T&E Plus

Launching a Strategic Meetings Management Program

Back in my training and development days at Westinghouse, Creative Productions, Dean Witter and Coopers & Lybrand, I managed and planned meetings independent of any organization-wide SMMP initiative. In fact, SMMP was not even a twinkle in anyone’s strategy.  The merger of Coopers & Lybrand and Pricewaterhouse led to a consulting braintrust that created one of the first SMMPs in the industry in 1997.  Honored, grateful and lucky, I led that SMMP for many years before I started the T&E consulting practice at PwC. While some companies such as PwC have advanced-level programs, many organizations and associations are just starting down the SMMP maze.  Reducing meeting spend and risk, and ensuring compliance to regulatory policies are only three of the many reasons to manage meetings and events strategically.

 

As a collaborative effort with Meetings and Conventions Magazine, I will be delivering a four-part, distance learning accredited course on “Launching a Strategic Meetings Management Program” throughout October.  The four-part course offers numerous takeaways for audiences in the U.S. and abroad. Below and attached are the course descriptions.

 

Week 1:  Plotting SMMP Strategy, October 6, 2010; 2:00-3:00 p.m. EDT

Review the key components of a Strategic Meetings Management Program, understand the benefits of the initiative and learn how to present the idea to top management and key stakeholders.  Among takeaways is an extensive template participants can use for building a professional business case.

 

Week 2:  Establishing an SMM Policy, October 13, 2010;  2:00-3:00 p.m. EDT

A policy governing Strategic Meetings Management is much deeper than a traditional meetings policy.  Key components include risk management, security, contracting and compliance.  Participants will receive a policy template that can be tailored to individual needs.

 

Week 3:  Implementing SMMP; October 20, 2010:  2:00-3:00 p.m. EDT

Putting the plan in action involves targeted marketing, communications and change management strategies.  Learn to develop an action plan for rolling out the results of your efforts.  Among takeaways is a suggested timeline.

 

Week 4:  Measuring the Success of your SMMP, October 27, 2010; 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. EDT

Benchmarking, measuring and reporting are critical steps in measuring the effectiveness of SMM.  Learn the key tools and techniques to use to demonstrate hard and soft dollar value and strive for continual improvement.

 

The series in October will be $49.95 for all four sessions.  To register, go to http://www.mcmag.com/smmpseries

 

Download SMMP courses run by M&C and led by Debi Scholar

Debi Scholar, GLP, CMM, CMP, CTE, CTT

 

Thank you for visiting the T&E Plus Blog on expense management, travel management, business meetings, events, incentives, strategic meetings management, entertainment, virtual meetings, tickets, hotels, airlines, ground transportation plus more...

 

Follow me on Twitter at:  http://twitter.com/debi001or at LinkedIN at http://www.linkedin.com/in/dscholar

 

Debi has the following designations:

·     Wharton Aresty Executive Education/National Business Travel Association (NBTA) Global Leadership Professional (GLP)

·     Meeting Professionals International Certificate in Meetings Management (CMM)

·     Convention Industry Council Certified Meeting Professional (CMP)

·     NBTA Corporate Travel Expert (CTE)

·     Six Sigma Green Belt

·     Chauncey Certified Technical Trainer (CTT)

 

Debi was selected as:

·     Meetings Management  Mover and Shaker by Corporate and Incentive Travel Magazine (2010)

·     Top 20 Changemaker who influenced the meetings management industry by Corporate Meetings and Incentives (2008)

·     Best Meeting Practitioner by Business Travel News (2007)

Travel Agencies find Benefits in Offering Meeting and Event Services

Thousands of travel agencies (leisure and business) scattered all over the world offer travel services but are reluctant to provide groups/meetings service offerings to their clients.   As such, these agencies are missing out on revenue opportunities.  Recently, I spoke with Travel Market Report on the benefits that agencies may experience by offering meeting and event services.

Travel agencies can increase revenue, expand business relationships and improve service by offering meetings, events and incentives to their travel service offerings.  Meetings forge new relationships in an organization. When an agency provides meeting services, it may lead to other prospective business such as helping the organization write a meeting policy, creating a crisis management plan, calculating carbon emissions or instituting virtual meetings.  By adding these services to their catalogue of expertise, an agency can penetrate new business from existing, loyal clients.

 

To read more, go to Travel Market Report, Meetings and Incentives.

http://www.travelmarketreport.com/meetings?articleID=3911&LP=1

 

 

Debi Scholar, CMM, CMP, CTE, CTT

 

Thank you for visiting the T&E Plus Blog on expense management, travel management, business meetings, events, incentives, strategic meetings management, entertainment, virtual meetings, tickets, hotels, airlines, ground transportation plus more...

