With the development of a Strategic Meetings Management Program (SMMP) comes a wealth of information and data. Initially, this information can seem overwhelming; what do you do with all of it and how do you make sense out of it? How do you turn these numbers and statistics into something than can drive intelligent business decisions?
One of the significant benefits of deploying an SMMP is that you collect a data and information from two different perspectives. First, you will begin to understand the composition of meetings program within the company: who is planning the meetings and which departments or divisions have more meetings than others. Second, you will begin to see the structure of the meetings program from the procurement perspective. For example, understanding which hotel chains are utilized more than others, what are the top 10 cities that are being booked, total volume of RFPs, savings by hotel, by chain, and overall program savings. Okay, those data points sound interesting, but how are you going to analyze and organize the facts and figures to end up with actionable intelligence?
Let's go back and investigate an example based knowing who is planning meetings and events. This information will allow you to discover if there are a lot of people planning meetings you were unaware of, or if there are people you know who plan meetings but are not following the SMM process, because you don't see their meetings registered. Armed with this intelligence you can take action by reaching out to people who are either unaware of the SMMP or who going outside the system and remind them of the benefits of program to the company and ask for their compliance and support.
Now let's examine some of the data you have regarding hotel usage. Prior to the SMMP, you probably had pretty limited insight into how much meeting volume was being sent to specific hotels. With the data you gather with our SMMP, you will be able to understand which independent and chain hotels are being used. You will need to scrutinize this data to begin to make intelligent business decisions. For example, do the tiers of hotels that are being booked make sense for your company? Are luxury hotels being used where upper upscale hotels might make more cost effective, or is the luxury hotel value proposition one that makes sense for your company? Are you using a lot of extended stay properties because of numerous long term projects taking place? Could you leverage spend more by driving business to specific chains or local hotels?
The best news is that you will begin to understand the savings that are being generated from the program. Your reporting tools should be capturing the savings from the initial room rate quoted to contracted room rate, any meeting room rental reductions, reduced rates for internet access or fitness center, and other concessions by hotel, by hotel chain, and for the entire SMMP!
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