Meeting Planning Technology

Just returned from ACTE Asia in Singapore, where over 400 business and meetings professionals came to learn and network. What a great conference!

The panel session that I moderated focused on the convergence of transient and meetings spend management and what kind of challenges (and rewards) that means for businesses in the Asia-Pacific region. It was a great success, largely due, I'd say, to the two featured practitioners: Meredith Smith, Travel Manager, APJ for Merck and Aileen London, Senior Manager for Global Meetings Services, APAC, for Oracle.  Both of these women are accomplished professionals, and they freely shared their experiences and knowledge about their respective programs with an audience eager to learn more about how transient and meetings management is approached by both of these companies.

Congratulations go out to Aileen London who won the prestigious 2010 President’s Award from ACTE for her work in developing collaboration and internal support for her program consolidation and cost containment and risk mitigation strategies.  Given how challenging it is to streamline, consolidate and innovate in the Asia-Pacific region, her accomplishments are remarkable and her recognition is well deserved.  To top it off, she is so wonderfully down-to-earth and always such a pleasure to deal with.

I must comment, too, about the gargantuan deluxe host hotel for the conference -- which is now the famous Marina Bay Sands Hotel.  I don't know about you, but my usual experience with large, new convention-type hotels is not very positive. But, in all honesty, given the size of the hotel (more than 2,500 rooms in three separate towers, an adjacent world-class convention and conference center, and the first-ever casino opened in Singapore), the service was terrific.  Although the hotel is massive and impressive, you could still manage to get around relatively quickly. The hotel is part of the Sands Hotel group, and is grander than the deluxe properties you see in Vegas.  My one regret is that I didn’t have time to really explore the hotel property and grounds, but I did get to attend a private reception on the top floor (57 stories high) and walk around the “cruise ship” configured roof top, where the infinity pool seems to drop off the edge of the roof (yikes) and the sights, sounds and smells of Singapore are all around you. Simply beautiful! Someone told me that, in southern Indonesia, on a clear day, you can see the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and I believe it.

I also want to give a shout-out of appreciation to Qantas Airways and express a special thanks to Vice President, North America Sales, Cathie Sych.  Here’s how I would describe Qantas – excellent world-class service.  That’s what I experienced on the ground and in the air from Melbourne to Singapore.  My only regret is that the flight wasn’t longer in order for me to get the comfy in-flight pajamas that are handed out for long-haul flights. Oh well, I have no doubt there'll be a next time - given my crazy travel schedule!
 
In the meantime, I'm looking forward to the ACTE Berlin Global Education Conference from October 3-5, where I will be in a session (T204, Tuesday, Oct. 5th, from 2:45 to 3:45 pm) talking about risk mitigation in SMM. If you're going, please come to this session, as I'll be identifying the critical steps companies should employ to reduce their vulnerability to potential risks, and I'll be touching on:

    * Policy and communication
    * Sourcing and contracting
    * Tools & technologies
    * Managed payment processes
    * Crisis management planning

Hope to see you there!

In a BTN article this month, reporter Michael Baker interviewed our CEO Greg Dukat, and among many revealing and interesting comments, Greg mentioned that we have many customers in vertical industries with regulations and requirements around them – for instance, pharmaceuticals – that have developed SMMPs and are successfully using our technology to keep track of data and abide by those rules.

I bring this up because I recently attended a Meetings.net webinar on compliance -- an issue that's very top-of-mind and critical to the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries -- indeed any business that employs or contracts with Health Care Professionals (HCPs). The webinar was a revelation to me, because, as much as I knew about the various state (a total of 12) and federal reporting regulations around meetings (including the so-called Sunshine Act) involving HCPs, I was bowled over hearing details of the extensive burden of keeping track of and reporting on the required data.

The impact of not abiding to these data reporting rules is astonishing: the government can both pull products off store shelves and, just as damaging, stop buying the products, themselves (for the many government-run healthcare facilities).

No detail is too small to track and record for healthcare meetings. For example, the value of books, flip charts and invitations to attendees. A big spend category is honoraria that are paid to doctors and HCPs for presenting or sitting on panels. A valuable piece of advice given by panelists Angie Duncan, Vice President, Strategic Meetings and Project Management at meeting planning specialists VMS, Inc., and James Vachon, Associate Director, Millenium: The Takeda Oncology Company, was to make sure your communications strategy includes three stakeholders (attendees, vendors and venues) and includes compliance details. For example, on the subject of honoraria, doctors need to be clear on how much they’ll get paid (especially if they customize their participation and come late and leave early), travel restrictions and expense guidelines, expense reimbursement policy and any disclaimers that may apply (some states bar providing food and beverage as well as compensation). Communication should be consistent throughout the event life cycle, too. For example, in the case of attendees, aim for consistency in everything from contracts and “Save the Date” information, to on-site materials.

Other advice that made this a great session ranged from the logistical (providing sign-in sheets to prove HCPs actually attended and which sessions and meals they came to), to the more strategic  (linking up with your company’s legal counsel to regularly keep abreast of state regulations for meetings involving HCPs).  

There is so much great advice and wisdom from these two medical meetings specialists in this webinar (moderated by Sue Pelletier, editor of Medical Meetings magazine), and if you’re managing medical or pharma events, I urge you to see the replay.

