Introduction
Events have become the heartbeat of corporate engagement, learning, and community building. For global companies, these moments aren’t just meetings on a calendar, they’re experiences that unite employees, spark innovation, and drive meaningful impact. However, at scale, event management and corporate event planning can quickly become a logistical nightmare. Fragmented processes, complex approval workflows, and vendor overload can create inefficiencies that drain time, resources, and energy from internal teams.
This was the reality for one of the world’s most iconic gaming and entertainment companies. With millions of players worldwide, they’ve built thriving global communities through immersive storytelling, interactive experiences, and shared passions. But that spirit of connection doesn’t stop at the players. Inside the company, their employee networks serve as vibrant internal communities, fostering belonging, career development, and cultural impact.
Run by passionate volunteers balancing full-time roles, these groups play a crucial role in shaping company culture. But despite their importance, orchestrating high-quality corporate events was an uphill battle, pulling focus from what truly mattered: creating meaningful experiences that bring employees together.
They needed a smarter, streamlined way to manage events without sacrificing quality—and they didn’t have to look far. Elsie was already helping their Learning & Development team run seamless virtual training experiences and it quickly became clear that Elsie’s expertise could transform corporate event planning and operations as well.
At a Glance
Industry: Gaming & Interactive Entertainment
Events Managed: Hundreds annually, spanning employee resource groups (ERGs), learning initiatives, and large-scale company-wide engagements
Primary Challenges: Administrative bottlenecks, vendor overload, complex approval processes, and complex project coordination
Elsie’s Impact:
75% reduction in event-related workload for finance, legal, and engagement teams
50% less administrative burden for program leaders, freeing them up for strategic initiatives
Higher-quality, seamlessly executed events across the organization
Increased volume of well-executed events without added strain on teams
The Challenge: A Bottleneck to Engagement & Impact
For years, internal teams faced a frustrating reality: corporate event planning was harder than it needed to be.
- Too many moving parts: Sourcing speakers, securing approvals, coordinating logistics, and managing multiple vendors created a time-consuming and disjointed process.
- A fragmented vendor system: Different teams worked with different vendors, leading to budget-tracking nightmares, inconsistent event quality, and approval bottlenecks.
- Overloaded internal teams: Employee engagement leaders and program managers were drowning in administrative tasks instead of focusing on creating impactful events.
But one of the biggest bottlenecks? Vendor onboarding.
A Lengthy Approval Process That Stalled Progress
Before partnering with Elsie, every external speaker or event engagement request had to go through a lengthy vendor onboarding process. This was a major roadblock, particularly for employee resource groups (ERGs), whose event planning timelines didn’t align with this rigid approval cycle.
With limited time and resources, most speaker requests arrived just one month before the event, creating an endless loop of urgency.
“Prior to Elsie’s involvement, every external speaker and engagement request triggered a complex onboarding process. With most requests coming in the month before an event, Legal and Finance teams were constantly scrambling to move things forward.”
The result?
- Administrative overload – Teams spent more time researching and securing speakers than actually planning engaging events.
- Convoluted approval processes – Finance and Legal were bombarded with urgent emails, leading to delays and frustration.
- Disjointed vendor management – Multiple vendor contracts made it difficult to track budgets and maintain consistent event quality.
“Every request felt like a red flag urgent request from the Finance and Legal department’s perspective. The process was convoluted and confusing from the ERG perspective.”
The company needed a better way to manage high-impact events – without overwhelming internal teams or sacrificing quality.
The Turning Point: A Smarter, Streamlined Event Management Solution
Rather than treating event planning as a disconnected series of tasks spread across multiple vendors and approval cycles, they centralized everything under one seamless solution: partnering with Elsie.
“Bringing in Elsie as a vendor was massive. It completely changed the game for us.”
By partnering with Elsie, the company transformed its global event planning process in three critical ways:
A One-Stop Shop for Event Production & Speaker Sourcing
Elsie eliminated the chaos of juggling multiple vendors by providing a single, streamlined solution for finding speakers, managing logistics, and executing high-quality events.
Simplified Approvals & Vendor Management
Elsie’s system drastically reduced the back-and-forth with legal and finance teams, cutting down approval timelines and making speaker requests frictionless.
Better Budget Flexibility & Tracking
With Elsie, teams could easily track funding across multiple sources while keeping spending organized, all on a single purchase order.
“Processing requests with Legal has been a breeze since using Elsie. It’s cut down our workload significantly and made tracking everything simple.”
The Results: Less Work, More Impact
vElsie didn’t just reduce complexity—it unlocked better events, faster approvals, and stronger engagement.
75% reduction in event-related workload for Finance, Legal, and Employee Engagement teams.
50% drop in administrative burden for program leaders, freeing them up to focus on strategy.
Consistently higher-quality events, spanning company-wide initiatives to executive-led programs.
More strategic, well-executed events, as planning teams shifted from reactive, last-minute coordination to proactive, thoughtful event design.
“Legal actually thought we stopped hosting events because we went from monthly urgent email requests to none.”
But, the impact extended beyond time savings. By streamlining approvals and vendor management, Elsie enabled:
- Stronger event consistency across global teams
- Scalability for high-impact initiatives—without added complexity
- More flexible budget allocation, including fiscal year rollovers
- Larger event support and localization for global teams
- Enhanced production support with video content and toolkits
The Takeaway: Empowering Teams to Focus on What Matters
At its core, event planning shouldn’t be a burden. It should be an opportunity to bring people together, build culture, and drive meaningful engagement.
By eliminating administrative bottlenecks, streamlining approvals, and consolidating vendor management, Elsie didn’t just make events easier to execute, it gave teams the freedom to think bigger, plan better, and create lasting impact.
More seamless events. More engaged employees. More time to focus on strategy.
Want Streamlined, More Impactful Events? Let’s Talk!
Your events should bring people together, not overwhelm your teams with logistics, approvals, and last-minute scrambles. If managing vendors, budgets, and planning feels like a constant uphill battle, it’s time for a better way.v
Elsie helps streamline event operations so your team can focus on strategy, engagement, and creating meaningful experiences without the administrative headaches.
Let’s talk about how Elsie can simplify your event planning and scale your impact. Click Here
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