeting registration tool.

"All those questions can be built into the survey tool. It accomplishes the same goal and we don't incur any additional costs," Haley said.

Still, the technical advancement in meetings technology tools and their growing ability to integrate with tools for transient self-booking and expense reporting have led some buyers to implement an external solution, particularly for complex events or large strategic meetings management initiatives.

Three years ago, the Schwan Food Co. started using technology from OnVantage, now part of StarCite, to streamline the meeting process. The technology integrates both with Schwan's Cliqbook online booking tool and with Schwan's aviation department, said Cheryl Hoffard, Schwan's manager of meetings and events.

"This is the first time that we've been able to say we have an end-to-end solution," she said. StarCite first was used to source hotels, which Hoffard said was the "most time-consuming piece," and now is used for registration and budgeting as well.

The integration with Cliqbook happened about a year ago when the department "saw the potential" of it, Hoffard said. Schwan aviation already had integrated Cliqbook, she said.

The manager to whom Hoffard reports oversees the meeting, travel and corporate aviation departments and "is really big into technology, so that was kind of a push," Hoffard said.

Other companies similarly are wrapping external products into their programs, said Peter Moen, vice president of global business development for meetings management firm Carlson Marketing Worldwide.

"Today they're partnering with third-party companies," according to Moen. "Four or five years ago, companies wanted this information, and there weren't as many choices in the market as there are today, so they had to internally develop their own tools. Today, that's not done nearly as much."

Companies will have to continually evaluate whether the goals of their meetings program can be met and supported by products that are developed by an in-house information technology department.

"You can get much better systems out there," according to Corbin Ball, president of meetings technology consulting firm Corbin Ball Associates. "Unless they are a software design company, they just won't have the tools to do the job."