Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EventAI (Revolutionary Artificial Intelligence Platform for Managing and Optimising Event Planning)
Período documentado: 2018-12-01 hasta 2019-05-31
Event planning and management encompass a wide range of event types - from corporate events, cultural events, leisure events, to personal events and global workshops and conferences. What they all have in common is that successful event planning entails ability to plan and manage all aspects of the event in detail, including: 1) meeting with clients and sponsors to identify their needs; 2) planning and arranging the scope of the event including time, location, program, and budget; 3) negotiating with providers to achieve the most favourable terms, requesting bids from venues and service providers; 4) working with clients to choose where to hold the event and whom to contract for services; 5) inspect places to ensure they meet the client requirements; 6) coordinate event services such as accommodation, transportation, and catering services; 7) hiring and coordinating details with on-site staff (e.g. equipment, venue decoration, entertainment); 8) verification and testing of onsite services and setups; 9) monitoring event activities as they evolve ensuring client and attendee satisfaction 10) problem and issue resolution before, during and after the event; 11) continuing accounting, budgeting, invoice and payment reviews; 12) post-event evaluation and reports. To complicate matters further, these tasks depend on one another and in many cases, they must be performed in collaboration between the event internal team and different external event services providers using standard communication tools. Furthermore, event managers usually work simultaneously on several projects operating on different lead times which entail executing short term goals as well as dealing with long-term plans. Keeping track of such an enormous amount of information, stakeholders, deadlines, agreements and deliverables makes event management to be deemed the 5th most stressful career in the world (just after military, police, firefighters and pilots). To ease this situation, event managers currently must use a plethora of digital solutions that include tools for online registration, email/social network marketing, event surveys, event Apps, file sharing, participant engagement tools, project management software, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools. Within each tool category, there are solutions from different software providers that offer specialised features required for certain types of events (e.g. conferences, weddings, team building events, trade fairs, etc). This fragmented and incomplete software environment has forced today’s event managers into a complex and disconnected workflow that cause inefficiencies, delays, mistakes and additional workload stress. In the last years, a few all-in-one solutions have appeared in the market but about them, “event professionals lament great promises with poor implementation”. All-in-one solutions integrate poorly with other event software tools that provide advanced vertical services and therefore don’t allow the required customisation to match the needs of different industry verticals. A recent survey revealed that only 39.6% of event manager use event management software, but 73.7% among them are using more than 5 software tools coming from different software providers to coordinate their events. This mix of tools from different software providers pose integration problems and inefficient work performance that impede effective workflows and communication between all those involved in the planning of any given event. As a result, 96% of event managers must waste 30-50% of their time (which represents from €10.965 to €18.275 of the event managers’ average yearly salary) on manual and repetitive tasks jumping from software to software. These integration and effectiveness issues are considered to be one of the major restraining factors affecting the growth of the event management software market. As such, event planning and management remain some of the most stressful jobs globally characterised with inefficient workflows, job dissatisfaction, high overtime and burnout rates – where adequate and intelligent software solutions are still lacking while there is a huge global market and user need for tools that can help improve everyday jobs for millions of people working in this field.
Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far (For the final period please include an overview of the results and their exploitation and dissemination).
Following the EU SME instrument phase 1 application, Tame has conducted a feasibility study of EventAI, which concept has been tested for Technological, regulatory, commercial and the economic viability, as described in the next points and further elaborated in the work plan:
- Technological feasibility study (task 1): We have defined the specifications for new software as part of the technology maturation tasks to be implemented during the Phase 2. Moreover, we will establish objectives for undertaking a large-scale piloting in the Nordic countries, and Germany. We already got the support of key opinion leaders in DK, NO, and DE.
- Regulatory feasibility study (task 2): In our regulatory study, we have listed all necessary legal actions, certification programs and guidelines that are required for the EventAI platform to comply with all relevant standards and regulatory requirements for consumer rights, e-commerce, VAT and tax-regulations in our target markets and regulatory requirements, related to its general functionality, data storage, security, and privacy, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
- Market and commercialisation feasibility study (task 3): Based on the results of our market research we have decided to follow a commercialisation strategy based on direct sales through our website which enables us best scalability and margins for our product. Additionally, although EventAI is inherently a global product we have confirmed Denmark, Norway, and Germany as the EU countries that we will target as early adopters during our scale-up. We have found local partners in each country and we have established an exploitation and communication plan to establish our optimal go-to-market strategy.
