Xerox, Incentive Partner Offer Web-Based Mgmt. System

<B> Xerox, Incentive Partner Offer Web-Based Mgmt. System</B>

By Lauren Bielski

Xerox has partnered with Northwestern Incentive Services, a division of NTS, to build an incentive section on its intranet site and establish a link to the agency. Now, Northwestern and Xerox are private-labeling the product for sale to other Internet-capable organizations.

Using the French national anthem and video clips to stylishly promote its Parisian theme, Xerox Corp. has been using its intranet to manage a key incentive program for more than 2,000 participants.

Donna Westin, manager of U.S. customer operations for incentive travel at Xerox's Stamford, Conn., headquarters, now oversees a more streamlined administration of the program for her division. Thanks to a more efficient Web process that obviates the need for endless rekeying of participant registration information, all the incentive program data gets shuttled electronically from the corporation to super regional agency Northwestern Travel Services in Minneapolis.

In offering the program for sale, Xerox and Northwestern join a growing collection of vendors providing Web solutions for meetings and incentive management. Mike Ryan, vice president of sales and marketing for X-ceed in New York City, said his company's product--a series of incentive and performance improvement modules for the Web, driven by an engine called Maestro--has a five-year track record and is in use with six clients.

"Clearly, Web utilization in general is growing, and with it, we think more clients will be interested in this sort of program. We offer enough flexibility so an incentive manager can handle a variety of different programs with ease," Ryan said.

Bob Vitagliano, chief executive officer of the Society of Incentive and Travel Executives, agreed that managing incentives on the Web is today's hot topic, and with good reason.

"Using a Web tool makes sense because you constantly want to keep the level of enthusiasm high. And it also offers immediate gratification. I think eventually most programs will be administered this way."

Relying on the Web also offers general administrative efficiency. At Northwestern's back office, data from the Xerox Web page gets deposited into the incentive organization's proprietary conference management system, said Northwestern Incentive's IS director Mike Gisch.

Currently, air reservations are handled by the agency separately, though there are plans--though no development dates yet--to merge the CMS and CRS data in an automated flow, said Joanie Miskowiec, manager of planning and purchasing.

"Xerox approached us about working together on this, so our information service departments got together and worked out the technical details," Miskowiec said. "They went online with the program in January and it really proved to be a time saver."

Perspective incentive winners use a password to access the customized site, which features information about the incentive program in picture, video and audio. The site includes destination and hotel information, pre- and post-trip travel and sightseeing options--and of course, qualifying targets to earn the trip. At the conclusion of the qualifying period, the site congratulates the winners, scrolling their names across the bottom of the screen like a ticker tape.

Registering meetings online had its impetus in Silicon Valley. There, Silicon Graphics Inc., Digital Equipment Corp. and Informix Software Inc. took the lead in pioneering the use of Websites to do site registration for their meetings (MT, May 19, 1997). SGI also worked with outside vendors to launch a registration site on its intranet, which since its 1996 launch has serviced several major conferences. DEC and Informix also created a customized Website to automate seminar registration.

These firms join agencies who are selling Internet capabilities--or help with developing private-label versions of group registration sites on corporate intranets--in lieu of offering proprietary registration packages and data management systems to service a conference.

Like Xerox, Digital Equipment Corp. chose to outsource its registration site, which it used for its 1997 Business Partner Executive Seminar, to McGettigan Corporate Planning Services of Philadelphia. More than 1,300 senior-level executives from 27 countries registered on the site.

Historically, Xerox announced and promoted incentive trips with color brochures and direct mail. But the lure of the Web is strong: "It's a very clever use of graphics and really pulls the contest participant in," Miskowiec said.

With the technology, sales managers can spend more time with sales people strategizing how to make sales and achieve the award, rather than focusing on administrative details or answering questions that the Website addresses.

And on the administrative side, said Northwestern Incentive Services president Claudia Wilson, "This registration streamlines the entire process. Once data is transferred to our conference management system, we can generate up to 45 different reports to monitor that block of reservations."

The new setup also eases spot checking of the program's status, Miskowiec noted. "When reports were generated manually, it could be time consuming to answer questions about who was doing what or who had responded. But now all of that is easy and quick to accomplish.