Before I go, let me leave you with one key take-away expressed by James Vachon of Takeda: how valuable meetings management technology is in not only planning medical meetings but also tracking data. I’m proud to say that Vachon uses StarCite, and I’m glad to be part of an organization that provides sophisticated tools to make it easier for medical and pharmaceutical companies to abide by these strict state and federal reporting rules.  

Want to read about compliance in action? Check out this case study of Novartis, a pharma company that has scored sky-high compliance on meetings air travel policies.

After a lengthy slump, Americans are meeting overseas once again, according to a new survey by the U.S. Office of Travel and Tourism Industries. That's great news for our global meetings industry, for suppliers, of course, but also for corporate and association buyers looking for international destinations that offer value and cultural richness. The rising numbers also confirm for me that we're finally shaking off the negative public stigma around meetings travel during the worst of the recession. 

So here are the numbers. Survey says: More than 6.4 million U.S. business travelers in 2009 spent about $25 billion on trips outside North America (13% were for meetings). While that number is about 1 million shy from 2008. The better news is that during the first four months of this year, international business travel was up by 1.5% over the same period a year ago.   

Top spots for U.S. visitors last year were Asia (I'm one of those long-haul travelers to the Far East  -- several times over!) to premier destinations like Japan. And China, which just became the world's second-largest economy, surpassing Japan, received nearly half a million business travelers. Wonder how long it will take for China to become the top spot for US business travelers, too? Europe also was a top destination for American business and meetings travelers (more than one-third of us who travel overseas go there every year), and there was a 16% rise in business travel visits to the Middle East last year.

What I found interesting about the report were statistics profiling your average ocean-hopping business and meetings traveler. Here's one little ditty: 73% fly coach class. Having worked for a company that was one of the first to downgrade policy to coach class, the overall savings in the first year was in the millions of dollars; so it’s no wonder more companies and industries (much to the road warrior’s inconvenience) have downgraded to a "coach-only" policy.  It’s also no coincidence that, due to supply and demand, a lot of global airlines have eliminated first class and created a mid-tier class between business and coach -- reducing business-class seats and installing flat bed seats. I find it ironic that airlines created business class because companies would no longer pay for first class, and now the same thing is happening to international business class. A proverbial "Everything old is new again" scenario!  Personally, I think airline revenue management people just like to keep the churn going to maintain job security!

Now that international business and meetings travel is rising again, meetings managers should take great care to ensure that policies on spending in overseas locations are well communicated to each and every attendee. More international travel should also spur you to step up best practices around risk management, for example, making sure your meetings management technology can instantly give you data on where your attendees are -- should an emergency arise and you need to get them home.   

Speaking of international travel, I'm heading to Melbourne, Australia (talk about long-haul!) to the NBTA Australia conference, where I'll be speaking on Strategic Meetings Management: The Last Frontier of Managed Travel Spend.  If you're attending, please come to the session -- August 23, 11:30 am to 12:15 pm. From there I will be heading to Singapore to attend the ACTE Asia-Pacific Education Conference, where I will be moderating a panel on Thursday, August 26, 10:30 am – 11:30 am. The topic: A New Relationship Between Transient Travel and Meetings. It'll feature Aileen London, Senior Manager of Global Meetings Services, APAC, Oracle as well as Meredith Smith, Travel manager - APJ, Merck.  If you happen to be attending either conference, please come to the sessions and I would enjoy an opportunity to meet you!    

Sometimes bright news for the hotel industry doesn't necessarily translate into good news for corporate buyers.

According to a recent article in BTN, the party is just about over for companies negotiating low hotel room rates (due to the recession), as hoteliers cite rising demand and a slowdown in supply growth.  Many hotel companies' second-quarter earnings have come in stronger than expected, and they're warning that buyers should be ready for requests for increases at the bargaining table.

“Buyers should prepare for the most aggressive negotiating posture in three years,” Bjorn Hanson, who is divisional dean of the New York University Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management, said in the article. “In discussions three or four months ago, the thought was there would be a small increase, if any, in rates in 2011. This increased amount of business travel has shifted the balance of power.”

Expect the largest rate increases to come from the upper-upscale and luxury tiers. But in BTN, Hanson predicted that even those higher rates will seem like a good deal to buyers -- because the rates will still be pre-recession...below 2007 levels. 

Based on the news above, this is where I want all buyers to accelerate their risk mitigation activities. It's worth repeating what the robot in the old "LOST IN SPACE" TV show said whenever danger lurked: “Danger, Will Robinson!.” Hotels will likely ramp up their cancellation and attrition clauses due to the increased demand for sleeping rooms and meeting space.  If you haven’t created a standard contract template or at least developed an addendum collaboratively with your legal, contract and procurement teams, you will be at great risk when the balance of power shifts back to the hotel suppliers.

Some good news for meetings buyers, though: rate negotiations will still be more fruitful for buyers in convention cities, such as Las Vegas and Orlando, because meetings demand recovery is still taking shape (although the U.S. Travel Association sees a 7% jump in meeting spend this year, versus a 15% decline last year). The same could be said for Europe's tepid recovery.

This is positive news for hoteliers, who in 2011 will get their first crack at raising rates in a long while. But, as we enter negotiation season, this is also a good time for meetings managers, many of whom are still bound by restrictive budgets, to think more creatively and explore lodging strategies that provide more value for less. For example, it's a good idea to approach new hotels that, under a recent supply streak, have opened in major cities and are eager for business.

