Nortel Pens Volume Pact With B-there.com

<B>Nortel Pens Volume Pact With B-there.com</B>

By Chris Davis

Nortel Networks Corp. last month became one of the largest corporations to sign a volume-based contract with an attendee management Web site, inking a pact with B-there.com that covers about 200 sales and marketing-related meetings and events.

While cost savings is not the primary goal of the contract, said David Cegelski, Nortel senior manager for integrated marketing, the pact should provide immediate benefits in tracking data and registrations for primarily customer-based events.

"We are using their system for customer events by setting up registration and informational Web sites," Cegelski said. "Once we have a long enough relationship with them, we hope to build a database to track our customer events, which they are set up to do. We do have a core system for the registration process and use that data to run reports."

Brampton, Ontario-based Nortel, which ranked 14th in BTN's 2000 Corporate Travel 100 (BTN, Aug. 28, 2000), decided to explore attendee management solutions late last year to develop a centralized method to build processes and databases. "We had no way of tracking systematically, on a large scale, which events we were inviting people to or places for them to register automatically online," Cegelski said. "It was a really strong need, as opposed to doing it through Excel spreadsheets and work files. We won't use it for all of our meetings, but will for the majority of the events in which we invite customers--some forums, some internal meetings, some trade show usage."

Cegelski said Nortel looked at other sites in November and December and decided B-there offered the most capabilities applicable to Nortel's needs, given the cost.

"They get the concept of attendee relationship management," said B-there CEO and founder Peggy Lee. "They realize that this is a key component of their strategy to move core services to e-platforms, and that it's an important tie-in to e-commerce relationship management strategy."

B-there changed its pricing strategy last month. Under the terms of the new plan, companies will pay a monthly subscription fee for a certain amount of transactions processed. If a corporation exceeds that amount, an additional fee per transaction processed will be assessed. Clients can adjust their committed volume downward in any given month, if it gives B-there 90-days' notice, Lee said. "Nortel's contract is based on a level of committed volume, and they will get a volume discount," he said.

Eventually, as Nortel further implements B-there's capabilities into its corporate marketing events program, further cost savings will be realized, but there are more immediate goals. "Efficiency is the word I'd use," Cegelski said. "That was the overriding concern. Once we work with them further, we will save start-up costs and the time required to ramp up a registration Web site or system. Also, their electronic invitation system helps to save paper costs. We haven't done a strict return on investment analysis, but our sense is that there will be savings down the line.