- Economic and financial feasibility study (task 4): We have carried out a full market research study by revisiting the competitors analysis (including pricing), interviews with potential customers to assess end-users needs at EU level (event managers, event management agencies, and event services providers), key stakeholders and engagement strategies. We have established our optimal international pricing strategy, based on our fruitful Danish experience. After evaluating our total investment requirements to bring the product to the market and update our financial projections for a 5-year period post-Phase 2 project.
Following the EU SME instrument phase 1 application, Tame has conducted a feasibility study of EventAI, which concept has been tested for Technological, regulatory, commercial and the economic viability, as described in the next points and further elaborated in the work plan:
- Technological feasibility study (task 1): We have defined the specifications for new software as part of the technology maturation tasks to be implemented during the Phase 2. Moreover, we will establish objectives for undertaking a large-scale piloting in the Nordic countries, and Germany. We already got the support of key opinion leaders in DK, NO, and DE.
- Regulatory feasibility study (task 2): In our regulatory study, we have listed all necessary legal actions, certification programs and guidelines that are required for the EventAI platform to comply with all relevant standards and regulatory requirements for consumer rights, e-commerce, VAT and tax-regulations in our target markets and regulatory requirements, related to its general functionality, data storage, security, and privacy, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
- Market and commercialisation feasibility study (task 3): Based on the results of our market research we have decided to follow a commercialisation strategy based on direct sales through our website which enables us best scalability and margins for our product. Additionally, although EventAI is inherently a global product we have confirmed Denmark, Norway, and Germany as the EU countries that we will target as early adopters during our scale-up. We have found local partners in each country and we have established an exploitation and communication plan to establish our optimal go-to-market strategy.
- Economic and financial feasibility study (task 4): We have carried out a full market research study by revisiting the competitors analysis (including pricing), interviews with potential customers to assess end-users needs at EU level (event managers, event management agencies, and event services providers), key stakeholders and engagement strategies. We have established our optimal international pricing strategy, based on our fruitful Danish experience. After evaluating our total investment requirements to bring the product to the market and update our financial projections for a 5-year period post-Phase 2 project.
Progress beyond the state of the art, expected results until the end of the project and potential impacts (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far).
Our key objective for this Phase 1 Feasibility Study was to verify the technical, practical and economic viability of our disruptive EventAI platform. We wanted to prove that our solution is superior to current market offerings (under real-life settings) in terms of operational performance, cost savings and. Therefore, we have conducted the following activities:
1. Detailed product development plan and plan for full large-scale piloting/validation;
2. Documentation detailing the legal frameworks and regulatory approach for EventAI;
3. Comprehensive report on the market, competitor landscape and commercialisation plan;
4. Elaborated business plan, including full cost breakdown;
5. Establish final requirements for undertaking maturation and large-scale demonstrations under real operating conditions to be implemented in the envisaged Phase 2 project.
With the goal of confirming EventAI commercial viability and finding early adopters, we met with a major potential partner and over 100 event managers in the target markets. During these meetings we introduced them the superior performance of EventAI and how it improves the results of event managing compared to any SoA solution. We plan now to collaborate with our potential partners in those markets to introduce Explorable via their professional network and knowledge of the local industry.
Our key objective for this Phase 1 Feasibility Study was to verify the technical, practical and economic viability of our disruptive EventAI platform. We wanted to prove that our solution is superior to current market offerings (under real-life settings) in terms of operational performance, cost savings and. Therefore, we have conducted the following activities:
1. Detailed product development plan and plan for full large-scale piloting/validation;
2. Documentation detailing the legal frameworks and regulatory approach for EventAI;
3. Comprehensive report on the market, competitor landscape and commercialisation plan;
4. Elaborated business plan, including full cost breakdown;
5. Establish final requirements for undertaking maturation and large-scale demonstrations under real operating conditions to be implemented in the envisaged Phase 2 project.
With the goal of confirming EventAI commercial viability and finding early adopters, we met with a major potential partner and over 100 event managers in the target markets. During these meetings we introduced them the superior performance of EventAI and how it improves the results of event managing compared to any SoA solution. We plan now to collaborate with our potential partners in those markets to introduce Explorable via their professional network and knowledge of the local industry.