This is a key time, too, to rely on meeting planning technology to source for hotels, for example, to broaden search criteria in order to find new, more affordable properties and build up a history of buying leverage with those hotels -- for future negotiations.  In this period of change, ensuring planners are complying to your policies and procedures and making sure that your SMMP is truly centralized and being adhered to is another winning way to keep your buying power at its strongest. 

Scary! I read a story recently that originally appeared in USA Today that international travelers are failing to protect themselves from dangerous, infectious diseases. Ever since then I've been traveling with bottles of hand sanitizer and anti-bacterial wipes bulging out of my jacket pockets. That's a slight exaggeration, but the article really hit home, especially with the H1N1 and SARs emergencies fresh in my mind.

According to the report, based on recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, airlines, cruise ships, immigration officials and local health departments reported significant growth in sick travelers last year, partly due to the H1N1 outbreak. Top illnesses are the flu and gastro problems, but diseases like tuberculosis, chicken pox and shingles and typhoid fever have been widely reported. All told last year, 3,000 cases of potentially infectious diseases were reported.

More significantly, the USA Today story quoted figures that said only 36% of travelers sought medical advice before traveling to areas prevalent with exotic diseases, and less than half traveled to areas with malaria with pills to prevent the disease.

All this raises a few serious points to consider. To protect your business and meetings travelers, you should have policies and procedures in place to:

- Review destinations for information on public health issues and the prevalence of infectious diseases;
- Ensure attendees going to international destinations get vaccinations or, as mentioned above, carry pills to prevent diseases.

Like so many other meetings management best practices, requirements for vaccinations and other rules for traveling to destinations with health hazards need to be well communicated, for instance via emails and your intranet. You should also make sure the rules are incorporated into your meeting planning automation. Perhaps, too, you can find an ally within HR at your company or organization to lend the communication some added authority. 

As our global village gets smaller and smaller, it's in your best interest to help protect your meetings attendees from communicable diseases and from the already seriously sick travelers out there -- whether knowingly or unknowingly -- that are flying the skies and milling about hotels.   

I've been meaning to congratulate CWT Travel Management Institute, the research arm of Carlson Wagonlit Travel, for its study on the state of meetings management -- Meetings and Events: Where Savings Meet Success. StarCite collaborated extensively with CWT on the research, which substantiated what we already know, that companies can save an average 10% to 25% of their Meetings and Events (M&E) spend when they apply best practices to such areas as policy and compliance, sourcing, and processes. 

The report's top savings mark is in line with benchmarking statistics that StarCite has been finding among our customer base, that is, using meetings management automation to make budgeting, planning, sourcing, attendee management and other key meetings tasks more efficient can save you up to 25% of meetings spend.  

The new study says that savings and ROI from meetings come from three key areas:

- Creating or fine-tuning an organization-wide meetings policy and enforcing compliance,
- Sourcing best practices, for example, selecting a limited number of preferred suppliers for accommodations and venues, enforcing usage of preferred suppliers and defining standard contract terms and conditions to help maximize purchasing power and protect an organization from onerous cancellation and attrition fees.
- Technology that optimizes processes such as online registration and aids in strategic meetings management.

I have spent a lot of my time evangelizing around the world via industry panels, conferences and with customer round tables highlighting these very same recommendations. On the issue of policy alone, I've repeatedly offered advice about the importance of at least establishing or updating and mandating policy since this blog started. Remember, you can’t expect people to do what’s right for your company in absence of a policy; so take the guesswork out and give employees M&E policies and/or guidelines or they'll make decisions based on their interpretation of “doing the right thing,” and that may not be what’s good for your company.

What I really like about the new CWT-StarCite survey are the practical steps it offers for maximizing meetings management, including:

- Analyzing spend company-wide to allow firms to estimate total spend and begin taking the reins to set up a centralized meeting management organization,
- Designing a well-defined policy that spells out precise rules, standard contract terms and specific processes,
- Selecting and negotiating with preferred suppliers and meetings services and technology partners -- allowing companies to save and benefit from outside expertise,
- Establishing a formal planning process that defines business objectives and sets a formal approval process -- for consistency and compliance and getting the ultimate ROI,
- Replacing manual processes with automated meetings management tools to perform tasks such as attendee registration and sourcing -- which saves time and labor, improves data quality  and spend management overall,
- Consolidating to a single payment solution, such as a meetings charge card, enabling companies to better analyze data, improve compliance and boost leverage with meetings vendors
- Evaluating the ROI of meetings, including attendee satisfaction, savings, compliance and other metrics.

Oh, one other thing. I must say that I'm a bit discouraged by another finding of the study -- that two-thirds of the more than 200 meeting planners surveyed manage their events in a decentralized way. I say that I'm discouraged, but I still have faith that more and more firms are seeing the need to centralize management of their meetings, especially in today's economic climate -- where every expense is being scrutinized.  The real winner in this common decentralized environment is one company, Microsoft, because that means there’s a ton of Excel spreadsheets that are being manually maintained and utilized often times simultaneously with little to no time to verify accuracy.  Sound frightening and inefficient?  I assure you this is what’s happening globally every day in decentralized programs at companies who conduct meetings and events as part of their business.

Filing from stunning Vancouver, BC, Canada, today!