 

Follow me on Twitter at:  http://twitter.com/debi001or at LinkedIN at http://www.linkedin.com/in/dscholar

 

Debi has the following designations:

·     Wharton Aresty Executive Education/National Business Travel Association (NBTA) Global Leadership Professional (GLP)

·     Meeting Professionals International Certificate in Meetings Management (CMM)

·     Convention Industry Council Certified Meeting Professional (CMP)

·     NBTA Corporate Travel Expert (CTE)

·     Six Sigma Green Belt

·     Chauncey Certified Technical Trainer (CTT)

 

Debi was selected as:

·     Meetings Management  Mover and Shaker by Corporate and Incentive Travel Magazine (2010)

·     Top 20 Changemaker who influenced the meetings management industry by Corporate Meetings and Incentives (2008)

·     Best Meeting Practitioner by Business Travel News (2007)

Find the lowest hotel rates for your transient and group travelers

As the meeting volume increases and we move into hotel RFP season, organizations are looking for ways to ensure that they are receiving the lowest hotel room rates.  Whether static or dynamic rates are used, many organizations want to know the lowest published hotel rate and some organizations use contracts that require the lowest rate be charged to the traveler.  Even some meetings use the lowest transient rate.  In today’s economy, organizations place a high value on knowing that they’re charged the best hotel rate. With technology advancements, gone are the days of searching through every travel website to “check” for lower rates – a task that every travel manager has done in the office, back room or at home. 

 

Recently, a client said to me, “I feel as if I’m always being “taken” on hotel rates. How do I know if I’m getting the lowest rate? Why do web rates always seem to be lower?”   To assist my client, I decided to test RateTiger’s real time technology (RTCorp) which compares the contracted rates with real time posted web rates.  My client agreed to provide a sampling of their contracted rates to RateTiger for comparison purposes. 

 

As a result, some of the client’s hotel rates were 12%-23% higher than the web rates posted.  Recognizing that my client also negotiates free high speed Internet access (“HSIA”) and that the negotiated amenities and savings should be taken into consideration during a comparison, the hotel web rates were still 6%-15% lower than the client’s contracted rates.

 

The benefit of using RTCorp by RateTiger is that the tool benchmarks your contracted hotel rates real-time against the lowest published rates on the web providing you with a tool to confront your suppliers with solid research when these published rates are lower than your contracted rates. This type of benchmarking is valuable, not only during hotel RFP season, but also ongoing for the duration of your contracts with your hotels and can be used pre-trip, or pre-meeting, so that the adjusted rates can be requested from the hotel.

 

Debi Scholar, CMM, CMP, CTE, CTT

 

Thank you for visiting the T&E Plus Blog on expense management, travel management, business meetings, events, incentives, strategic meetings management, entertainment, virtual meetings, tickets, hotels, airlines, ground transportation plus more...

 

Follow me on Twitter at:  http://twitter.com/debi001or at LinkedIN at http://www.linkedin.com/in/dscholar

 

Debi has the following designations:

·     Wharton Aresty Executive Education/National Business Travel Association (NBTA) Global Leadership Professional (GLP)

·     Meeting Professionals International Certificate in Meetings Management (CMM)

·     Convention Industry Council Certified Meeting Professional (CMP)

·     NBTA Corporate Travel Expert (CTE)

·     Six Sigma Green Belt

·     Chauncey Certified Technical Trainer (CTT)

Debi was selected as:

• Meetings Management  Mover and Shaker by Corporate and Incentive Travel Magazine (2010)
• Top 20 Changemaker who influenced the meetings management industry by Corporate Meetings and Incentives (2008)
• Best Meeting Practitioner by Business Travel News (2007)

The Frugal Leader’s Travel and Meeting Policy

An updated T&E Plus rerun and some fun as we move into 4^th of July and the summer travel season ....  enjoy the long weekend.

New Travel, Entertainment and Meeting Policy

1. All travel must be approved by your manager, the manager’s director, the managing director, the operations leader, the shared services vice president, the chief financial officer and the chief executive officer.  Please submit all travel requests four months in advance.
   
