From B2B Networking To Partnerships: Benify’s Success With Management Events

Transitioning a prospective customer into a purchasing client is the most difficult yet rewarding part of a sales process, and Jenny Swartling Pizarro, the Head of Sales Large Enterprises Sweden at Benify, knows that the first step to building a strong business relationship starts with that all-important initial contact with a prospect.

Through the unique networking opportunities of Management Events’ 600Minutes HR events, Jenny is able to directly connect with top-level HR executives and other business leaders.

One such decision maker whom Jenny engaged with is the HR Director of Lidl Sweden, a company which has since signed a deal with Benify to implement their solution in Sweden and the Netherlands.

Benify – A Global Benefits and Total Rewards Platform

Benify is an HR tech company that offers a global platform for benefits, total rewards, and employee communications with more than 1,500 customers and over 2 million users around the world.

Their solution helps employers create an exceptional benefits and rewards experience while reducing benefits administration, automating processes, radically improving the communication of their employee value proposition and ensuring better data governance and management of benefit and reward costs.

Benify’s platform and employee app have reinvented the way modern employers engage with their employees, winning multiple awards such as the GOLD Stevie® Award for Global HR Solution Provider of the Year 2020 and the Bronze Stevie® Award for Achievement in HR Technology 2020.

The Initial Meet-Up

Jenny has represented Benify at the yearly 600Minutes HR events for approximately 6 years.

“At 600Minutes Leadership and HR in 2018,” Jenny recounts, “I had my first personal meeting with the HR Director of Lidl Sweden.”

Lidl Sweden is a food wholesaler, offering a range of Swedish and organic products with foreign delicacies and a varied range of goods for the whole home.

“It turned out that the director had read a report of ours on the benefits awareness gap,” Jenny continues, “so [the event] was a great place to start the conversation.”

“Lidl wanted to digitize their processes regarding employee benefits,” Jenny explains, “to make their benefits more transparent and accessible, as well as create opportunities to offer more benefits than they already did.”

She further elaborates that, “Their investment in a Benify platform was also part of a larger effort to make Lidl the best employer in their industry.”

Building The Relationship

The communication between Jenny and Lidl Sweden’s HR Director didn’t end at the event, but continued to develop into a lasting business relationship.

“At 600Minutes Leadership and HR, we decided to book another meeting after the event,” Jenny relates, “which led to a pre-study and eventually a signed deal to implement our platform for Lidl’s more than 4,200 employees in Sweden.”

“After having happily used the Benify platform in Sweden for about a year, Lidl decided to also implement our solution for their 15,000 employees in the Netherlands.”

Relations between the two companies are going strong, and Jenny expresses that, “If [the Netherlands’ solution implementation] turns out as successfully as the Swedish example, we are looking at a potential cooperation with Lidl across the entire Europe and the US.”

Business Growth With ME

As a 6-year-and-counting representative of Benify at the 600Minutes HR networking events held yearly by Management Events (ME), Jenny points out many benefits of the unique event concept.

“[The events] have given me opportunities to engage personally with HR directors and other relevant stakeholders from large enterprises that are otherwise difficult to get in touch with,” Jenny confides.

“The 15-minute meetings are very effective,” she declares. “Each representative specifies their interest areas beforehand, e.g. recruiting, employee benefits or digitization, so you can prepare and focus on what you want to get across. It’s almost like B2B speed dating.”

Moving With The (Hard) Times

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Jenny says that an increasing number of employers are seeing the value of Benify’s product in these challenging times, and are ready to invest again.

“With many physical events canceled, we were happy to partake in the digital version of 600Minutes,” she conveys.

Image source: Jenny Swartling Pizarro’s LinkedIn

“The atmosphere in the meetings was relaxed as most people were participating from their own homes. You held the full attention of each representative and were able to share your screen. It was easy to establish a personal contact and get a good conversation going. All in all, a very positive experience.”

An Arena Of Opportunities

Overall, Jenny believes that Management Events offers a great arena for solution providers to meet with relevant stakeholders.

“In several cases, the initial contact at 600Minutes has led to further meetings, where we have been able to present our solutions more in-depth, and then perform customized pre-studies that in turn have resulted in signed deals.”