CorporateRewardsExchange.com Makes Motivation More Efficient
The nation’s leading incentive fulfillment companies, representing the top brands in the incentive business, have joined forces with Solata Technologies, Incentive, Sales & Marketing Management and Motivation Strategies magazines to form CorporateRewardsExchange.com (CRE), a cooperative effort to help meeting planners and rewards & recognition companies – and all corporate incentive stakeholders – improve the efficiency, service and economies of their motivation and engagement programs.
CRE’s Universal Points Platform and Corporate Gifts Store enable qualified incentive companies and corporate end-users to buy the leading brands directly from their authorized fulfillment companies for use in both points-based and corporate gift programs. A real-time inventory management system allows traditional points-based incentive/gift programs to ship rewards within a day or two of redemption or purchase rather than weeks, as is currently the case with traditional drop-ship scenarios. The Universal Points Platform is operational now. The Corporate Gifts Store launches in early 2009 at CorporateRewardsExchange.com
Founding incentive fulfillment companies for the Universal Points Platform (UPP) are: Certif-A-Gift, Harco, Lapine, Partners for Incentives, Rewards Direct by Maritz, Rymax Marketing Services and Quality Incentive Company. All are leaders in providing branded rewards, gifts and incentives at wholesale prices for corporate use, specializing in providing world-class customization and delivery to recipients to maximize the reward experience. More incentive fulfillment companies will be joining the UPP program shortly.
Rewards Direct by Maritz is the founding sponsor of CRE’s Corporate Gift Store, and it will support the efforts of 50 leading brands to set up storefronts on The Corporate Store site, enabling qualified companies to buy brands in bulk for reward, recognition and gift programs. Other sponsors and leading brands will be announced shortly.
“We are supporting the Corporate Rewards Exchange because we believe there is an enormous opportunity to improve the economics of reward delivery and the quality of the reward experience so that companies of all sizes can profit from the unique benefits of properly structured incentive programs,” says Mike Donnelly, President of Maritz Motivation. “Technology has, ironically, increased the focus on developing meaningful relationships with people. The more companies seek to build such relationships, the more rewards and recognition will come into play in all aspects of marketing, whether to consumers, dealers, distributors and agents, or to our own salespeople and employees. CRE will help support our company’s focus on providing purposeful choice – that is, more carefully selected rewards strategies that truly resonate with our clients’ most valuable people – to an even broader spectrum of companies.”
By improving the efficiencies and reward experience of incentive and recognition programs, CorporateRewardsExchange.com not only improves service at reduced costs, but also makes it possible for incentive companies and marketing services firms to handle smaller volume programs that often aren’t profitable under the traditional model. CRE significantly improves those economics by providing a Web-based application that makes it easy to set up programs incorporating products available on a real-time basis from multiple vendors selectively chosen by an organization for each program.
[ return to top ]
16th Annual IRF Invitational to be Held in Palm Springs
The Incentive Research Foundation (IRF) has announced that its 16th Annual Incentive Invitational will be held in Palm Springs, CA, May 13-17, 2009, headquartered at the Westin Mission Hills Resort & Spa.
The Incentive Invitational is known for bringing together top incentive buyers and corporate decision makers, along with incentive professionals from leading travel organizations around the world, for a host of business networking events and educational seminars. Sponsored by members of Palm Springs Desert Resorts, the IRF Invitational is the foremost fundraising event for incentive industry research. The 2008 Invitational, held this past May in Nassau/Paradise Island, Bahamas at the Atlantis Resort, played host to a record-setting crowd of more than 400 guests.
In addition to the Westin Mission Hills Resort & Spa, co-hosts include the Desert Springs, JW Marriott Resort & Spa, the Renaissance Esmeralda Resort & Spa, La Quinta Resort & Club, Palm Springs Desert Resort Communities Convention & Visitors Authority, ACCESS Destination Services, Desert Adventures Jeep Eco-Tours & Special Events, Destinations by Marriott and other Palm Springs area organizations.
“We fully expect the 16th Annual Invitational to again raise the bar for quality and important industry educational content,” says Frank Katusak, President of the IRF. “As always, the funds raised at this premier industry event will enable us to underwrite research on usage, trends, best practices and case studies for travel, merchandise and other non-cash incentives on a worldwide basis.”
More information on the 2009 Invitational is available at: http://www.TheIRF.org/invitational2009.asp
[ return to top ]
New Alliance Promotes Importance of “Enterprise Engagement”
Enterprise Engagement – the integrated efforts of an organization to engage its employees, channel partners and customers with its brand promise – is poised to become a leading business and performance strategy in the coming years. In response to this emerging trend, a unique joint effort was recently announced by three leading organizations in the fields of human capital, business strategy and marketing.
The Human Capital Institute, Peppers & Rogers Group and Selling Communications, Inc. have formed the Enterprise Engagement Alliance (EEA) to foster greater dialog and cross-fertilization between marketing, sales, human resources and operations that will help organizations profit from the processes needed to engage employees, customers and channel partners in a profitable way.
“U.S. businesses collectively spend billions of dollars to acquire customers, but relatively little to keep them,” says Bruce Bolger, President of Selling Communications. “It’s getting harder to get away with having poor service and uninformed and demotivated employees. Companies that make use of Enterprise Engagement strategies will perform better over time – that’s the message that we want corporate America to understand and internalize.”
