For Immediate Release
Contact: Sara O’Neil
Marketing and Public Relations
marketing@meetings-incentives.com

Simplified+ creates an end-to-end DIY solution for small and simple meetings.

Caledonia, Wisconsin (July 28, 2022) – Intent Strategy Group (ISG), the consulting division of Meetings & Incentives Worldwide, announced the launch of Simplified+ in partnership with event technology company Bizly.

Simplified+ is a technology-enabled solution that streamlines the event intake process, delivers consolidated data, and creates a compelling ROI story resulting in heightened visibility, cost savings, risk mitigation, and efficiency gains for small and simple meetings.

“We are thrilled to offer this solution to the marketplace,” said ISG’s Lisa Palmeri, Vice President, Prinicipal Consultant. “ISG sought to fully understand and break down the barriers associated with small meetings technology adoption, and we have invested a significant amount of time to develop and test the entire end-to-end solution so that clients can confidently and quickly launch a proven small meetings solution.”

The Importance and Challenges of Small and Simple Meetings

Small and simple meetings can represent up to 80% of a company’s overall events. They are key to organizational growth as they foster new ideas, shape strategies, encourage collaboration, and more. However, they are not without their challenges, inspiring this new solution to make planning more efficient.

“With the current challenging environment of budget and headcount cutbacks, no one has the time, resources, or expertise to conceive, source, and implement an end-to-end small meetings program,” said Bizly’s Kevin Iwamoto, GLP, GTP, Chief Customer Officer. “Simplified+ does all of that for you, allowing you to launch a well-designed program whenever you need to by leveraging the innovation of current technologies and scaling it for all types of events.”

An Integrated Small Meetings Solution: Simplified+

When ISG and Bizly began developing a small meetings solution, “our efforts focused on three key aspects of a potential solution: technical, strategic, and operational,” said Lisa.

Technically, Simplified+ is a fully integrated solution that includes a small meetings booking technology, Bizly, woven into an existing Meeting & Event Request/Intake process, typically powered by Cvent, plus the resulting expanded business intelligence reports.

“Different than past attempts to simply layer a small meetings option on top of an organization’s existing M&E platform, Simplified+ weaves the two together, while also completing the lifecycle with consolidated business intelligence derived from both systems,” said Lisa.

Strategically, ISG designed new Meeting & Event Policies that include small meetings and developed a methodology to clearly articulate the value and estimated ROI of Simplified+. Finally, they recognized the operational need to support do-it-yourself (DIY) planners with professional concierges who will guide them in booking small meetings safely within established “guardrails” and efficiently leveraging the full feature set of Bizly.

“Simplified+ was conceived and built as a plug and play solution to fast-track a small meetings program implementation for any enterprise,” said Kevin. The end result of ISG and Bizly’s combined efforts is, in his words, “an innovative and well-designed end-to-end process for introducing and managing small meetings.”

The Benefits of Simplified+

For enterprises currently using a platform like Cvent, Simplified+ brings the benefits of a Strategic Meetings Management Program to small and simple meetings that may otherwise miss out because they do not fit into established channels and processes. These benefits include…

• Automation: Users are guided to the best event solution—small or large, virtual or in-person—through the automated event intake process.
• Friendly User Interface: The program is explicitly designed for DIY planners, allowing them to increase adoption and productivity.
• Alignment: Everything from event strategy and procurement to duty-of-care and compliance standards is aligned within the platform.
• Streamlining: The overall event lifecycle is expedited thanks to the system automation.
• Visibility: With all events entered in one platform, a complete picture of an organization’s meetings and events strategy is created for actionable outputs.
• Consistency: Similarly, using one solution across all events brings a consistent and elevated level of service to all stakeholders.

“The legacy challenge has been the ability to ‘right size’ a solution for this book of business where Cvent and an elaborate M&E intake process can be overkill,” said Lisa. “Simplified+ would benefit any organization that isn’t able to capture this large book of business today using existing processes and technologies.”

ISG and Bizly’s Powerful Partnership

Developing Simplified+ was a natural extension of ISG and Bizly’s relationship. Bizly’s customizable portals, user-friendly templates, and automation offer a complementary solution to enterprise event management technology. M&IW’s consulting division, ISG, provides powerful Bizly system admin support and business intelligence reporting solutions for events of all sizes and types.

“ISG’s client-focused service and deep SMM expertise pairs extraordinarily well with Bizly’s scalable small and simple meetings platform, massively benefiting our clients,” said Gabriel Ayache, General Manager of Bizly.

About ISG and M&IW

Intent Strategy Group (ISG) is an independent consulting division of Meetings & Incentives Worldwide that guides organizations through the development of strategic event management programs as well as the optimization and implementation of meetings and event technology solutions.

M&IW is a global event management firm specializing in virtual, hybrid, and in-person experiences of all shapes and sizes as well as consulting and enterprise strategies. As an entrepreneurial organization, we place customers at the center of everything we do and prioritize their needs through our core values of quality, agility, flexibility, and innovation. M&IW is a third-generation, privately held, certified Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE) in business for more than 50 years. Our headquarters is located in Wisconsin, USA, and supported by a remote workforce across the US and in the UK, China, and Brazil.

About Bizly

Bizly is an award-winning pioneer and leader in corporate meeting and event software for small and simple meetings. Bizly is unique because it provides an all-in-one solution that enables any employee to organize meetings and events. It is the leading solution solely addressing the small, simple, and hybrid meetings space.