REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Tradeshow Software Services About MPI: Established in 1972, Meeting Professionals International (MPI; www.mpiweb.org) is the largest association for the meetings profession with more than 24,000 members in 70 chapters and clubs across the USA, Canada, Europe and other countries throughout the world. As the global authority and resource for the $122.3 billion meetings and events industry, MPI empowers meeting professionals to increase their strategic organizational value through education and networking opportunities. Its strategic plan is designed to elevate the role of meetings in business via: creating professional development levels to evolve member careers to positions of strategic understanding and influence; influencing executives about the value of meetings; and ensuring MPI is the premier marketplace for planners and suppliers. MPI Mission and Vision: MPI is the leading global association that defines and shapes the meetings and events profession. MPI will be the pivotal force in positioning meetings and events as key strategic components of organizational success. THE POWER OF PARTNERSHIP In exchange for the Tradeshow Software Partner s provision of equipment and services, MPI is prepared to offer a variety of business and marketing opportunities to maximize the Partner s return on investment. Through these marketing tools, the Partner will be in the position to place its product in front of MPI s membership of meeting professionals. MPI can provide the Partner with a unique opportunity to build brand awareness and new client relationships within a community of dedicated meeting planners and suppliers. Marketing opportunities can but are not limited to include: Exposure in numerous MPI publications such as our monthly magazine, One Plus(distributed to over 30,000 meeting professionals), and conference-related print materials Sponsorship recognition and logo placement on MPIWeb s conference page Exhibition space at MPI s annual tradeshow (WEC) Standard booth applicable Exposure to MPI s meeting planner members, 20% of whom are responsible for over $3 million budgets and 22% are responsible for $1-3 million budgets MPI is eager to hear what your company will need and/or expect in return for your investment. Benefits will be negotiated based upon the level of commitment. Statement of Need: Meeting Professionals International is investigating the potential for a vendor to provide the software for the entire tradeshow. MPI currently offers a annual tradeshow at the World Education Congress (WEC) with over 3,500 attendees. MPI will award a three-year contract with a performance clause. MPI Request for Proposal - Page 1
Vendor Qualifications: MPI seeks to develop partnerships that operate in support of its membership by striving to exceed the objectives set out in its strategic plan. To accomplish this, MPI requests that applicants demonstrate in their proposals that they meet the following qualifications: Experience working with major associations to handle their tradeshow registration Experience and knowledge of the meetings industry and understanding of association, corporation and independent meeting professionals needs Ability to support MPI s objective to produce a quality educational experience by providing top-of-theline tradeshow software. Timeline This RFP is dated December 30, 2008. Proposals are due no later than 05:00 CDT January 14, 2009. Proposals will be evaluated immediately thereafter. During this time we may require interviews at our office with our evaluation team between January 21, 2009 and January 23, 2009. These interviews may be conducted via Webinar or Webcam services. You will be notified if this is required. The selected candidate will be named on or about January 28, 2009. MPI reserves the right to not select any vendor as a result of this process. All non selected candidates will be notified on or about January 28, 2009. A Contract will be executed on or about February 2, 2009. Online registration for the 2009 WEC tradeshow is required to launch by March 2, 2008. Live booth sales will happen in Atlanta on February 9, 2009 for WEC. A representative from your company would be expected to be there to see process at no cost to MPI. SCOPE OF PRODUCTS AND SERVICES Summary of Expectations: MPI s vendor will be the exclusive provider of tradeshow software for the following MPI educational conference, the World Education Congress (WEC) with over 3,500 attendees. The following are the capabilities needed for each service Elements of Tradeshow System Web based floor plan with key for sold, on hold, selected and available booths Ability to create poly (non-traditional standard booth configuration ie triangle booths) booths Reporting capabilities such as a sort-able exhibitors list Online booth contract and attendee registration linked with automatic confirmation Communication tools to facilitate sending confirmation e-mails, reminder e-mails, etc. Administrative side for tradeshow manager Ability to process the online and/or face-to-face financial transaction of the booth sale and produce standard accounting reports associated with the sale of booths MPI Request for Proposal - Page 2
