BSI Hive #2 May 2008 - The Tin

20 the hive
“It’s the quality of implementation that dictates
whether the sponsorship works or not”
Attention to detail
As an industry showcase event, the ITM
Conference involves looking after those who
purchase business travel, meetings and events
for a living. Consequently the service levels and
attention to detail have to be of the highest
order. “It’s the ultimate peer pressure” says
Emma Wilson. “Interestingly, only 20% of
delegates chose to make their own travel or hotel
arrangements, although we received a lot of
calls and e-mails from delegates regarding their
itineraries. A detailed set of joining instructions
provided most with the information they needed.”
“This year we were very ambitious with the
programme, staging 16 seminars over 4
streams with different themes such as corporate
issues, meetings, procurement and the future,”
says Mark Harris. “This meant that the Olive 360 o
team had to coordinate the requirements of 60
speakers, including ensuring that their respective
presentations were consistent in look & feel,
and that they all registered in a timely manner.”
Without registrations, there’s no conference.
A key tool in this process is Olive’s Intelligent
Delegate Management system. IDM
automates the registration process, captures
accommodation and travel details and this
enabled each delegate to be sent a detailed
confirmation. This included seminars selected,
attendance at the black-tie gala dinner and the
chosen mode of transport to & from Dublin.
Like most not-for-profit associations, ITM relies
heavily on sponsorship to generate profit that is
then re-invested in new member benefits. The
networking opportunities provided by ITM’s
Dublin conference attracted 46 sponsoring
companies including Barclaycard Business,
Virgin Atlantic and Eurostar.
This generated a substantial sponsor management
requirement in which Olive 360 o and ITM
worked closely together. “Agreeing a sponsorship
deal is the easy bit” believes Mark. “It’s the
quality of implementation by sponsor and
conference organiser that dictates whether
the sponsorship works or not.”
Roberta Green handled sponsor liaison duties in
the Olive 360 o team for this event. “We held two
on-site sponsor briefings but still dealt with literally
dozens of queries from sponsors. These ranged
from what material they could put into a room
drop, to the number of 1-2-1 meetings with
buyer delegates to which they were entitled.”
Summer 2008