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Eight ways companies can save money on meetings and events

August 3, 2010 by Kristi Casey Sanders 3 Comments

Meetings and event expenditures can represent up to 60 percent of a company’s transient business travel costs and 1.5 percent of its revenues, but many companies don’t have a cohesive meeting and event spending strategy. If they did, they could save an average of 10 to 25 percent of that meetings and event spend annually, says a new study from Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) and StarCite.

The study points out that savings come from meetings and event (M&E) policies that enforce compliance, designate preferred suppliers and utilize dedicated technology for online registration and strategic meeting management solutions.

In order to optimize savings and return on investment, CWT recommends companies follow this eight-step approach to developing in-house M&E policies:

  1. Analyze spend and set up a centralized organization to track M&E spend data.
  2. Create a well-defined M&E policy that supports strategic objectives, stipulates precise rules, and defines standard contract terms and processes for planners to follow.
  3. Create an annual M&E budget and events calendar that allows planners to view all company resources, including unused meeting space from cancellations and supplier negotiation information.
  4. Select preferred suppliers and vendors, and use those relationships to leverage outside expertise and drive synergies while reducing costs.
  5. Establish a formal planning and approval process that is enforced company-wide.
  6. Implement efficient attendee registration using a strategic meetings management system that also can track processes, sourcing and spend.
  7. Use a single mode of payment, such as a corporate meeting card, for supplier costs and/or attendees’ reimbursable expenses.
  8. Evaluate M&E performance and policy compliance by using standardized performance indicators to measure satisfaction, savings, supplier performance and compliance.

Filed Under: Financial management, PYM Blog, Travel management Tagged With: Advice & Best Practices, budget, carlson wagonlit travel, meeting advice, meeting planning, save money, strategic meetings management, travel management

About Kristi Casey Sanders

I am Meeting Professionals International's Director of the Thought Leadership and the former VP of Creative/Chief Storyteller of Plan Your Meetings @ MPI. I love exploring how technology can enhance, engage and connect people face-to-face, virtually and remotely.

Since 2003, I have worked to educate, empower and inspire meeting professionals and people just entering the industry.

Engage with me @PYMLive @MPI or @KristiCasey on Twitter, or through Plan Your Meetings and Meeting Professionals International's social media sites.

Plan well & prosper, friends!

Comments

  1. Traci Browne says

    March 16, 2011 at 10:29 AM

    I love all of these. You really dug deep and gave us the not so obvious choices. I can vouch for #7 if it’s save money by saving time.

    I just have the, “How much did we spend on x?” “Hold on, let me find the receipt…I think it’s in my e-mail, oh wait, maybe on my hard drive…let me check the folder…what did I do with it.”

    I like to think of myself as very organized when it comes to my events…but things tend to get a bit messy at the one month to launch mark.

    Reply

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