   
2. All large and small meetings, events, conferences or other gatherings of 2 or more people must be registered on the portal which is located at the home page.  Click on the link called meetings/events, then click on “register meeting,” then click on “why I want to have this meeting,” then click on “the return on investment” link to ensure your meeting returns value to the company, then click on “provide business case” as to why your meeting is important, then click on the link called, “why Las Vegas cannot be your destination for your meeting,” then click on the link called “how to save money on your meeting,” then fill out the registration page.  If you have any more questions on meetings, please read numbers 9 and 10 below.
   
   
3. All travel must be booked by finding the lowest fare such as using the online booking tool, the airline webfares, the travel agency, your sister’s travel agency, the newspapers ads, or the online travel aggregator sites.  We recognize that this may take you three or more hours, but if you can find a fare that is cheaper, you must take the time to search in order to save money.
   
   
4. Please stay with relatives or friends to reduce your expenses.  While you’re there, please raid their refrigerator to eliminate meal expenses.  If you are traveling to a location without relatives or friends, please make new friends online using Twitter.   If that fails, please retrieve the reusable tentage from the local office.
   
   
5. Laundry expenses are not reimbursable. Please use your relative’s or friend’s washer and dryer.
   
   
6. Ground transportation must be provided by your favorite shoe manufacturer and your feet.  If your journey is more than five miles, please be sure to carry maps of the local bus or subway route with you.  You will not be reimbursed for these expenses because you should be willing to walk as our Health Benefit costs are increasing and you need to lose weight.
   
   
7. Allowable client entertainment includes volunteering, going to the park or taking advantage of free events. 
   
   
8. The T&E corporate card must be used for all reimbursable expenses.  Our company has no reimbursable expenses.   Any accrued points must be turned over to your manager, the manager’s director, the managing director or the chief financial officer so that they may use to buy valuable products, such as soap and toilet paper for our company bathrooms because we have cut all janitorial supplies from our budget.
   
   
9. Internal meetings and events can only be conducted by virtual mediums. The approved virtual mediums include your personal cell phones, your personal computer and webcams.
   
   
10. External business development meetings and events can be held at the local park.  In the case of inclement weather, please use parks with gazebos, canopies or buildings.  If you require client entertainment, please bring a deck of cards.  No gambling is allowed. If you require bug spray, please purchase at your own expense.
    
    
11. All audiovisual and production requirements must be supplied by using flashlights, hand shadows and drawings on the back of the napkin.
    
    
12. All travelers and meeting attendees must bring travel sleep sacks, pillows, blankets and energy bars on all trips because you never know when a volcano will erupt, a storm will ensue, or a crisis will occur.  Dealing with the unexpected increases your tolerance for adverse situations so that you can adapt to our working environment.
    
13. All travelers should go to the local grocery store and eat from their "sample platters" to reduce food expenses.  Meeting planners should plan to have meetings in hotels that host weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs so that meeting attendees can snitch food from other guests in order to reduce food and beverage expenses.

 

Any violations or noncompliance to this policy will be reported by our data metrics, from the ERP, the OBT, the TMC, the EMS, and the SMM technology, that we build, analyze, preview, revise, reproduce, report and validate a few times each day.

Debi Scholar, CMM, CMP, CTE, CTT

Thank you for visiting the T&E Plus Blog on expense management, travel management, business meetings, events, incentives, strategic meetings management, entertainment, virtual meetings, tickets, hotels, airlines, ground transportation plus more...

Follow me on Twitter at:  http://twitter.com/debi001or at LinkedIN at http://www.linkedin.com/in/dscholar

Debi Scholar, GLP, CMM, CMP, CTE, CTT, Six Sigma Green Belt

Thank you for visiting the T&E Plus Blog on expense management, travel management, business meetings, events, incentives, strategic meetings management, entertainment, virtual meetings, tickets, hotels, airlines, ground transportation, T&E policy, plus more...

Debi has the following designations:

·     Wharton Aresty Executive Education/National Business Travel Association (NBTA) Global Leadership Professional (GLP)

·     Meeting Professionals International Certificate in Meetings Management (CMM)

·     Convention Industry Council Certified Meeting Professional (CMP)

·     NBTA Corporate Travel Expert (CTE)

·     Six Sigma Green Belt

·     Chauncey Certified Technical Trainer (CTT)

Debi was selected as:

• Meetings Management  Mover and Shaker by Corporate and Incentive Travel Magazine (2010)
• Top 20 Changemaker who influenced the meetings management industry by Corporate Meetings and Incentives (2008)
• Best Meeting Practitioner by Business Travel News (2007)

  

Follow me on Twitter ...http://www.twitter.com/debischolar  and on LinkedIN at http://www.linkedin.com/in/dscholar