situation
Our client is a subsidiary of one of the world’s largest Consumer Healthcare companies. They use their National Business Meeting as a platform to reward their team, share new initiatives, bring cohesiveness to the organization and, more importantly, plan for the year ahead. A key success factor for them was to create an environment where all areas of the business could collaborate in formulating their plans in an untraditional meeting format and measure their meeting effectiveness against results. The audience included 300 attendees from across Canada comprising several sales groups.
solution
Based on our client’s objectives for the meeting, we chose a theme. With business plan development a key component, we introduced custom social networking software that allowed attendees to set their own meeting commitments and maximize their time prior to the event. Pre- and post-meeting surveys were conducted to establish a benchmark to measure the impact of the meetings, and covered understanding of roles, organizational alignment, motivation and ability. The week-long meeting featured:
Expo – A forum designed to facilitate one-to-one conversations between Sales & Marketing, Finance, HR and IT. The Expo site, hosted on Facebook, was used to book meetings speed-dating style– allowing for an incredible 1,200 meetings to be conducted over 2 days. The social networking tool allowed Representatives to schedule their one-to-one meetings, post profiles, define their priorities and blog about the event.
Marketplace – A trade show format where business support teams interacted with sales teams. As an added bonus, Maritz created a booklet that was stamped at each booth – the more stamps, the more ballots for a prize draw.
Information Session – As part of the Opening Plenary, a TV news show format was created where Global Business Unit presenters had to engagingly articulate the three most critical actions they would be taking in 2008.
We managed all aspects of this meeting, including:
Site selection, registration website, air, accommodation, food and beverage, off- and on-site functions, on-site hospitality, agenda flow, communications, set design, staging and video, content support and production of all meeting elements.
results
- 90% agreed or strongly agreed that the meeting helped to clarify priorities and major initiatives
- 470 post-meeting commitments were made, with 72% actioned/completed within 2 months
- 92% rated the overall meeting components as good, very good or excellent
- 99% liked the overall meeting agenda and the concept of designing their own schedule
- 97% of respondents rated the Expo and Marketplace as good, very good or excellent
- 86% agreed or strongly agreed that the meeting brought cohesiveness to the organization
