Bondurant Consulting provides the following services:
- Assessment of SMMP potential for your organization
- Development and implementation of SMMP for meeting & travel managers
- Training programs for hotel companies and 3rd party meeting planning agencies which increase their understanding of Strategic Meetings Management, resulting in more successful engagements with clients who are involved with SMM
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Quick Links Newsletter Archive 2011
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Welcome to Year Two of "Keeping it SiMMPle", a bi-monthly newsletter aimed at making and keeping your Strategic Meetings Management Program Practical, Light, and Effective!
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Each issue of Keeping it SiMMPle addresses a component of the A to Z of SMM from a Practical, Light & Effective perspective. In this issue A is for Astonishing Absence of Strategic Meetings Management!
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I am astonished by the absence of Strategic Meeting Management Programs (SMMP) in Corporations today! The good news is that this is one of the last areas of unmanaged spend for most organizations, but there is still significant opportunity for the implementation of some of the basic SMM principals by businesses of all sizes: Small, Medium and Large! I continue to be dumbfounded by the lack of Strategic Managed Meeting (SMM) programs, as we have been talking about Meetings Consolidation and Strategic Meeting Management for well over 15 years now. While I am frustrated by the lack of SMM in corporations, I realize that the Association market is just now beginning to recognize the benefits of SMM; so I hold high hope that the adoption of SMM for Associations will happen at a much faster pace than what we have seen with corporations.
My astonishment regarding lack of SMMP deployment stems from the fact that there is a huge amount of money spent on meetings and events and this category of spend remains mostly decentralized and unmanaged. According to a variety of industry sources meetings and events are, on average, 2% to 3% of corporate revenues. When best practices of Strategic Meetings Management such as centralized registration and centralized sourcing & contracting of meetings and events are applied to the spend, savings are in the range of 10 to 20% in the first year of implementation. Take a break from reading and do the math for your own organization - I suspect it is a much larger volume of spend than you had previously considered!
We usually speak to the financial benefits of SMM first, but as important, and for some organizations, even more important than the cost savings is the ability to reduce risk by ensuring that all contracts are negotiated and signed by meeting or procurement specialists who understand the nuances of our industry as well as the legal protection their companies require. For those in the Financial and Life Sciences verticals that have an SMM in place, congratulations! For those in Financial and Life Sciences who don't have an SMMP, I am at a loss to understand how they are able to ensure enforcement of all of the governmental rules and regulations affecting meetings and events without having a centralized process for registering, sourcing and tracking the meetings and events. If there is no visibility into where meetings are being planned and who is being invited to attend them BEFORE they take place, there is no way to mitigate risk for the organization. All that is left is explaining why your company's meeting got negative press on the front page of the New York Times or International Harold Tribune!
Many organizations say that they don't have enough meetings to warrant an SMMP. I beg to differ, even if there are as few as 10 or 20 meetings per year, there should still be a desire to implement some basic SMM procurement practices. For example, having a formalized request for proposal process for sourcing meetings and ensuring that contracts are negotiated and signed by specialists who understand hotel contracts are relatively simple steps to help gain visibility into meeting and event spend. This will lead to insights into who is planning meetings and where the business is being placed, which in turn will allow for increased control and leverage of this significant area of spend.
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SiMMPle Tips:
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TIP #1: At a minimum, if you don't have an SMMP, commit to keeping track of the total cost and savings for each of the meetings you manage in 2012.
TIP #2: For those who have an SMMP in place, be sure to distribute periodic reports to key individuals throughout the organization so that they are aware of the progress you continue to make
TIP #3: If you haven't done it already, take the time to determine your potential meeting spend and related savings, do it now using the low end of the metrics above
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Did you know...
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My good friend, D. Bradley Kent, Sr. vice President of Business Development, Freeman was the recipient of the 2011 Distinguished Member of the year Award from PCMA this week!
According to Active officials, Active Network plans to maintain StarCite's platform and integrate its strategic meeting management capabilities with its own attendee registration tools.
Tony Lorenz, founder of bXb Online, announced at this week's PCMA conference that bXb is developing a global online platform for virtual event content.
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