Six months after Cendyn acquired fellow meetings technology provider Arcaneo, the now-combined company this month officially released a strategic meetings management platform.
Development of Metron, a solution that includes functionality for venue research, request-for-proposals management and meetings payment management, began at Arcaneo before Cendyn acquired the company in November 2013. Cendyn also partnered with meeting-planning platform GetPlanning to grow the event management side of the tool. "We just took the opportunity to marry the two organizations and plug in what we thought was missing and add value for our existing customers," Cendyn Arcaneo president Robin Deyo told BTN.
With Metron, organizers can access photographs and descriptions of the more than 18,000 properties that currently use Cendyn Arcaneo's tool. "That number is going to go up to 22,000 this summer," Deyo said. In addition, planners with pre-negotiated agreements can keep lists of preferred suppliers within the platform.
Meeting organizers also can submit requests for proposals through Metron, and "the request will come back through the sourcing tool, then whoever wins the business, that information will flow back into the Metron product," Deyo explained. "So, organizers can check in for updates and on the current status of their RFPs."
By tracking meeting data, such as total room nights and overall per-meeting spending, Metron can calculate for each event return-on-investment and return-on-objective figures. "With the platform, we're better able to arrange that data," Deyo said. "One of the goals of the total end-to-end solution is to really focus in on the small meetings market, so we can concentrate more on those transactions," she said. Surveying functionality within Metron lets users collect data concerning attendee engagement and satisfaction.
Most Metron customers so far are Fortune 100 companies that were "craving e-surveys and e-insights and the sourcing tool to really round out the platform that we already offered," Deyo said. One unnamed Cendyn Arcaneo client, an international pharmaceutical company, will use Metron—which provides information in 17 languages—to run more than 80,000 events in China each year, Deyo said, ensuring each complies with company meetings policy. "The platform helps them make sure they are keeping a total enterprise view of what their meetings spend is globally," Deyo said.
Pricing is scalable depending on the company's size and needs, according to Deyo.