How to Create the Gold Standard in Availability Reporting Tools for Global Venue Sourcing

Sun, 23 May 2021 18:08:23 -0400

The S3 Difference

What differentiates S3 global venue sourcing from its competitors is how we search for the perfect venue for client events. We have developed a custom software program and proprietary approach that streamlines finding available venues and submitting search results to clients. We developed the software with Excel Rain Man, a Woman Business Enterprise (WBE). The result is our clients can quickly and easily select options and submit feedback. The availability report is clear, comprehensive, and easy to read for experienced event planners. Vendors appreciate the ability to make concessions, make counter offers, and secure more business. Learn about the collaboration with Excel Rain Man to develop the software, the experience of Lowes Hotels & Resorts and San Francisco Travel Association as valued vendor partners.

Credit: Asian Art Museum San Francisco - San Francisco Travel Association

Big Decision: Off the Shelf vs. Custom Software?

Site Search & Select isn’t like its competitors in the global venue sourcing space. When it was time to make a change with our RFP tool and how we report our search results to our clients, the big question was “do we utilize one of the off the shelf software solutions or do we go full circle and develop our own customized solution?”

We knew it was time to consider a change when our volume was dramatically increasing but couldn’t increase the organization’s headcount. Isn’t that familiar to us all? For several years, we managed our RFP and Availability processes in-house alongside a few white label customized client versions of an off the shelf software solutions commonly used in the events space. Our experienced team members knew moving forward which properties, providers and reporting tools work best for our clients. The S3 niche is to always be unique and stand out with every aspect of our work.

We decided that we needed to create a customized solution that was going to be easy for our vendor partners to fill out. We also needed the tool to manipulate that data to create and populate beautiful spreadsheets. Our goal was to enable our clients to easily make their decision on the right venues and local suppliers. Who could we turn to for a turnkey solution that transform these pain points into one of the strengths of our brand while still keeping true to our mission, vision and values?

The S3 Vision is prominent throughout the Decision Process – Enter Excel Rain Man

Site Search & Select Vision: to celebrate and promote the inclusion and diversity of our global partners and highlight and connect these partners to our clients and their ever-evolving event needs.

Excel Rain Man is the leading business entity for creating customized Excel spreadsheets that solve complex problems for their clients. This amazing Woman Business Enterprise (WBE) came to our aid with a diverse rescue plan that was perfectly paired for Site Search & Select and our clients.

Jen Portland, CEO of Excel Rain Man, has an interesting and inspiring story on the creation of her unique business. She and others thought it might be untimely starting a customized spreadsheet reporting business during the 2008 economic crisis. Truth be told, it was the best time for her to create this type of enterprise because of the economy. By 2013, the firm decided to officially forge ahead with their mission of equity diversity and inclusion and carve their niche and officially become certified as a WBE. They immediately were able to show their uniqueness and leverage their certification and rise to the top of many departments of the New York City government. They currently work with many organizations, multinational corporations and now during COVID-19 they have been making tremendous strides within the government sector to create custom spreadsheet solutions which often include automation of workflow.

To “Excel” or “Not to Excel”

That was the big question. Excel is such a powerful tool. It’s been around for such a long time. Even though the business world is very familiar with Excel, would our clients think S3 was still cutting edge if our solution was built on such a grand legacy program? The answer is YES!

Excel Rain Man is notorious for building out solutions that I like to call “Excel on Steroids.”

The benefit of using an Excel based custom tool is two-fold. The first one accomplished the S3 mission of increasing our bandwidth without increasing headcount. The secret sauce is that the S3 customized solution starts with a color-coded RFP that each hotel partner fills out. It includes pricing, dimensions, and all pertinent information for guest rooms, meeting space, food and beverage, taxes, concessions. It calculates and converts all foreign currency to US$.

That data is stored behind the scenes of the RFP. When it’s time to create the client reports, we just add the selected RFPs as attachments, push a few buttons and the report begins to compile automatically. Depending on the complexity of the specifications, it takes about 5-10 minutes to populate 5-7 tabs, convert foreign currency to US$ for every charge and convert square meters to square feet. Other than a few tweaks, THERE IS NO HAND TYPING! We can turn these reports around to the client in record time!

For our clients, we decided to take this approach because Excel is universally used in corporate office environments. There is no learning curve and the Excel user base is extensive. The software combines the power of Microsoft with easy customization for the meetings industry. The product will always be supported because it’s backed by an industry giant. It was a no brainer!

GEEK ALERT: most people are not familiar with the underlying technology of these highly engineered spreadsheets. Did you know you could slow down or speed up calculations? Many of the field calculations in our tool rely on earlier calculations to populate. Excel likes to run fast. It doesn’t like to wait for earlier calculations to tabulate. In order to eliminate a crash and burn, you have to tell Excel to slow down or speed up. This is just one item of many that our tools utilize that may not be familiar to the standard Excel user that help customize our delivery documents.

Why Clients & Partners Rave About Our Tools

Excel Rain Man Website

Loews Hotel Website

San Francisco Travel Website

Try S3’s RFP Tool for Your Next Event

Site Search & Select is one of the longest established and most successful venue sourcing intermediaries. We listen to our customers, create unique solutions by offering cutting edge technology solutions to manage our projects and deliver the most creative results. If you would like to know more about these tools, our operation, or the team’s worldwide knowledge of hotels, international contracting, and local hospitality suppliers please click below for a free consultation.

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