Ability to interface via webservice with Aptify, MPI s AMS system Ability of vendor to provide 8 hours of instruction at no expense to MPI Ability of vendor to provide 16 hours of customization per event at no expense to MPI Administrative Side Ability to upload a CAD floor plan into the system for the web based floor plan with the ability to move or widen an isle. Ability to reserve areas of show for set-up before the system is live Access to each record for editing, approval process and communication tool Reporting capability that allows export if data to Word, Excel, etc. Ability to e-mail communications to tradeshows exhibitors with edit, scheduling and customizing capabilities Ability to identify and display premium areas, as well as pricing. Ability to edit landmark items on the floor plan From admin side booths would be reserved and areas of show set-up before the system is live Access to each record for editing, approval process and communication tool System should have reports set-up for export to word, excel, etc. Admin screens to tie tradeshow to a conference Ability to track and allocate priority points on an event basis. Ability for administration to override priority points. Exhibitors Side Booth Selection Process: Floor plan is published to web and ready for exhibitors to view, select and purchase booths. Ability to search on available booths via a list or view of the floor plan Booths on floor plan should be highlighted as sold, on hold, selected or available with a key/legend. Using a single sign on with MPI as the entry point the System must differentiate if the person online is a member or non-member. If not, system should prompt them to join MPI with a URL link back to the MPI join page. The system should allow exhibitors to come online and select their own booth(s). Exhibitors should be able to click on multiple booths making larger configurations on floor. Floor plan should be dynamic so exhibitors can view different booth/size options by selecting 1 or multiple booths. When selecting multiple booths the floor plan should automatically reconfigure. Selected booths should appear in a different color on floor plan. Needs a clear all selections button and/or a person can clear booths selected by simply clicking on them a second time. When exhibitors clicks on a booth, the price for the booth should be displayed. Also if exhibitor selects multiple booths, the system should calculate total cost for booths Once booth(s) is selected it should allow the exhibitor to continue on to contracting process. Contracting Process: Once a booth has been selected the contract should be displayed. Selected booth should show on hold status Cost of selected booth should appear on contract Exhibitors information should pre-populate from their MPI membership record Additional information needed for booth contract is completed by exhibitor If registration is live, exhibitor is then prompted for conference registration. Primary exhibitor on contract should be automatically registered and other attendee names should then be requested. If they do not have names at that time, they should be allowed to come back to add names later. System should keep track of the number of registrations attached to each booth. If booth fee MPI Request for Proposal - Page 3
includes 2 3 registrations, then system would need to attach those registrations to the contract payment. If we do not require everyone to be active members of MPI, we will need a separate way to register non-member suppliers and attach them to booth contract payment. Once it gets closer to conference the system should send a reminder to the exhibitor notifying them that they have not submitted their names and need to do so. If registration is not live when exhibitors are contracting booth space, the system should generate an e-mail to the exhibitor once registration is live. They exhibitor should then be able to put all exhibitors into the system and register them or come back at a later time to do so. Registration fees should be collected upfront when they contract their booth. Contract should calculate total of booths plus registrations for one lump payment. (Advertising, mailing lists, etc. may also be included later) Payments taken in the lump sum must be specified in the system as tradeshow vs. registration vs. other products and services. Once contract is completed, the system should send an automatic confirmation with a picture of floor plan with their booth(s) highlighted, a copy of their contract/registrations and an invoice/receipt. If the exhibitors is paying by check the confirmation should change to say that their space will be held tentatively until check is received. The email/message must be editable and configurable based on business rules provided.. Once this process is complete the selected booth(s) should change to sold if the exhibitor paid by credit card or should remain as on hold status for those paying by check. On hold booths should stay highlighted as tentative for a specific amount of time allotted through admin side of the system (24 hours) Once check goes through accounting, system should recognize payment and confirm booth. If payment is received and booth space is approved then the booth will changed to sold status. If payment has not been received by the end of time allotted, the booth will go back into inventory. We must have the ability to establish a business rule on how many booths an exhibitor can place on hold at a single time. Once a booth has been reserved the exhibitor s information should be pulled from the contract and posted to the web site (on both the floor plan and on an exhibitors list). Meeting Attendee Side - The attendee should be able to view the floor plan, exhibitors list and have search options similar such as by category, company name, geographic, booth number, etc. The floor plan should be able to show an attendee who is located in each booth and the details of the exhibitor in a specific booth such as company, address, contact information and a description of product/service. The exhibitor should also appear on the exhibitors list which can be viewed by planners for details of each exhibitor. The exhibitors list should be sort able by category, booth number, geographical or alphabetical. If