I'm at MPI's World Education Conference (WEC) 2010, where some new sessions on Strategic Meetings Management -- produced by both MPI and NBTA -- prove how much better collaboration is than conflict. It's just what we need more of in this industry!

Vancouver, fresh from successfully hosting the Winter Olympics, is a world-class gorgeous venue for meetings, events and conferences. The Convention Center on the harbor offers spectacular, enchanting views!

Yesterday, Sunday, I started the conference on my best foot by attending a must-see hot topic session: End-to-End SMMP Meetings Technology Solutions. It was great, and one reason was because it featured our own Louann Cashill. Yes, that's right, I said "our own" because, Louann, who was formerly Meeting Services Manager at Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., is now with StarCite managing strategic projects. And boy, are we lucky to get her! On Sunday's WEC panel, Louann was the only panelist who offered actual experience and wisdom from her recent role leading Toyota's meetings and events program.

Today, I'm moderating a high-powered panel from 3:30 to 5:00 Pacific time that features some of our industry's most influential players, including:

- Bruce Morgan, Sr. VP, Marketing and Business Development, BCD Meetings & Incentives
- Steve O'Malley, General Manager, Maxvantage
- Ann Craig, Director of Strategic Meetings Management at Meetings & Incentives
- Terry Sloan, Director of Business Development of CWT Meetings & Events North America
- Rick Binford, EVP, Event Management Services, Experient Technology

We'll first give an overview SMMP, and then the panelists will break down each of the roadmap components and offer insights as to why companies insource some activities and why they outsource some responsibilities.  I'm betting it will be lively and interactive, so I encourage you to come by if you’re attending MPI. But come early as the demand for seats has been high -- and that's a good problem to have for the MPI organizers. They've just added more seats due to higher RSVP demand for this afternoon's panel, so show up early or you may be turned away. Right now there's more than 100 people scheduled to attend! 

More on my impressions of this year’s WEC in Vancouver, BC, in my next post!

There's a new and very telling survey out about senior meeting managers, their strategies, average salaries and other important data. The story about it is definitely worth checking out on Meetingsnet.com because some of the numbers are eye-openers (at least they were for me).

Take salaries. Nearly one-third of senior meeting managers made $75,000 to $99,999 in 2009, while another 26% earned between $100,000 and $124,999. And as terrible as 2009 was in terms of the fall-off in business travel and meetings, most senior managers were still rewarded for keeping costs in line or finding new ways to strategically manage meetings expenditures: last year more than 61% polled got a salary increase and 83% got a bonus.

But as far as salaries go, what pleasantly surprised me was the finding that, while 37% are responsible for corporate travel and meetings, there was little difference in their compensation and that of those responsible only for meetings (only a difference of about $5,500). I guess this is a classic case of being asked to do more with shrinking budgets -- something that's pretty common place these days across all industries.

The survey, created by Corporate Meetings & Incentives magazine, along with the NBTA Foundation and Financial & Insurance Conference Planners magazine, revealed that just about two-thirds outsource sourcing for hotels and other suppliers, as well as contracting, and more than half farm out both registration and on-site logistics.  I was struck reading those stats because I just got finished swinging through Asia-Pacific, meeting with companies at a series of round table discussions on the value of an SMMP combined with automation (like e-sourcing) that's designed to reduce costs and labor associated with sourcing processes. (Don't take my word for it alone; check out this replay of a webinar on SMMP and technology! It’s just a matter of time before this trend hits the other geographic regions as companies look for new ways to reduce costs to better compete worldwide.  Cultural differences are one thing, but the bottom line is a major change management driver.

Most encouraging about this survey is the finding showing that just over two-thirds either have an SMMP in place now or plan to implement one within the next two years. And the largest percentage, 44%, implemented their SMMPs over three years ago, with the next biggest group, about 21%, saying that they've taken the plunge about a year ago. That shows growing momentum, a hopeful sign. Meanwhile, nearly one-quarter have gone global with their SMMP, and another quarter or so plan to.

I encourage you to check out this survey. If you're a meeting planner and/or travel manager, it could be a great way to benchmark your salary against others (Of course if you’re one of the lucky few whose compensation is above the norm, you may want to just keep that information to yourself!), and the findings also dramatize the incredible progress companies are making in strategically managing their events. 

Thought I'd share just a few more impressions with you about our Global Leadership Symposium that we held last week, attracting companies from all over the world, valued supplier partners and top travel and meetings industry executives.  First, I must say that the Second City comedy troupe, which moderated my panel discussion on meetings management, was a big hit. Indeed, throughout the symposium, their skits were very funny.

I also could see that attendees were really very happy with the session content, especially since they were meant to educate and inform and NOT sell technology. And there are several examples that I could talk about. For one, attendees were very interested in the SMMP Maturation Model (a kind of roadmap for continual improvement and advancement in meetings management), which was developed by the NBTA Foundation and sponsored by StarCite. The model will be officially rolled out this year at the NBTA International Convention & Exposition in Houston, but everyone was happy to hear about what’s next in terms of SMM programs. I also received a lot of great questions and feedback from the Risk Mitigation breakout session that I presented. As I've said before many times in this blog, meetings risk mitigation is a huge priority for today's companies -- both because firms want to protect their bottom lines and their traveling employees.

And lastly, I have to give special kudos to the hotel, the Boca Raton Resort & Club. The service and environment were magical and very conducive to the meetings, general sessions and hosted meals. None of the invaluable sidebar discussions and networking could've been done effectively nor replicated virtually. Face-to-face summits like these are so much more than what's on the agenda. It's the casual discussions and side meetings that make the entire experience invaluable.