Don Peppers, Founding Partner of Peppers & Rogers Group, echoes Bolger’s sentiments. “Enterprise Engagement will become mission-critical to businesses in the coming years as more companies recognize that creating a consistent, positive customer experience is critical to long-term success,” he says. “Research demonstrates that organizations that can inspire and enable their employees to consistently deliver great customer experiences generally do better over time than those that don’t.”
Putting the issue into a human resources context, Allan Schweyer, Executive Director of the Human Capital Institute, adds that “Many organizations think of their brands only in terms of their products. But as more companies compete for fewer and fewer highly skilled employees in the coming years, the brand will also affect an organization’s ability to attract and retain talent. We see a close inter-relationship between a company’s product and service brand and its talent brand – and the EEA is designed to help better make that connection.”
The founding members have already started the ball rolling. Selling Communications has organized an annual worldwide conference on Enterprise Engagement in New York City for May of 2009, as well as promoting and disseminating content developed by the Human Capital Institute and Peppers & Rogers Group through its own sales and marketing properties. The goal of the conference will be to bring together executives from the disciplines of sales, marketing and human resources under one roof to participate in a unique dialog and learn how organizations can best link external and internal marketing and communications initiatives to maximize customer satisfaction, message alignment and resource efficacy.
Don Peppers and Martha Rogers of Peppers & Rogers Group will be personally involved in developing research and content to strengthen and focus the EEA’s ongoing education programs. And the three founding organizations will contribute speakers and expertise to develop the conference education plan. According to Martha Rogers, “Our mission will be to document and prove the economic benefits available to businesses that understand the advantages of harnessing the collective synergies of engaged employees and engaged and empowered consumers.”
The EEA hopes to expand its membership as more organizations become aware of the importance of Enterprise Engagement – the Incentive Research Foundation recently announced its intention to join the EEA – and the broad spectrum of issues that are a part of it, including leadership, communications, motivation, meetings, training, rewards and recognition.
[ return to top ]
Avanti Meetings & Incentives and I&MI Media Sign Joint Marketing Agreement
Avanti Meetings & Incentives, owners and operators of Meeting Place Mexico and Meeting Place Caribbean, has signed an agreement with I&MI Media to pool their resources to promote Mexico and Latin America to the readers of I&MI Media publications, continuing to expand awareness of these destinations.
The agreement was signed by Fernando Compeán, President of Avanti Meetings & Incentives, and Bill LaViolette, Managing Director of I&MI Media, accompanied by Oscar Fitch, Director of the Mexico Tourism Board, Eduardo Chaillo, Director for North America of the Mexico Tourism Board and Gaston Ramos, Director of the Mexico CVB.
LaViolette views the fast-growing Mexican & Latin American markets with intense interest, given the business potential of its expanding infrastructure for the international meetings & incentives market. “After several years of monitoring our readers’ actual booking activity in these regions and their interest in placing future MICE programs there, it’s very clear how important these regions have become,” he says.
Meeting Place Mexico & Meeting Place Caribbean are well known for an increasingly expanded program providing the best education, networking opportunities and high quality attendees twice a year in two strategic locations.
[ return to top ]
Industry Firms Join Forces to Support Outreach and Research
An Industry Leadership Council (ILC) consisting of leading brands and incentive companies has been formed to provide recommendations and insight to the Incentive Federation related to its research, legislative and research activities. The ILC is an outgrowth of a special Outreach Task Force meeting of leading incentive companies and brands held last year under the auspices of the Incentive Federation and hosted by the New York Incentive, Rewards & Recognition Show. The ILC will be chaired by Rodger Stotz, Vice President, Managing Consultant, Maritz Inc. and consist of companies that attended the Task Force meeting and other industry participants who wish to get involved and join the Federation.
The Industry Leadership Council consists of the leading incentive companies, fulfillment companies and both branded and nonbranded manufacturers that are active in the incentive field to assist with the development of messaging and significant new outreach activities being planned by the Incentive Federation and by the Incentive Performance Center (IPC). These activities include assisting in the support of outreach and research specifically related to the role of rewards, recognition and promotional products in business engagement and the establishment of joint ventures with other organizations interested in the nation’s new emphasis on engagement in business.
The ILC will also be asked to provide advice and counsel related to a Washington, DC congressional meeting that the Federation intends to hold in early 2009 that will be designed to increase awareness of the importance of our field on Capitol Hill and within the executive branch, as well as the general media. The objectives of the Industry Leadership Council are to help:
- Increase awareness of the Federation as the umbrella group for legislative affairs, outreach and research
- Maximize resources by integrating fundraising, PR and other activities whenever possible for legislative affairs, outreach and research
- Foster greater involvement and support of incentive companies, brands and promotional products leaders toward coordinated incentive field outreach, research and legislative affairs activities
- Ensure that the activities of the Federation and IPC reflect the opportunities and areas of pain of our primary constituencies in the incentive field
- Facilitate the rapid action necessary to take advantage of significant opportunities for the use of non-cash rewards and promotional products in the growing effort by businesses to target and engage their most valuable people, from customers and channel partners to salespeople and employees.
[ return to top ]