a planner goes online and sorts by category type, the system should provide a list of all booths in category with the ability to visit all booths within the category. Same could be done by location, sponsors, etc. The planner should have the ability to pick any set of exhibitors at random and develop a customized list of booths to visit. All searches done by a planner should be printable. The floor plan should be printable for the attendee, including any blow up views they designated. Technical Requirements Meeting Professionals International utilizes the Aptify AMS that houses all membership, conference, and educational information. In a MS SQL DB, the system can be extended to a third party via interfaces (software development kit) using web services.. MPI requires that all data concerning the customer/member/registrant must reside in an MPI system. Third Party systems can hold temporary copies of customer/member/registrant data for purposes of record lookup and populating forms locally. MPI Request for Proposal - Page 4
The vendor or Third Party will provide similar web services into their system for data query purposes. Key MPI Staff will require access into the Third Party system to query for transaction and member record issues associated with a registration. Financial transactions must be executed through MPI s financial module utilizing MPI s merchant services processing account via web services. The ability to integrate with Great Plains is desired but not a requirement. Vendor/Third Party systems will have an autonomous housing module that will update certain aspects of the MPI Member/Customer record. This action can be maintained via a transaction or batched. It is expected that the Third Party system have the capability to interface with MPI utilizing webservices. Webservices needed to utilize the single-sign on to MPI and get passed via webservices to the vendor. For the first engagement MPI will need the vendor house all the records, with the capability to export the data post even to MPI AMS. All Third Party systems will interface with MPI s membership system by using screens developed by the vendor and will access information and execute data insertion/extraction as well as some transactions on MPI systems The system must be configurable to MPI s branding requirements. MPI staff has ability to enter and order on behalf of members/customers: 1. provide ability to enter an event/conference registration on behalf of a member or non-member 2. accept all MPI approved forms of credit credit cards/corporate checks/wire transfers 3. include credit verification on credit cards and checks 4. include a "pending" status for those where payment incomplete (include ability to over-ride with appropriate authorization level) #/type of exhibitors paid/pending/cancels/refund due, etc pace versus prior events and plan/budget 5. Be able to process faxed/mailed forms, include automated personalized email responses to registrant's of verification of registration and payment 6. include automated alerts to pending registrants of outstanding fees or credentials Instructions for Submission: Companies responding to this RFP must provide responses to all of the questions/requests for information listed below, even if the response is no, none, or not applicable. Expenses related to the preparation and completion of a response to this RFP are the sole responsibility of the vendor. In your proposal, please respond directly to the following requests for information. Answers should reflect the company s experience as it relates to the specific questions as well as the general Vendor Qualifications described on page 2. Experience and Client Service 1) Please provide a company profile including company history, scope of services, contact information, etc. 2) What experience do you have in the meetings industry or a related industry? 3) Are members of your company MPI members? If so, please list them. 4) What is your overall client service philosophy? 5) What unique advantages does your company have? 6) Why should we select your company as our vendor? 7) What is the largest event your software hosts (gross square feet)? MPI Request for Proposal - Page 5
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Contract and Business Parameters 1) Referring to the expectations outlined in the Scope of Products and Services section of this RFP, please specifically identify your proposed costs per conference noting which of the above costs will be offered to MPI complimentary or at a discounted rate. 2) Provide a list of at least four client references, with full contact information, that are using your services. Deadline: MPI must receive all proposals by January 14, 2009. Late submissions will not be considered. For consideration, please email Meeting Professionals International your proposal to: Attn: Jennifer Jordan Exhibits Manager 3030 LBJ Freeway, Suite 1700 Dallas, TX 75234 Fax 972-855-2080 jjordan@mpiweb.org Decision-making Process: Each submission will be reviewed and evaluated by an interdepartmental review team comprised of members from MPI s Events Department, Strategic Partnerships Department, and Technology Department Questions: Direct all inquiries or requests for information to jjordan@mpiweb.org. Right of Refusal: MPI is simply investigating options in this area and makes not commitment to select your firm or any other firm to provide these services. In order to be environmentally friendly, please do not send a paper bid book. If supporting materials are necessary, please mail one copy. Do not include brochures and/or marketing collateral concerning the products and services. Thank you for your interest in MPI. We look forward to working with you soon! MPI Request for Proposal - Page 7