The first tangible product to result from the Convention Industry Council's Accepted Practices Exchange Initiative, better known as APEX, promises to create the industry-wide adoption of best practices that CIC has long sought.
APEX OfficeReady for Meeting and Event Planning is a software suite with more than 200 templates for managing meetings. The product, portions of which are web-enabled, sells for $99.95 per copy.
"I have a lot left to explore, but so far I think it is a bargain," said one of the first planners to purchase the software, Michelle Murdock of ScopeCMS, an event-planning company in Cumming, Ga.
"I sent the event specifications guide to my hotel, client and vendor contacts for an upcoming event," Murdock said. "The VP of IT at my client, a software company, mentioned how much he liked the new format I was using and commented on how impressive and thorough the document was."
Already available free online are such elements of OfficeReady as a glossary of meeting-planning terms, and templates for an event-specifications guide and post-event report. But the commercial version additionally includes customization options, one year of technical support, and free lifetime upgrades.
Many large organizations likely will make volume purchases at a discount, and some planners will get the software free through industry suppliers.
Widespread use of OfficeReady by meeting planners could create de facto industry standards, much the same way that Microsoft Windows and Office have created standards in computer operating systems and electronic business tools, respectively.
OfficeReady is available only for computers running the Windows operating system, and for use with Microsoft Office applications Word, Excel and PowerPoint. CIC has no plans at this time to offer the software for Macintosh operating systems.
OfficeReady is designed to spur efficiency across the industry by ensuring that the same information appears on common industry forms and in the same location; and by eliminating the need to re-key information, which often introduces errors.
"Process efficiency is really the bottom line," said APEX chairwoman Mickey Schaefer. "If convention services managers can save time on the process part and have that [information] seamlessly transmitted, they will have more time to spend with the planner on the value proposition, getting to the heart of what's going to make that meeting a success."
Added Sandy Biback, principal of Imagination + Meeting Planners in Toronto and an active APEX volunteer, "It's putting us all on the same page without taking out creativity. It frees you up to be more strategic about your event."
Excited Response
Murdock noted that the APEX checklists and templates represented a way for her to "learn from the gurus and benefit from their experience, and in the process do a better job of running my meetings and events.
"I want to update the tools I have been using, many of which I have cobbled together myself over the last 10 or 15 years through trial and error."
Outside of individual copies, the first major buy of OfficeReady came from Hyatt Hotels, which offset the software's development costs with its purchase of 4,000 copies.
"We believe APEX is a benefit to us and a benefit to the planner," said Fred Shea, Hyatt's vice president of sales. "We hope that over time more people will communicate on a single platform. It's a better way to do business."
Hyatt plans to give OfficeReady to planners for free, primarily at trade shows and through convention services managers at its group-oriented hotels, according to Shea.
"We're always giving customers things anyway," said Shea, "so why not give them something that has real value, that's educational, and that supports the industry?"
Hyatt is not the only hotel company interested in bulk purchases of OfficeReady. Schaefer said that Gaylord, Disney, Hilton, Marriott and Starwood have all agreed to hear CIC presentations about the product and the advantages of distributing it to meetings buyers.
"They know Hyatt's on board, so that obviously creates some peer pressure," she said.
Bulk purchases can drop the price of OfficeReady to roughly $10 each, according to Schaefer. Organizations that purchase OfficeReady in bulk can incorporate customization options, such as placing their logos on the forms and then hyperlinking the logos to their websites, for an additional fee.
Business As Usual
Schaefer noted that OfficeReady does not force hotels to change their own internal processes for managing their business. Recent XML technology that provides for more automated data transfer between different computerized systems should allow hotels to import information gleaned from the APEX forms into their own property management and catering systems.
"We're not requiring hotels to change the way they do business," Schaefer said.
CIC is looking into launching a program to certify facilities and organizations as APEX-compliant, Schaefer added. The idea is to provide buyers and sellers who have deployed OfficeReady or the electronic versions of the APEX forms with an extra incentive to do business with each other.
CIC also is promoting APEX to colleges as a way to encourage the next generation of planners to adopt APEX from the beginning of their careers.
"We don't need a class or a textbook, but we do need to work with faculty members so, when they are developing course outlines, they know when and how to pull the appropriate forms into the teaching," said Juli Jones, CIC's vice president in charge of the APEX project.
OfficeReady is the result of years of effort by CIC to win voluntary, industry-wide adoption of best practices.
With the ambitious APEX initiative, CIC divided accepted practices into seven areas, each with its own work panel and timeline: terminology; history/post-event reports; résumés and work orders; housing and registration; requests for proposals; meeting and site profiles; and contracts.
Work on the first four areas has been completed; the remaining three are scheduled for completion by the end of this year.
Each topic's preliminary report was reviewed by discussion groups in cities around the United States and Canada and then returned to the panel for revision. (Ultimately, CIC's 31 member organizations give final approval.)
Jones said the city discussion groups constitute "one of the most essential pieces to what APEX is doing. Thorough industry vetting is what makes standards viable."
An estimated 2,500 industry members have been involved in APEX since its inception in August 2000. With their commitment to APEX already demonstrated, it is likely that many of them will use OfficeReady and recommend it to their colleagues, thus giving the new product traction from the outset.
APEX templates and information about ordering OfficeReady are available on CIC's website, at www.conventionindustry.org.
APEX OfficeReady for Meeting and Event Planning was developed by CIC and KMT Software.The development was overseen by E.J. Siwek, a technology consultant who serves as chairman of APEX's technology committee.
Contact Kinley Levack at klevack @successfulmeetings.com.