I'm already looking forward to next year's StarCite GLS. Congratulations to SVP Betty McNulty and her team, as well as SVP Kevin Young and the Marketing team for coordinating and putting together a terrific GLS 2010! In coming posts, I'll provide a link for session downloads. 

This week, I’ll be blogging from Singapore, Melbourne and Sydney. So watch this space to get an idea of what’s happening with meetings management on the other side of the world!

Recently, in Association Meetings magazine, a report of a new survey by the Union of International Associations kind of got my patriotic juices stirred up -- with the Fourth of July fast approaching. In the UIA's meetings statistics report for 2009, it seems that the U.S. was the country that had the greatest number of meetings (those by associations, societies, congresses, conventions and other civic groups -- but not corporate or incentive meetings), at more than 9% of the total, followed by Singapore at 6% and France at 5.5%.

So, I'm happy that the U.S. is pulling in the highest share. Yet, in another part of the survey that listed the top 10 cities for meetings of this kind, I was struck by the information -- or rather, the lack of it.

There was not one top U.S. city mentioned. Singapore was first, followed by Brussels, and in third place was Paris. The rest were European cities, with the exception of Seoul, which was ninth on the list.

I'm sure there's a U.S. city in the top 20, maybe even top 15, but the quick summary of the study didn't offer that information. I'm curious, though, if the U.S., as a country, is the top meetings holder, just where are they taking place? I would have at least expected New York, L.A., or value spots like Las Vegas or Orlando to be on the list.

Anyway, if you are a meetings manager for an association, the great thing about finding out this kind of information is that you can use it to investigate and research  where other groups are going and why? Are they finding great deals that you haven't been able to negotiate? And if your meetings management technology is worth its salt, it should also produce this kind of data for your own organization.

Fingers crossed. Next year I hope to see a U.S. city on that top 10 list.

I read recently that Starwood has developed Sustainable Meeting Practices for its North American properties, and that the hotel chain will extend the program globally next year.

Kudos to my friends at Starwood for establishing these guidelines! In my power buyer days for HP, I had the privilege of serving on Starwood’s Global Corporate Advisory Board for several years, and I've always appreciated Starwood management's drive for excellence and thought leadership.

The hotel company's SMP centers around five components:

- Paperless Meeting Planning
- Sustainable Meeting Services
- Sustainable Food & Beverage Practices
- Impact Assessment Tools
- Socially Conscious Activities

And within those core components there are 18 best practices that will become part of all on-property meetings and events, for example, replacing fresh cut flowers with potted plants, offering sustainable menu choices and using alternatives to bottled water. As part of the program, Starwood even has a new Meeting Impact Report, an online tool that produces a report showing customers the carbon footprint of their event.

I’m really pleased but not surprised (given the corporate demand for green events) that Starwood has developed these meeting guidelines, as I know that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been on Starwood’s roadmap for quite some time now.  You should also know that all of the other major hotel companies have some green initiatives in place and/or their own green roadmaps, and that is all good!

With everyone doing their part no matter how small, it collectively adds up in a big win for our precious environment -- and more importantly -- for future generations!

There's a fascinating new report out by the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, "Hospitality Business Models Confront the Future of Meetings," that discusses how companies are increasingly relying on virtual meetings such as webinars, video technology (such as Cisco's TelePresence technology) and tele-conferencing -- especially in light of the drop in demand during the Great Recession and even from recent events like the Icelandic volcano eruptions.

I should tell you upfront that both the paper's authors are from Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group; Indeed, the consulting group produced the paper. The paper contains a font of data and statistics that clearly shows that both companies and hotels are embracing meetings automation. For example, it quotes Wainhouse Research from 2009 that says 76% of corporations polled are using room and executive videoconferencing now, with another 8% set to deploy it within a year; and 50% are using webcams with PC software, with another 18% planning to use it by 2010. 

Since installing its TelePresence system more than three years ago, Cisco has saved nearly half a billion dollars in travel and registered more than $150 million in productivity gains. On the eco front, the company cut greenhouse gas emissions by 225,000 metric tons. "Coupled with policy changes on internal travel, communication and collaboration technologies enabled Cisco to reduce travel expenses from $750 million in fiscal year 2008 to $240 million in fiscal year 2009," says the paper.

Interesting, too, is the discussion around hotels increasingly recognizing the value of virtual meetings, in the form of TelePresence as a Service (TPaaS). For example, Starwood, Marriott, Taj Hotels and others are installing equipment in their properties -- sometimes in partnership with corporate clients -- to be able to take advantage of current and future demand.

But if there was one overriding thing that struck out at me from the Cornell paper, it was the question: "But what if technology-based meetings are deemed enduring substitutes for business travel? It is hard to believe that companies will be willing to surrender cost savings when viable alternatives have emerged to preserve them."  

As I've said before in this blog, you may see this happen for certain types of events, perhaps a company's internal training sessions. But not all. Indeed, even the Cornell paper says that "not all meetings can be held remotely, and face-to-face meetings will certainly endure."

There can be no holding back the march of time and advances in technology, including virtual meetings, but nothing replaces the experience of face-to-face meetings, especially for complex negotiations with clients, finalizing sales agreements, recruiting for executive positions and building relationships with key customers or prospects (as the paper duly notes).

