"Tricks and tips" to more cost-effective meetings
By Purchasing Staff -- Purchasing, 1/12/2006 2:00:00 AM
Strategic meeting management programs are growing throughout companies. But, just what are they and how do they benefit companies?
We all heard the tales of lavish parties and corporate "meetings" in exotic locales in the wake of the corporate accounting scandals. As a result, more best practice companies are striving to gain visibility into the meetings spend, and creating controls through online meeting tools. Meeting planning departments are centralizing meeting spend and leveraging preferred suppliers. Thinking more strategically about how your company manages meetings spend can provide some often overlooked savings. One of the best examples is Cisco Systems, which uses the StarCite online tool to plan its meeting and has already realized 16% savings on its meetings spend by using the StarCite centralized sourcing tool and database. Here are some of the tricks and tips from Michelle Snock, manager of global meeting services for Cisco Systems.
Trick 1: Anyone can buy for meetings
Many meetings are organized by administration employees who don’t necessarily know what to ask for. Snock explains that often when a contract arrives, administration doesn’t know what to look at. "They shouldn’t be signing it." Anyone can pick up the phone, plan a meeting and sign a contract, she says, "That’s 38,000 people in our company who can be a meeting planner" Which makes it extremely difficult to get data because it was stuck in different people’s budgets.
Tip 1: Create one channel
Have one centralized meeting group that works hand-in-hand with procurement. Procurement doesn’t want to look at 200,000 meeting contracts, nor do they have the time. A meetings organization can obtain easily accessible advice on legal terminology and contracts. Procurement can look at the bigger picture.
Trick 2: Picking up the phone
If someone wanted to have a meeting in a specific city, Snock would have to call the national sales managers for the various chains in that specific city. “I would get the rates and availability and spend several hours to get results for three hotels.”
Tip 2: Use online technology
Online tools typically offer more options. It may be difficult to pick a hotel vendor in an area that is unfamiliar to the buyer, but online databases like StarCite provides information on each hotel in a desired area. With the tool, the user can pull a specialized list of hotels that meet the requirements. Users can even source suppliers for food and beverage, restaurant providers, airlines and cruise ships through the technology. It consolidates data and has an RFP process within it, which allows the team to electronically request availability. The team sends the RFP electronically and each hotel has 48 hours to respond.
Trick 3: Buying all the works
There was a time when Cisco had no clue what it was spending on meetings. Everyone’s administrative assistant was picking up the phone to buy what was needed. They were paying for it all different ways: credit cards, purchase orders and invoices so there was no way even for a finance division to pull that data together. The bill would be submitted and the company was stuck paying for it.
Tip 3: Create line budget items
"With our process, when someone requests a meeting, we ask them how much they think their budget should be," says Snock. "Nine out of 10 times they have no clue what a meeting costs." By using an online tool, the meeting group can tell its vendors how much it is spending with them. The group prints out a line budget item from the StarCite tool to get approved by the financial analyst and budget owner. This determines if a meeting can’t happen at all, or has to happen locally. It gives the company control by getting visibility up front. "It’s how our purchasing department says, 'That's great. You’re getting approvals up front, so your controls are in place. You’re tracking spend and leveraging suppliers,'" says Snock.
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