Working With Third Parties

In 2009, a year when meetings business visibly contracted and the hotel industry seemed to turn on its head, a select group of third-party companies -- ConferenceDirect, Experient and HelmsBriscoe -- defied the prevailing economic slump and collectively drove more than 10 million group room nights onto hotel spreadsheets.

"The upside of the economic downturn was that outsourcing was accelerated to a new level," says Rick Binford, CMP, president, event management services, for Twinsburg, Ohio-based Experient. "Many organizations -- corporate and association -- were forced to re-examine how they manage their business and their resources, and we had a lot of new clients coming in and asking for help."

There is no question that these three companies dominate the third-party segment in terms of their ability to drive sheer hotel volume. But that's not the only strength they bring to the table. In the past year, while much of corporate America hunkered down to ride the downturn by trimming manpower and tightening budget belts, the trio was focused on ramping up their forces, expanding their global reach, and investing heavily in employee training and proprietary technologies.

In addition, they formed strategic partnerships with online content providers that allowed them to launch new products and services, from social media consulting and housing management to meeting-spend analysis. In short, these companies have aggressively positioned themselves to continue to dominate the third-party playing field, with services extending far beyond traditional site-selection expertise.

Global growthAt Scottsdale, Ariz.-based HelmsBriscoe, founder Roger Helms says business for the first half of 2010 is running at full throttle, driven by pent-up demand, but also by emerging players. "What we have found is that there is much more international association spend than what people think is out there," says Helms.

Not surprisingly the company's model, which had been primarily focused on targeting short-term corporate group business by as much as 80 percent, has now shifted to more aggressively position itself in the association market. "We are focusing on the associations that are about 3,000 strong. They are an untapped market," says Helms. "We call them our sweet-spot groups."

In addition, having spent more than 10 years systematically growing its international reach, the company feels it is uniquely positioned among third parties to capture this growing outbound association business. In late 2009, HelmsBriscoe sealed its commitment to becoming a truly seamless global provider by bringing its previously independently licensed international contractors under its corporate umbrella. While the company has extensive reach in Europe, Middle East and Africa, Helms says it clearly needs to extend its footprint into Asia, particularly China, and the company will soon "unveil some unique strategies that will give us additional distribution in Asia."

Experient also is on the global fast track. In the past two years, the company saw its offshore business triple, and that growth is expected to continue. Unlike, HelmsBriscoe, though, Experient is not interested in growing staff on the ground. Instead, says Binford, its globalization strategy revolves around establishing partner relationships with local experts in geographic areas where clients need service, and in turn leveraging that local expertise to the company's advantage to attract more new clients. For example, in March 2009, Experient set up shop in Canada when it entered into a preferred partnership deal with Toronto area-based Host Business Event Management, making the new company Experient's Canadian arm.

Experient currently has partner relationships in 40 countries. In the past year alone, the company established a number of multinational supplier relationships and implemented strategic alliances with preferred vendors in Asia, South America and Europe that can be tapped to become part of team Experient. "It's pretty straightforward to source a hotel in a foreign country," says Binford. "But executing a successful program in the far corners of the world requires extensive local experience and hands-on service support."

Emphasis on trainingOf the 315 associates of Los Angeles-based ConferenceDirect, the average length of experience is 10 years. Most of them, like company founder Brian Stevens, are former seasoned hotel sales executives. That, however, doesn't buy anyone an exemption from the company's mandatory two-and-a-half-day New Hire 101 training program, which covers identified best practices in everything from communication skills and contract expertise to negotiation skills and sales presentations. ConferenceDirect also requires new employees to be trained to understand and uphold the company's corporate culture. Continuing education is a priority, too: They must participate in quarterly webcasts on timely topics, attend how-to sessions on using the company's proprietary technology and take  master classes in sales and marketing.

Perhaps most importantly, though, is the company's constant re-evaluation of its training offerings in the light of changing market challenges and client demands, both on a regional and national level. Last year, for example, ConferenceDirect invested heavily in training to ensure its associates were on their game for the many clients who asked to revisit previously inked hotel contracts in order to take advantage of more favorable rates and to minimize their exposure to cancellation and attrition clauses.

"When the economy went down, we started a program to teach our associates how to analyze customer contracts and how to renegotiate them to move business forward, so it could be a win-win situation for everyone," says Jim Vandevender, ConferenceDirect vice president, training and development/team leader. "Regional issues, like the BP oil spill or Arizona's immigration issue, might also warrant a special training program, which we'll develop and roll out to our associates."

Niche specialistsMarket specialization is a new tactic at Experient. Last year, the company decided to realign and restructure its force of 525 full-time employees and myriad on-demand preferred contractors. What had once been a network of teams based on geography is becoming a coalition of market specialties. It's a move, says Binford, that has made the company more nimble and accurate in responding to client needs and given it greater systemwide consistency. "Now, our forces are either dedicated to the association, corporate or government markets," says Binford. "And within those segments, we're working on developing teams that specialize in markets such as education, religious and medical."

Technology partnersThe big three of third parties also has forged partnerships with other key industry providers to leverage their technology and gain market advantage. In July 2009, for example, after six months of beta testing, ConferenceDirect signed a deal with McLean, Va.-based Cvent, a major web-based meeting and event software provider, to have a customized version of the Cvent Supplier Network become ConferenceDirect's search and sourcing platform.

HelmsBriscoe, which also began using Cvent as its site-sourcing and online request-for-proposal provider in 2009, revamped its online resource forum, InSite, to offer more sophisticated intelligence gathering and reporting. Today, the program, which began primarily as a resource for the company's 1,100 worldwide associates to share hotel facts, figures (e.g., negotiated rates) and physical attributes, has expanded to allow client input. "It's our version of TripAdvisor," says Helms. "It now connects the exhaustive factual data, which we have always compiled, with actual on-site client experiences. Before the customer buys, they want to weigh all the information that's available to them. It's proprietary intelligence, pure and simple."

Social media servicesIn August 2009, with customers clamoring for advice on how to tap the power of social media to benefit their events, Experient launched Playbook. A step-by-step online guide to harnessing social media tools and techniques, it will become an integral part of SocialMpact, the company's new social media consulting service. "We said, let's figure this thing out, because we want to be the ones they turn to for that information," says Jeremy T. Janszen, Experient's director of quality assurance and continuous improvement, who notes that clients were anxious for knowledge on issues such as how to increase brand awareness, how to recruit new attendees, and how to harness the Internet to generate some pre- and post-event buzz.

"Any individual can do online research, read a few blogs, put something together and call it a social media strategy," says Janszen. "The real effort is adapting the idea to our industry. That's what we've done with Playbook." Now just four chapters, Playbook, will eventually encompass 11 chapters of social media topics, tactics and strategy. Best of all, it's completely complimentary to Experient's clients. "Giving content away is in the spirit of social media," says Janszen.