Analysis Paralysis needlessly affects so many of us when we are trying to extract data and information on our organization's meeting spend. Avoid this paralysis by "eating the elephant one bite at a time". Here are some simple steps for getting started:
1. Examine the spend that you have access to within your own group
2. Identify the following aspects of the spend:
a. Number of meetings
b. Which hotels were used for the meetings
c. Group room rate per meeting
d. Savings (calculate the original quote to the final quote for room nights x the number of rooms)
e. Include other savings if you can easily identify it, such as value of complimentary rooms, suite upgrade, free internet
f. Calculate the % of savings per meeting, then cumulatively for all meetings
3. Look at the results, do the numbers make sense?
4. Do you think this is the majority of your company meeting spend, or just 10% or 50% of it?
5. Are there other "power planners" in the company that you can reach out to for their data?
6. Share your findings with your team and your supervisor, what is their reaction?
7. Continue to gather data, highlighting the savings, and share the results of your proactive initiative with your leadership on a consistent (e.g. quarterly) basis. You will be pleasantly surprised as to how quickly the volume of meetings and % of savings will increase.
This information will be an important foundation for the development of your Strategic Meetings Management Program. With some of these baseline metrics in hand, you can move beyond paralysis and into action! |