Etouches and Worktopia to enhance product
MasterCard Worldwide has announced "strategic enhancements" to its online corporate meeting product that it claims will give companies greater control over meetings.
The company said it had partnered with online meeting providers etouches and Worktopia "to address the needs of different stakeholders in today's fragmented corporate meetings market."
"Since meeting needs differ dramatically by organization and type of event, we chose to partner with best-in-breed providers to offer our corporate customers a suite of flexible solutions that meet their individual needs," said Steve Abrams, MasterCard's group executive for global commercial products.
"In today's tight economy, our corporate customers are looking to optimize their card programs to capture meeting spend, and seek access to productive meeting planning tools that can help identify additional savings opportunities."
The partnership with etouches adds an online attendee registration and management tool to Mastercard's meetings suite.
The etouches tool creates registration websites, automated attendance emails and reports to track registration against meeting goals and budgets.
Mastercard said its alliance with Worktopia would address the need for a "web-based platform to search for, compare and book small meeting rooms online and in real-time."
Through the alliance employers using the Worktopia tool will only be able to book and pay for meetings rooms using MasterCard's Purchase Control application.
Corporate customers using Purchase Control will be able to check and approve employee's spend when booking rooms on Worktopia.
Worktopia's ceo John Arenas said: "With increased pressure to measure and manage expenditures related to small meetings, more companies today have to justify the ROI of face-to-face interaction while also complying with corporate budgets and goals,"
"Together with MasterCard, we can help companies establish enforceable policies by providing procurement with central visibility and control while allowing decentralized purchasing by meeting arrangers across the organization."
www.mastercard.com