As the year moves on, I continue to hear many of my friends and associates refer to the contracting of meetings and events at their companies as the "Wild West". Meaning, there is no sheriff in town to control how meetings are procured and ensure the proper people are signing contracts. The term Wild West comes from the 1800's in the United States when the western part of the country was being settled and this territory was still wild. Many towns did not have anyone to keep control and order from the outlaws who would ride into town and create havoc and mayhem.   As the towns became more established,they realized the benefits of what a sheriff could bring. Therefore, the townsfolk would make a priority of seeking out a sheriff to maintain law and order, which would result in a safer environment, an agreement as to proper behavior, and overall harmony.

I find that these are some of the same benefits that the process and procedure of a Strategic Meetings Management program brings to an organization:

• "safer" contracts that results mitigating risk and bring added value to the organization
• "proper" behavior so that staff and suppliers can abide by the approved process for purchasing and operating meetings and events
• visibility to all meetings and events within the organization so that there is "harmony" in the corporate meeting calendar

If you feel that, you too, have the Wild West of meeting planning in your organization, I implore you to put even minimal process controls in place in order to tame the meeting renegades so that you minimize risk, maximize savings and protect the integrity of the meetings and events at your organization.