FAQ
FAQ’s
QUESTION
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The meetings & events industry has been hard hit by Covid-19 globally; Zoom fatigue is a reality, venues are reopening, meetings are filling restaurants and hotel facilities, yet already employees health & safety rights are being compromised mostly due to lack of understanding, education, policies and systems to protect them and their employers. Typically the presentation to contracting phase can take six to eight weeks, while user identification, training and procurement set-up runs parallel to this process. Hotel groups, associations, professional conference organising companies and venues all report a marked increase in bookings for Q3 and Q4, 2021 with industry expectations returning to ‘business as usual’ by 2022.
Savings are realised in numerous ways utilising MiceMaster; automated policy ensures anyone planning a meeting or event is compliant, for example the number of quotes required or budget vs spend tracking. Sight of data pre-event allows management to intervene before monies are spent. Supplier quotes, rates and fees become completely transparent and our reporting module allows you to have meaningful negotiations with your supply chain, to name but a few saving methodologies.
MiceMaster charges a base fee for essential services such as the core system, hosting, security, management etc. and then allows you to select which additional modules your business requires from a budget or functionality perspective. With proper implementation, the system will generate an ROI well within the first twelve months. Furthermore, MiceMaster is offering a financial incentive for enterprise organisations wishing to implement our software and systems in Q3 and Q4 of 2021*.
Simply put, no. While large ERP’s such as SAP and Oracle can procure anything from pens to PC’s, meetings and events elude procurement systems as MICE prices fluctuate continuously. Core event components change all the time such as catering, number of delegates, décor, audio visual technology requirements etc. as many a due diligence will confirm.
With the arrival of Covid-19, never before has one’s duty of care for employees been so important whether they are meeting internally or externally. South Africa’s legal firms have issued comprehensive guidelines, all point to the fact that without proper education, management and implementation, the responsibilities fall upon the employer as does the risk. The MiceMaster brief and training modules ensure that whether a junior secretary or senior planner is charged with organising a meeting or event, that protocols and processes are followed diligently and as policy dictates.
Suppliers, be they Professional Conference Organisers (PCO’s), venues or hotels welcome the detailed briefs MiceMaster delivers; more information makes for accurate quotes, saving suppliers time. The quotation module allows users to easily identify where the best value lies levelling the playing field for any supplier participating in a tender process. Often planners do not understand budgets, asking the supply chain to quote on completely unaffordable services, this issue too is resolved. Furthermore, the system communicates updates and tender status with vendors.
In South Africa the acronym MICE is commonly used to abbreviate Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events, be it three people using a hotel meeting room for a days ERP training or three hundred people going to Mauritius for a product launch. Internationally, the more common generic is Meetings & Events, being typically described as; Sales & Marketing Meetings, Team Meetings, Training sessions, Product Launches, Conferences & Tradeshows, Leadership or Board meetings, Client and Customer Meetings as well as Special Events.
Financial accountability remains high on any corporate’s priority list. CA’s and accountants will attest to being almost blind to budgets vs actual spend, where costs are allocated, how cash flow is effected as MICE orders are placed. Paying unnecessary cancellation fees is commonplace as is minimal, if any, meaningful reporting. In addition the traditional planning process is manual and slow, rates and fee management is difficult as data sits on planners PC’s and for the most, businesses only realises actual costs when the supplier invoices are received in the finance department.
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