You've just launched OneMICE, a MICE expense management solution driven by Chateauform and the German platform MICE Portal. What's the genesis of the project?
J. d. Villeneuve Bargemont. This project was born from a shared observation and a common vision among the three co-founders: the MICE intermediation market is evolving and the value proposition must transform, for both major clients and service providers. In my opinion, the current offering, particularly venue finding, is insufficient to meet the needs of large companies, which are the primary target of OneMICE and whom we want to support in the governance of their MICE expenditure. Our ambition is to bring a value proposition to the three market stakeholders – major companies, MICE service providers, and certain intermediaries – starting from the company's needs, through a procurement-to-pay solution. The objective is to avoid falling back into the pitfalls of economic models or dependencies that some companies had developed with intermediaries, and which MICE service providers themselves experienced without being fully satisfied.
The management of MICE expenses is a bit of a mystery, a real puzzle for companies. How do you approach this complex subject?
J. de V. B. – This is one of the last major blind spots for procurement departments. In a context where large companies have largely digitised their tools and have a better grasp of managing their expenses, it was important to offer them a solution that goes beyond venue finding, beyond the internal recommender who has an event project and is looking for a place to organise it. The big difference that OneMICE brings is our desire to deploy a SaaS solution across the entire vertical of this type of expense, from procurement to payment.
We are targeting companies that spend several million euros per year on MICE to enable them to manage all their expenses in a single tool, something their historical partners did not allow. This is because we are agnostic: we aim to support the major framework agreements that these companies may have with players like Chateauform, of course, but also Accor or Comet, without these players perceiving us as an intermediary lacking added value.
We must be able to tell our client: If you have a framework contract with any MICE provider, our platform will allow it to be integrated according to the conditions you have defined with them. Or, if you work with a specialist agency for a specific type of event, this MICE expenditure can be managed within OneMICE. You need a venue finder broker with a human touch, that is also possible thanks to the integration of intermediaries such as IME, for example, who already use OneMICE.
Why do MICE expenses remain so difficult to reconcile?
J. de V. B. – Every company has its own unique MICE consumption model, and MICE possesses a richness and complexity unrivalled in the world of travel. This is precisely why no single player has managed to reconcile the entirety of expenditure. Within this framework, while some may have tended to defend their business model rather than the client's interests, our approach, conversely, is to start with their needs. Understanding how a CAC 40 company manages its MICE spend, where it has visibility and where it does not, but also how expenditure is reconciled from an accounting perspective, how it interfaces with procurement tools such as SAP Ariba or Coupa. OneMICE integrates them in order to manage the complexity of this type of expenditure; this is where we add value.
However, you do not neglect venue finding, driven by MICE Portal's experience.
J. de V. B. – Yes, but venue finding is just one module of Procurement to Pay, a stage in the MICE spend governance chain which is necessary, but not sufficient. Historical venue finding players are starting to understand this and are indeed evolving in this direction. Rather than creating an offering from scratch, we formed an alliance with MicePortal, which capitalises on 20 years of experience. MicePortal understood the direction the market was heading and the means to support large companies like Deutsche Telekom, for example, which has been consolidating all its MICE expenditure through them for years. The German market is ahead on these issues, particularly due to its maturity in digitising expenditure and in travel management. OneMICE was born from this vision, from the model that MicePortal had successfully put in place in Germany, but also from the imbalance in the economic model proposed by certain market players, which Chateauform was able to address, particularly on the issue of framework agreements.
Does the OneMICE platform cover small seminars as well as large conferences?
J. de V. B. – When it comes to very large meetings or events, there is always an irreplaceable human element. This is where the ability to integrate the organising agency into the solution really comes into its own. But at the heart of OneMICE is the principle that every expense must be recorded within the platform. We therefore need to cover the entire spectrum, from small events right through to medical conferences. In fact, over 80% of MICE Portal’s turnover in Germany is generated through self-service, meaning that the client deals directly with the service provider via the solution.
What are your ambitions and what is OneMICE's business model?
J. de V. B. – OneMICE's ambition is clear: to develop this model first in the French market, then across Europe. We are already responding to tenders on a European scale, as these companies have specifiers and expenses spread across the continent. For them, we deploy a SaaS economic model calibrated according to their size, their spending level and their specific needs.
From a service provider perspective, our principles are based on ethics and transparency: we take a commission where we add value. If a framework agreement already exists with pre-existing expenditure volumes for our solution, there is no reason to charge a commission. To take a business travel player as a reference, we feel close to S4BT, with its business model that adds value to all stakeholders. This is, for us, a real source of inspiration.
