The Importance and Challenges of Small and Simple Meetings

Small and simple meetings can represent up to 80% of a company’s overall events. They are key to organizational growth as they foster new ideas, shape strategies, encourage collaboration, and more. With the current challenging environment of budget and headcount cutbacks, no one has the time, resources, or expertise to conceive, source, and implement an end-to-end small meetings program.

In a brainstorming session with one of Bizly’s premiere partners, Intent Strategy Group (ISG), the consulting division of Meetings & Incentives Worldwide (M&IW) a plug and play concept strategy was developed which would take a lot of hours of research, process planning and budgeting for enterprise clients. ISG’s Lisa Palmeri, Vice President, Principal Consultant (a strategic meetings management (SMM) pioneer like me) and I mapped out where the current barriers are for enterprise clients seeking to create a small, simple meetings program and using our collective knowledge and experience around best in class SMM programs.  Our efforts focused on three key aspects of a potential solution: technical, strategic, and operational. The end result was recently branded and launched as “Simplified+”, an integrated small meetings solution..  

Technically, Simplified+ is a fully integrated solution that includes a small meetings booking technology, Bizly, woven into an existing Meeting & Event Request/Intake process, typically powered by Cvent, plus the resulting expanded business intelligence reports. Simplified+ weaves the two together, while also completing the lifecycle with consolidated business intelligence derived from both systems.

Strategically, ISG designed new Meeting & Event Policies that include small meetings and developed a methodology to clearly articulate the value and estimated ROI of Simplified+. We also recognized the operational need to support do-it-yourself (DIY) planners with professional concierges from M&IW who will guide them in booking small meetings safely within established “guardrails” and efficiently leveraging the full feature set of Bizly.  

At a high level, Simplified+ was conceived and built as a plug and play solution to fast-track a small meetings program implementation for any enterprise.  The end result of ISG and Bizly’s combined efforts is an innovative and well-designed end-to-end process for introducing and managing small meetings.

The Benefits of Simplified+

For enterprises currently using a platform like Cvent, Simplified+ brings the benefits of a Strategic Meetings Management Program to small and simple meetings that may otherwise miss out because they do not fit into established channels and processes. These benefits include…

• Automation: Users are guided to the best event solution—small or large, virtual or in-person—through the automated event intake process.
• Friendly User Interface: The program is explicitly designed for DIY planners, allowing them to increase adoption and productivity.
• Alignment: Everything from event strategy and procurement to duty-of-care and compliance standards is aligned within the platform.
• Streamlining: The overall event lifecycle is expedited thanks to the system automation.
• Visibility: With all events entered in one platform, a complete picture of an organization’s meetings and events strategy is created for actionable outputs.
• Consistency: Similarly, using one solution across all events brings a consistent and elevated level of service to all stakeholders.

The legacy challenge has been the ability to ‘right size’ a solution for this book of business where Cvent and an elaborate M&E intake process can be overkill.  Simplified+ is designed to benefit any organization that isn’t able to capture this large book of business today using existing processes and technologies.”

So if you are looking to tackle this last bastion of unmanaged meeting spend for your company but are not sure where to start and what resources to tap in to for information, do yourself a favor and check out Simplified+.  

Helpful information links:

Bizly

M&IW Small Meetings Solution

M&IW - ISG - Bizly Press Release

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