E-Planning Reaps Big Rewards For Event Planners

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Perpetual phone tag, endless paper trails, piles of “to-do” lists , part and parcel of planning an event, right? Wrong – at least not if youu’re one of the many planners using the Internet. “Faster, leaner, smarter,” the mantra of the 21st Century, is being realized for planning professionals thanks to e-planning. While many planners have used the Internet in some capacity over the past year, their dependency on the World Wide Web will grow exponentially as technology impacts and improves every aspect of the tedious planning process.

The current Internet universe is estimated to be 122,810,764 (Nielsen/NetRatings 2/00). Cisco President and CEO, John Chambers, in his company’s 1998 annual report, stated, “In this new economy, seven people gain Internet access every second, and electronic mail messages outnumber regular mail by nearly ten to one.”

Meeting-related uses of the Internet has surged, due in part to the number of Generation Xers who will be attending conferences and seminars in the coming years. Having grown up with cable, computers and video games, these Xers are comfortable with technology, in general, and the Internet, in particular. Meeting planners need to adapt to Xers’ high degree of computer literacy, low tolerance for boredom and expectation for instantaneous dissemination of information. The Internet is the ideal vehicle for this.

The Internet is also the ideal vehicle to improve a company’s overall business practice, particularly in the meeting, convention and seminar planning industries, according to a July 1999 survey by MCI WorldCom. Sixty-eight percent of participants surveyed said the Internet reduced costs while 63 percent said it improved the quality of customer service. In terms of personal benefits, over half of those surveyed said the Internet improved their job satisfaction, the quality of their work and reduced stress levels.

The Internet is becoming as much of a necessity to event-planning businesses as a phone or a fax used to be. Steven Koltai, Chairman and CEO of Event411.com, the official online event-planning provider of the Democratic National Convention 2000, believes Event411.com’s online event-planning software will be “indispensable” and “as fundamental to organizations planning events as the calendar and Rolodex are right now.”

In order to survive and thrive in the high-tech environment, event planners need to take a proactive, innovative approach. Unquestionably, that innovation is the Internet. Professional planners can expect a future of end-to-end planning solutions, from e-mailed RFPs to post-event reporting capabilities. According to Koltai, one of the most popular requests from planners is for online registration with payment processing. The convenience of registering and paying online, twenty-four/seven, without the hassle of faxing registration forms or printing and mailing paperwork is a tremendous value-add to offer to event attendees. Event planners can expect significant savings using a Web-based procurement system as well, according to a 1999 International Data Corporation (IDC) report. The report projected that savings from Internet commerce procurement will total $1.375 trillion by 2003.

Other online enhancements helping to reduce costs, simplify and expedite the event planning process are “management software solutions.” Guest management, hotel & travel management, volunteer management, media management and fundraising management are among the management solutions event planners can take advantage of. Benefits derived from these solutions include access to one, central source for up-to-date information, paperless communication, interactive planning that organizes and tracks information and the creation of online communities stimulating momentum before, during and after the event.

Event411.com, Inc., is the leading Application Services Provider (ASP) of online event-planning tools. The tools can be licensed individually or in packages and offer comprehensive, feature-rich event-planning solutions to corporations, associations and online businesses organizing events such as meetings, conventions and seminars.

Designed to be integrated into customer sites, the proprietary tools allow users to exchange information, automate logistics, register for events and promote event-related merchandising.

In addition, automated “to do lists” generating chronological lists of tasks, appointments, and reminders based upon answers to specific event questions help prevent critical items from slipping through the cracks. Expenses, the nemesis of many a meeting professional, are easily established and tracked against the budget with budget trackers, while vendor trackers can store planners’ contact lists with breakdowns of invoices, payments and balances due. E-planning also reduces endless phone tags allowing easy communication through bulletin boards, individual and batch e-mails. Search and sort guest list features serve to streamline communication even more.

Highly successful event planners have begun to realize the powerful benefits of online event planning tools. IDC estimates that by 2003 the number of global users making purchases over the Internet will jump from 31 million in 1998 to more than 183 million. This staggering increase creates quite an incentive to leave the paper trails for the online world of e-planning.

Cameron Andrews is principal of Pier Communications, specializing in the hospitality industry. He can be reached at [email protected].