Strategic Meetings Management (SMM) for Life Sciences Meetings

The Event

• A life sciences company with complex training needs contacted Miller Tanner Associates for planning guidance.

The Challenge

• Our customer, a life sciences company, needed to deliver training on 5 different protocols to 600 HCP attendees from numerous European sites, many of whom required multiple trainings on different combinations of these protocols. To add to the complexity, this was a rolling site list with attendees being added, some with tight turnaround times on Visas.

The Results

• MTA proposed a solution to consolidate by training all sites simultaneously over 8 days in London, with staggered trainings and tailored agendas for each attendee. This approach aimed to minimize travel for the corporate team and site participants; offer efficient training for all attendees; and reduce costs and time for all participants involved.  
• With time efficiency as a priority, MTA then strategically crafted an extensive agenda to accommodate 60 various protocol training combinations, tailoring a personalized agenda for each participant (in total 60 agenda versions). MTA orchestrated a comprehensive agenda for the entire event, incorporating general sessions, break-out sessions, parallel protocol training sessions (each included 3 days of content), and welcome dinners. 
• To optimize attendees’ time when not attending their respective trainings, MTA included a “connection lounge” for attendees. Here, sponsor representatives were available for one-on-one time with attendees for discussion and to answer questions, further building relationships with sites and site participants.
• MTA developed a communication strategy with our travel partners that included a keen understanding of the attendees’ roles and personalized agendas, to secure a smooth arrival and departure process for all participants. 
• MTA utilized advanced technologies to enhance the attendee experience, to increase efficiency, accuracy, and overall attendee satisfaction. 
  • Digital sign-ins across 11 daily opportunities, eliminating the need for a cumbersome sign-in process. In turn, this also allowed for easy post-event data reporting. 
  • With MTA’s proprietary app, Attend, attendees could conveniently access personalized digital agendas and scheduling details from their mobile devices. 
• Using SMM resulted in a significant cost savings of 25 percent – over 1 million dollars – for our customer.