Yet, I don't need a whitepaper to tell me that; that's the truth...and I've experienced it.

Let's talk about social media. You've only to look at the astounding success of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter to know how businesses are growing -- and in some cases being challenged to change -- through the use of social media. Facebook "friends," those connected via Linkedin and the legions of people who "tweet" daily are communicating, advertising, exchanging opinions (in many cases about goods and services, such as hotels), establishing new supplier relationships and customers and meeting new business partners.  (Yes, and those of you who have “friended” me in Facebook know that I love to relieve stress by playing Farmville.)

It used to be that you had to get on a plane or at least set up a conference call to go and meet buyers or suppliers and transact a deal. And frankly, while that was good for the travel industry overall--and still is--many of the tasks associated with meetings sourcing, planning and managing, including social interactions, are done online today. It's just the way of the new relationship economy. Through meta-tags, SEO-friendly keywords and intelligently matching member interests, communities publish important industry and brand information on a one-to-one basis directly to members.

I'm proud to say that now our company has a new social network expressly for the meetings industry -- the StarCite Online Community. It's powered by i-Meet (a worldwide online community for the meetings and event industry), and the network will provide StarCite users (on both the buyer and supplier side) meaningful content and access to our technology and search engine. The social part of the Online Community will come in the form of "hot spots," where users can gather in hosted public or private virtual forums to discuss industry issues and concerns.

From creating this blog, I've certainly learned the value of establishing new relationships and business opportunities with social media tools. And there will be ways to link to and create new blogs via the new Community, as well as establish relationships via "friending" and "following" suppliers.

From a strategic point of view, I'm really excited about this development because I think it's going to give meetings managers across the globe new, more powerful ways to exchange best practices, learn more from each other and improve the effectiveness of their meetings programs. In its most simple way, a professional social network for both meetings suppliers and buyers is like a 24/7 conference call.  While your social media use needs to be be carefully managed as part of your overall SMMP program, social media is not going away any time soon. After all, it's always on for creating good business opportunities...sharing information...and making new or improving existing relationships!  And as millions will attest (including me), there’s nothing wrong with staying connected with friends and loved ones.

Having been privileged to win a prized spot on employee incentive trips several times during my career, I can honestly attest to the effectiveness of the whole incentive trip concept.  It's often easy to see the effects of incentive trips on hard-working employees.  First of all the “high” that an employee gets from being singled out and recognized by their company’s senior leadership is pretty hard to beat.  The motivation to do better and try to get recognized each year goes through the roof.  Is there any doubt that top performers who go on an incentive trip come back and continue to flourish and do better?

But, on another level, quantifying the economic effects of an incentive trip can often be hard. That is, until now.

A new white paper by the Incentive Research Foundation (IRF) details results from an economic impact study that shows the powerful influence--in dollars and cents--that incentive trips have on local economies. According to a story on MeetingsNet, the IRF interviewed a single company with several thousand employees that has had its incentive program in place for nearly 20 years. Plus, it talked with service providers such as site selection pros, destination management companies, hotels, airlines, and ground transportation firms involved in that company's meetings.

Turns out, according to this new paper, that you can estimate the economic impact of an incentive meeting -- combining actual spend with a multiplier typically ranging from 1.3 to 1.7. So, if your company is spending $1 million at its destination, there's an additional $300,000 to $700,000 in income from that investment that meetings service providers and their employees earn, bank or spend.  

In this blog, I've often talked about the importance of measuring and reporting (to senior execs) the ROI of meetings, and how strategic meetings management technology can simplify that task for you via good reporting tools. But the IRF's whitepaper statistics are particularly welcome on the subject of incentive meetings, as this type of event has been the target of so much criticism in the media and government as somehow being "wasteful."

Well, it’s time to stand up and push back vigorously on that argument.

The study also showed that well-rewarded employees performed better and remained loyally employed with their companies versus their peers. (More than half of those who attended the study company's trips had top performance ratings and tenure of four years or higher, for example).  

I absolutely love the idea of travel, meetings and procurement managers having yet another statistical resource to prove the value -- not just to employees but also to the industry -- of their incentive meetings. Thank you, IRF!

Oh, and I want to congratulate my fellow winners of the Constellation Award incentive trip at StarCite.  Now you know we walk the talk of the industry that we're proud to be part of. Thank you, StarCite senior leadership, for the upcoming top-performers incentive trip to Bermuda! We're motivated to do more and thrilled.

Consistent with other indicators and reports, the numbers that have come out of the new American Express/CFO Research Global Business & Spending Monitor indicate that business (granted it’s the “new normal”) is rebounding. The survey of 479 senior finance executives from the U.S., Europe, Canada, Mexico, Asia, and Australia, show that they're upbeat about economic growth. And better yet, many are planning to increase spending in areas that will support revenue growth -- like meetings.

For example, a majority (57%) say they'll maintain or increase business travel spending versus 2009. And here are some more details that point to a meetings renaissance:

- 27% plan to loosen restrictions put in place on travel to meet with new clients or for business development;
- 34% of respondents reported that they'll restrict travel for staff meetings or internal business. While that's a pretty big chunk, it's actually much-improved from the
81% who indicated they'd restrict travel for such meetings in 2009;
- only 35% say they plan to limit or cut travel to conferences and events; compare that to the 79% who clamped down on conferences in 2009.

