While the need to streamline costs and strengthen negotiating clout is not a new priority for corporate America, the current economic climate is prompting companies to manage and track their meetings expenditures as never before.
“One major result of this economic crisis is that more companies will consolidate their meetings and travel operations, and both will be linked with procurement,” says Kevin Maguire, president and CEO of the National Business Travel Association (NBTA). “Now that we’re in the middle of the strangest time in the travel industry that I’ve ever seen, there’s going to be a culture change in the way meetings are handled.”
He adds that as more companies place their meetings and travel operations under the dictates of procurement departments, procurement managers are becoming “more understanding that travel is dependent on relationships with suppliers—it’s not just like buying pens and paper clips.”
This fall, NBTA plans to introduce a new certification program that will focus entirely on strategic meetings management.
Issa Jouaneh, vice president-global meetings solution for American Express Business Travel, also says that interest among companies in managing and tracking meetings spend, often in combination with travel, is on the rise.
“The interest in centralized sourcing is a key trend we’re seeing in the market,” he says. “Corporations are focused on meetings spend more than ever. Meeting planners are being asked to do more with less and they are being asked to justify the value of the corporate investment in meetings.”
And it’s not only large companies that are looking at ways to ramp up their negotiating clout with suppliers.
“We’re seeing a lot more interest from smaller and medium companies in leveraging their meetings spend,” Jouaneh says, adding that there is also more interest in the strategic management of small meetings. “Most corporations have done a good job at sourcing and procuring large events. There are also significant opportunities for to centralize the sourcing for small meetings as well.”
Among companies that have come on board with centralization is Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, which recently created a meetings and events department to oversee operations. According to Meetings and Events Manager Kathleen Zwart, CMP, the centralized approach is helping the company to not only leverage its spend with suppliers, but to minimize attrition penalties.
Under the new system, she says planners can “alert other departments when a meeting is canceled or under the block and to see if we can work with the hotel or venue to minimize any penalties.”
Independent meeting planners are also seeing the need to play a strategic role with corporate clients in ways that go far beyond handling logistics.
“We start by looking at their goals and objectives, and work with them to ensure that the meeting, including its core content, reaches these goals,” says Donna Valentine, CMP, president of San Francisco-based Excel Meetings and Events. ”Equally important are post-conference surveys that measure how the objectives were met—not just about the food and the hotel, but what attendees learned at the event.”
Beyond negotiating for good hotel rates, Valentine says an additional priority this year has been to “partner with hotels in terms of cancellation and attrition situations. Clients are worried about booking a meeting and what happens if they should have to downsize a meeting or cancel. That’s of more concern than getting the best room rate.”
