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IMA | Case Study | ON24

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How IMA utilized ON24 to run CPE programs for management accountants

Capabilities

Use Cases

About

IMA utilized ON24 as the global infrastructure for its “Inside Talk” webinars to deliver educational content and key insights to IMA members, as well as allow them to earn CPE credits. Using the ON24 Webcast Elite Plaform, IMA achieved global reach, improved performance and enjoyed near instantaneous access to audience data.

Introduction

Delivering the latest in management accounting training IMA® (Institute of Management Accountants) is one of the largest and most respected associations focused exclusively on advancing the management accounting profession. IMA represents a global network of more than 70,000 members in 120 countries.

IMA supports the profession and its members through its highly respected Certified Management Accountant (CMA) program, ongoing research, continuing education, networking and advocacy of the highest ethical business practices in management accounting and finance.

IMA hosted a monthly series of “Inside Talk” webinars, in a convenient web-based format, delivering key insights, best practices and educational content geared to advancing the careers of management accountants. Members could also earn one hour of National Association of State Boards of Accountancy approved (NASBA) Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits by attending the webinars, free of charge.

Problem

Wanting to make a good webinar series even better

Although webinar attendance was steadily increasing, the IMA learning and development manager recognized several inefficiencies in the webinars’ execution and realized that the organization was quickly outgrowing its existing webcast infrastructure:

  • The platform could not support multimedia capabilities
  • The system did not recognize members who viewed the webinar from mobile or tablet devices, creating problems with awarding CPE credits
  • IMA often had to wait as long as 24 hours to receive webinar reporting and statistics from the vendor
  • The webinar console was unattractive, looked out of date and was difficult to use

IMA recognized the value-add the “Inside Talk” webinars offered members but wanted a webcasting platform that could deliver the series more cost effectively than its current infrastructure, with automated reporting and a customizable console that presented a more modern look and feel.

“IMA has reaped a significant savings in costs since implementing the ON24 platform for our ‘Inside Talk’ webinar series. This includes not only the time saved in labor, but the ON24 platform actually costs less than what we were using previously.”

Adam Larson, Learning & Development Product Manager, IMA (Institute of Management Accountants)

Solution

Using ON24 to take ‘Inside Talk’ to the next level

After evaluating multiple vendor solutions, IMA chose ON24, because of the customizable features of the Webcast Elite console and its robust reporting and analytics. IMA also realized a significant cost savings per year when switching to ON24 from the previous web conferencing platform.

The ON24 platform met IMA’s need to reduce time and cost associated with manually running reports, improved the look and feel of the webinars and lowered the overall cost of the platform.

ON24 technology enables IMA to:

  • Easily customize the registration pages, corresponding emails and console design
  • Extend the webinars’ reach to all of its international members
  • Reduce the speaker preparation sessions with the easy-to-use Presentation Manager XD
  • Leverage both the pre-configured and customizable reports in the ON24 platform for nearly instantaneous access to audience metrics and statistics
  • Track members’ attendance, including those accessing the webinars from their iPads, to more easily award CPE credits

The ON24 expertise in virtual environments also appealed to IMA. As the organization extends its virtual reach and offerings, they have confidence in ON24 and a strong partnership they can capitalize on when they’re ready to take that step.

Results

Improved performance, faster reporting and an award winning webinar

Since implementing its “Inside Talk” webinar series on the ON24 platform, IMA has enjoyed considerable performance and scalability improvements.

  • ON24 seamlessly supports the growing “Inside Talk” global audiences, enabling IMA members to easily access and view webinars from desktops and a variety of tablet and mobile devices with no performance issues.
  • The live webinars are recorded and posted on demand in the IMA Webinar Library for members to access at times that are convenient to them.
  • Immediate access to reporting at the close of each webinar saves IMA between 10 to 14 hours in manual processes. Webinar sponsors receive audience data within 48 hours, facilitating rapid follow-up.
  • With Presentation Manager XD, presenter training time went from one hour to less than 30 minutes.

IMA ran two webinars from its China offices and one from Switzerland to its regional members, and plans to capitalize on ON24 globalization capabilities to further support its expanding global membership, repurposing and translating the webinars and training members in their local languages.

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