But what I also liked about Amex's new survey was the clear evidence, that, in spite of plans to move forward on meeting spend, senior finance executives are trained on staying fiscally responsible -- even as the economy improves. In fact, a large majority, (85%), expect that over the long term their companies will focus closely on cost control.  

I'm sure that CFOs who took part in Amex's survey are thinking on a much wider scale than meetings and events when they're talking about maintaining management disciplines born during the recession. But some of the same strategies that they mentioned are -- more and more -- now routinely being applied to meeting planning as part of a good strategic meetings management program (SMMP).  For example, it's more important than ever that meeting managers show senior executives ROI for events. I hear this everyday from clients and prospective accounts -- especially since the NBTA study quantified that for every $1 spent on business travel the return is $15. What does the Amex poll say about measuring ROI? More than two-thirds (69%) say that, over the next two years, project and investment ROI requirements will stay in place.

Further, I know that companies are increasingly adopting SMMP automation to holistically save on expenditures across the meetings spectrum, for example, from budgeting and planning to sourcing, attendee management, registration, payment and data analysis.  Similarly, in the Amex survey, senior executives are eying process improvements, such as 44% who say they'll investment more by upgrading technology systems; and 42% will invest more to improve administrative processes such as finance, accounts payable, and procurement.

The Amex survey provides new evidence that businesses recognize the power of meetings and they want to increase spend on events, but it also shows how companies globally have matured when it comes to managing their business and costs. And that's always a good thing.

Being out on the road so much, meeting with corporate travel and meeting managers, and procurement executives, I never doubt what they tell me: that procurement departments are actively adding new levels of discipline to corporate meeting planning and management.

This is a trend that's long been building (Speaking from personal experience, before joining StarCite, I was a senior procurement manager with Hewlett-Packard's Global Travel & Meetings Team,where I helped negotiate worldwide purchasing and supplier strategies.). And every day I speak with more and more procurement folks who are making meetings management more strategic. Like travel and meetings managers, they're trying to adhere to corporate-wide, cost-containment directives from senior executives to get meetings in shape and within budget. They're trying to bring more transparency of meetings and event spend, and then report on it to senior leadership.

That's why I'm eager to talk about the the contributions that today's procurement executives are making at the latest Regional Chief Procurement Officer Leadership Summits -- in Chicago on May 6th and in San Francisco on May 20th. (StarCite and the Aberdeen Group are co-hosting this summit series). The keynote speaker in Chicago is Gregg Brandyberry, CEO, Wildfire Commerce (former CPO of GlaxoSmithKline) and the keynote speaker in San Francisco is Ron Carcamo, CPO at Yahoo!

What goes on at these summits? They offer:

• Leading research on operational excellence within procurement
• Best practices in supply management strategy, processes, and execution (including strategic meetings management)  
• Unique opportunities for collaboration with other procurement leaders to address critical components of procurement and global supply management
• Recommendations from best-in-class procurement organizations that will immediately improve how you procure and manage meetings.

What I love about them is that they're very intimate gatherings with a small executive-level audience that encourages people to share their knowledge and experiences about procurement best practices.

If you're a procurement executive in a leadership position, I invite you to come and discuss global supply management strategies -- including for meetings and events -- and how to use them to bring more value and profitability to your organization.  I hope to see you there!

Show ROI...build a business case for meetings...work with procurement departments...apply strategic meetings management best practices.

These aren't just what many corporate meeting buyers today are voluntarily doing to build and maintain good strategic meetings management programs (SMMPs). Many of them are now expected to practice these important tactics and strategies.

I see and hear about it daily with the meetings professionals I talk with at corporations and other organizations. To senior executives, these are not new concepts anymore; it's getting more and more common that higher-ups not only understand how these best practices benefit the company, but, once CEOs and others are on board, they expect these practices to be part of the "new normal."

But I did read with interest a Successful Meetings story describing how meetings professionals who gathered recently at an MPI event are adapting to this new, more professional environment we're in. For instance, Deloitte director Margaret Moynihan, who manages her firm's meetings, says her company is now training planners to become procurement specialists. Meanwhile, Angie Pfeifer, assistant vice president of corporate meetings at Investors Group Financial Services, said her firm's procurement department is helping by developing business cases for meetings and building more efficient processes.

And again, as I've said many times in this blog, good communication goes a long way in proving the worth of a meetings program -- even during the roughest times. In the Successful Meetings story, Pfeifer said her team has been able to educate senior management about how meetings contribute to the bottom line, preventing drastic cuts in events at her firm.

Bravo to these strategic-thinking meetings managers and planners.  Perhaps the best of the article comes in a quote from former MPI chairwoman and independent planner Terri Breining, CMP, CMM, also a good friend of mine, about why meeting planning and management has morphed into its more strategic state. "This is business," she said, during an educational session at the MPI meeting on calculating and communicating meetings ROI. "It's not meeting-planning lingo. This is business and this is the language that we need to speak."  

To Terri’s point, we ALL need to be speaking this language until it’s commonplace in corporate America and the rest of world commerce.

Eyjafjallajökull.

No, the above phrase isn't the result of a typo or a disguised version of cussing in print.  It's the Icelandic subglacial volcano that has spewed a huge cloud of traveling ash into the sky and disrupted air travel in the transatlantic flight corridor.

