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The material in this blog post is taken from August Edition of the MPI One+ magazine. The article is written by Dalia Fahmy. Click Here for the full article. Strategic Meetings Management (SMM) is the new thing in our industry but for those that have been in this industry, SMM has been around a long time. You may have heard of Meetings Consolidation or Meetings program or the classic,"This big thing out there that is supposed to bring all of our business travel and meetings spend together and magically tell Management where all of our money is going". I like that one the best because it is very descriptive and more true than these big fancy words that are coming out the industry today. --- Straight from the Article ---I have highlighted the areas that Meeting Evolution is able to provide your organization 1. Meeting Registration - [MEETING EVOLUTION PROVIDES]
A good SMM program requires sponsors to centrally register each event—preferably on a website that’s easily accessible by stakeholders—before any of the planning takes place. This registration not only includes basic details such as time and location, but also a description of targeted delegates, and a list of the meeting’s business objectives. Registration’s main purpose is to get a better picture of enterprise-wide meeting activity, with information that can be used later on to either manage meetings better or analyze the organization’s overall strategy.
2. Approval -[MEETING EVOLUTION PROVIDES]
At small companies, approval might simply involve a signature from an executive with budgetary power and fiduciary responsibility: somebody who does not want to see money wasted. At larger companies, this approval might have more layers, so that by the time an event is presented to the top executive, it has already cleared important hurdles. The biggest of these hurdles, of course, should be whether the meeting is even necessary.
“Just because you have the budget doesn’t mean you need to have the meeting,” Bondurant said.
3. Sourcing and Procurement -[MEETING EVOLUTION PROVIDES]
This step defines who can buy goods and services and who can sign contracts on behalf of the company. Here, organizations should also define their preferred suppliers, and consolidate the list of vendors—including outside meeting planning companies—to allow for better negotiating leverage. Experts recommend using automated RFPs and the organization’s own contracts instead of those supplied by vendors whenever possible.
4. Planning and Execution - [MEETING EVOLUTION PROVIDES, M.E. allows the meeting planners to create their own Banquet Event Orders(BEO's)] Here, organizations should answer any questions that come up when meetings are being put together, from who is allowed to plan and execute meetings to how the logo may be used on invitations. Bondurant recommends regularly training all those who may be involved in planning and executing meetings, through seminars and handbooks. Often, this step involves transferring institutional knowledge from the meetings department—all air travel should be bought from a certain airline, for example—to the rest of the organization. “It’s about setting expectations and making sure that people know what they can and can’t do,” Bondurant said. 5. Payment and Expense Reconciliation
This step aims to centralize and standardize the way invoices are paid and expenses reconciled. Lack of standardization often leads to chaos at companies, with some taking a year to settle their bills, says Peter Matthews, CMM, a technology expert and principal of Meetings Analytics. He says that’s a problem for big events, pointing out that the more time passes between an event and the payment, the more memories fade and the lower the opportunity to adjust a bill in the organization’s favor, in case discounts were forgotten or errors were made. Payment and expense reconciliation policies are crucial SMM components that should be sponsored by the finance and audit departments if possible, which can help ensure that everyone follows the rules. 6. Data Analysis and Reporting -[MEETING EVOLUTION PROVIDES] All the other steps of SMM would be futile without the proper data analysis and reporting to show the true output and business results from the meeting. After all, data allows organizations to better understand their existing meetings landscape, to identify their strengths and weaknesses and to set goals. But the quality of the analysis is only as good as data fed into the system. That’s why organizations must be vigilant. “You have to scrub that data constantly,” Bondurant said. “You have to make sure people are putting in the right data and putting them in correctly.” On the back end, it’s crucial that data are then put to good use. Meeting planners should communicate the results of their work to higher-ups, but should also use data to propose changes and potentially enhance ROI. This is the most critical step in the SMM process and will impact future use of the system. “Instead of just reporting data and saying, ‘Here’s what we did,’ you should be saying, ‘Here’s what we did, and here’s how we’ll improve it next year,” Matthews said. --- Straight from the Article --- Contact me today to see how Meeting Evolution can help your company use business intelligence to manage your meetings strategically. Rob Wilson
President
Meeting Evolution
913-897-8234
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