The final stakeholder in the equation: intermediaries. These access the solution according to a specific SaaS model tailored to their intermediary needs, set their own commission rates, and thus maintain their independence. Ultimately, we bring value to each of the three parties with a distinct economic model for each.
Can the platform integrate even very occasional suppliers, for example a florist or a technical service provider?
J. de V. B. – Our objective is to integrate all expenses, including the independent florist for a one-off need. The solution allows a request to be sent to a supplier not registered on the platform. They can, if they wish, register or simply contract with the client for a specific project. Our AI agents greatly facilitate the exchange of quotes, pricing and contracting.
In your idea of "procurement-to-pay," there's the payment. How does this module integrate into your solution?
J. de V. B. – Everything depends on the model the client is looking for. Our solution integrates virtual credit cards and allows payment tools already in place with the client to connect to it. The platform is designed according to a broker model, resolving most of the issues that previously led companies to go through an intermediary. This is particularly the case with the idea of self-service: an employee uses the platform directly in broker mode, the purchase order is integrated, and the expense is plugged into the company's accounting tool. That said, we can also offer a representative model, including with the client's existing intermediary. This modularity allows, downstream, for extremely powerful financial reporting, native management of e-invoicing, and non-financial reporting: all the more reasons to adopt the solution holistically.
As part of this reporting, does OneMICE also integrate the CSR dimension?
J. de V. B. – There are different types of carbon reporting: one is estimated based on a quote, and another is based on actual data; the levels of requirement can vary. We start from our clients' CSR policy ambitions. Having all the data – services, participants, travel, etc. – allows us to integrate a carbon calculator to produce this reporting. But again, the degree of detail depends on the client. This brings us back to our fundamental point: supporting companies in the governance of their MICE expenditure also includes these challenges of decarbonisation and non-financial reporting. We have all the infrastructure to support them, whether they approach the subject purely from a regulatory perspective or wish to go further.
What is the place of artificial intelligence in OneMICE?
J. de V. B. – OneMICE and MICE Portal have invested heavily, several million euros over the last two years, to deploy AI where it genuinely adds value. We refuse to make false promises: the MICE sector is fragmented and complex. It will take time before a hotel's server or an actor like Chateauform' can communicate directly with a large company's AI buyer agent to manage all the specifics of a project – such as rooming lists and special requests.
Our approach is pragmatic: brick by brick, we identify where AI creates value in procurement-to-pay.
On the prescriber side, we have already deployed a conversational assistant integrated directly into the platform, which uses, depending on the client's needs, the best market models such as OpenAI, Claude, and Mistral. An employee makes their request by voice or in writing, and the assistant helps them to draft their brief, identify the right services, search for providers, create a project from start to finish, launch a consultation, negotiate or book. The AI even understands mood requests ("modern with an industrial feel") and offers three reasoned recommendations. Everything remains under human control: no booking is made without validation, every action is tracked, and the AI can never exceed the rights of the connected user.
From the provider's perspective, AI simplifies responding to quotes: they can be generated and integrated directly into the platform, in the format expected by the client. We are also working with our payment partners to automate certain processes. In the longer term, our vision is to deploy agents that connect directly to demand and supply, to reconcile and automate projects on a self-service basis.
Ultimately, how do you position yourselves against recognised market players like Kactus or Naboo? Are you one of their competitors?
J. de V. B. – First of all, I believe there is room for many players in this market. The share of intermediation in MICE spending is growing considerably, even if the MICE market itself is growing more moderately. Kactus has achieved remarkable things by addressing the entire market through an open marketplace. Naboo's success is also remarkable, and I am genuinely pleased that a French start-up is showing such global ambitions. However, we consider these players as indirect competitors, due to a different business model and positioning. We are not in the same segment, and they do not present themselves as being able to integrate all of a client's MICE expenses. Kactus and Naboo they come from this world of venue finding; we come structurally from elsewhere.
OneMICE does not position itself as an intermediary or a venue finder. We work with clients who already have relationships with suppliers and we tell them: allow us to cover your entire MICE expenditure. Without questioning what already exists. The other differentiation is strategic: we are a joint venture between two established players, two shareholder families who have been active in and contributing to MICE for decades. We are not on a start-up trajectory and we are committed for the long term. This allows us to be more agile in our business model, particularly in sharing value with suppliers.