As I write this, the cloud, mostly drifting eastward across Northern Europe, is grounding meetings travelers and forcing them to find alternate means of transportation -- on land and sea -- sometimes just to get at least partially way home. Monday's Wall Street Journal reported that companies like Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. had to cancel its board meeting, as most executives were affected by the volcanic ash and couldn't fly. Meanwhile, some who attended oil company BP PLC's board meeting in London last week were now stranded
and looking for ways to get home.

While I've never had the opportunity to talk about a volcano before in this blog (although being a former resident of Hawaii, I was accustomed to living in proximity of live and active volcanoes on the Big Island), I have written about how global situations, such as natural disasters, terrorist incidents, accidents and such make it imperative for meetings managers to be able to quickly identify where their companies' attendees are at any given moment. Technology, such as attendee management solutions (as part of an overall end-to-end SMM system), is enormously helpful for quickly harvesting data on the whereabouts of meetings attendees.

But also, not to be overlooked, is developing strategies with your travel management company (TMC) and preferred suppliers to aid meetings travelers should a disaster suddenly strike. You might discuss agreements that spell out such things as:  

- what kind of preferred services suppliers can extend to your company's stranded travelers, for example, extending hotel room reservations and rates for a few days (until planes are flying again), procuring and arranging rental cars, etc.
- what kind of proactive procedures should TMCs take on behalf of your travelers when things first start to go wrong, for instance, booking alternate forms of transportation such as ferries and trains.

While nature must take its course, especially when it comes to a violent volcano, do you want your meetings attendees sleeping on top of their luggage in airport terminals? Or can you plan ahead strategically to provide more help and care -- and possibly prevention -- in times of emergencies?  

This latest demonstration of unexpected travel disruption is a wake-up call and reminder that having comprehensive information on the whereabouts of your travelers is not a nice thing to have...but a must.

Are you seeking more information on your return on investment (ROI) for meetings these days? With budgets continually under pressure, many of the companies that I meet with daily tell me they're making decisions about meetings based on ROI metrics of events, and that it's not just about getting the most favorable rates anymore. This has been a common theme since even before the Great Recession began.

Now, however, a new survey confirms this trend. A poll of planners attending the 10th Annual HSMAI Affordable Meetings Mid-America Conference & Exposition in Chicago this week, says that nearly half (49%) "feel increased pressure to show metrics/statistics that attest to the success of events," a release from the organization says.

So just what are the meetings ROI measurements that companies these days want to see? According to the survey, top metrics most often requested are:

- event evaluations and satisfaction surveys
- net revenue
- attendance size
- room night count
- sponsorships
- ability to stay within budget
- rate of repeat attendance
- level of responsiveness to client needs
- and increased service per attendee for each dollar spent.

These are all great metrics and can really help you, as a meetings manager, make more informed decisions about the worth of some types of events, whether they should be expanded or, on the other hand,  discontinued and replaced with an alternative such as web conferencing. ROI stats are also helpful to have handy when communicating SMMP milestones to senior executives.

And I was very encouraged to see that, at least in this survey, meeting planners are using technology to plan and budget events: 84% said that they "rely" on technology such as online registration tools, social networking, e-sourcing, e-mail blasts, marketing and blogs as business resources.

Want to learn more about measuring ROI and what to do with those numbers once you've found them? Check out the replay of this recorded StarCite webinar!

This past weekend, I was shocked and saddened to read the news about the tragic plane crash that killed Poland's president Lech Kaczynski and 95 others, including his wife, the entire high command of the country's armed forces, top cabinet members such as the central bank governor and even the main opposition party leader. It seems incomprehensible that so many top officials could be gone in an instant...an unbelievable loss.

But it reminded me that, while we know that there are many companies who don’t have a separate meetings policy, I'm willing to bet that there are even more who don't have a separate policy dictating limitations on the number of executives and department staff traveling together to attend a meeting and/or event. (Many wrongly assume that the corporate transient policy covers meetings and events.)

In the wake of this stunning loss, this is perhaps the best time to consider how your organization can protect itself against this kind of tragedy. Consider these points:  

- If you have a meetings policy, does it spell out a limitation of the number of executives and/or attendees allowed on a single flight?
- If there is no meetings policy, does your policy on corporate transient travel outline the maximum number of executives and same-department employees who can travel together to avoid catastrophic effects to your company’s leadership and intellectual property?
- In fact, most companies usually default to the transient travel policy when it comes to limitations on executives and staff traveling together. But that policy is often ignored when it comes to meetings and large scale events. To protect your traveling employees and stay within policy, make sure that your meetings travelers are booking centrally via a single travel management company (TMC) or a self-booking tool linked to your meetings registration site. That will ensure they're registered for travel to a single meeting or event. Then, if too many employees are traveling to the same event, your meeting planners will be better able to spot the policy infraction.
- Seek assistance from your TMC and/or Event Management agency on the front line to ensure that policy is being enforced and that the travel whereabouts of all attendees and executives are accounted for.
- If you use meeting management technology, use your attendee management tool to quickly gather information on the whereabouts of attendees at any given moment.  

No nation or organization should have to go through the tragedy of losing so many of its leaders in a terrible instant. As a meetings manager, you can play a big part in helping ensure that this doesn't happen to your company.  To ignore this would not only have a deadly impact to business continuity, but it could also be fatal for a company’s economic livelihood.