T&E Plus

Creating a Virtual Meetings and Events Strategy

By definition, a virtual meeting or event provides for live or archived communications among small to large and local to global attendees. Virtual meetings and events, a critical component to a strategic meetings management (SMM) strategy, expand organizations’ options to communicate and offer an alternative method to deliver a meeting.

Yet, many organizations do not understand the different tiers of virtual meetings, the ROI metrics that should be captured, or the roles and responsibilities of the virtual meeting planner.  The attached whitepaper may help you. 

Download Creating a Virtual and Meeting Event Strategy by Debi Scholar

A BIG THANK YOU to all of the meetings and travel leaders who continue to support me through the T&E blog, LinkedIn groups, client engagements and most important, your friendship.

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...

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

•           Author, Strategic Meetings Management: The Strategy Quick Reference Guide (2011)
•           Meetings Management Mover and Shaker as selected 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 as selected by Business Travel News (2007)

*Debi is proud to be a regular contributor to Business Travel Executive Magazine.
*Debi is proud to be one of only seven 2011 Editorial Board members for Hotel Business Review athttp://www.hotelexecutive.com/ for Conferences & Meetings.
*Debi created two LinkedIn groups (GBTA SMM and T&E Plus) that now claim over 2,000 worldwide members combined.
*Debi is proud that this blog has received almost 24,000 views to date. 

Visit me at one of my upcoming speaking engagements; Topics vary per conference
Some sessions include components of SMM Bootcamp© and/or SMM Challenge© 

December 1 – EMC Venue’s MEET
December 15 – EMC Webinar
January 10 - PCMA
January 11, 12 – MCAF
February – EMC Webinar
February 23-24 - GA MPI
March 1 - VA MPI
March - Meetings Technology
April – EMC Webinar
June – EMC Webinar
August – EMC Webinar
October – EMC Webinar
December – EMC Webinar

 

 

Strategic Meetings Management Presentation

In the past 3 business days, I have sent my generic Strategic Meetings Management presentation to five people.  I'm posting it to my blog so that readers have easy access to it.  Because I have over 500 pages from various SMM presentations, I'm attaching only a handful of my slides if you need to explain SMM to your business leaders. 

Download Strategic Meetings Management Presentation - Debi Scholar

A BIG THANK YOU to all of the meetings and travel leaders who continue to support me through the T&E blog, LinkedIn groups, client engagements and most important, your friendship.

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...

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

•           Author, Strategic Meetings Management: The Strategy Quick Reference Guide (2011)
•           Meetings Management Mover and Shaker as selected 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 as selected by Business Travel News (2007)

*Debi is proud to be a regular contributor to Business Travel Executive Magazine.
*Debi is proud to be one of only seven 2011 Editorial Board members for Hotel Business Review athttp://www.hotelexecutive.com/ for Conferences & Meetings.
*Debi created two LinkedIn groups (GBTA SMM and T&E Plus) that now claim over 2,000 worldwide members combined.
*Debi is proud that this blog has received almost 24,000 views to date. 

Visit me at one of my upcoming speaking engagements; Topics vary per conference
Some sessions include components of SMM Bootcamp© and/or SMM Challenge© 

December 1 – EMC Venue’s MEET
December 15 – EMC Webinar
January 10 - PCMA
January 11, 12 – MCAF
February – EMC Webinar
February 23-24 - GA MPI
March 1 - VA MPI
March - Meetings Technology
April – EMC Webinar
June – EMC Webinar
August – EMC Webinar
October – EMC Webinar
December – EMC Webinar

Strategic Meetings Management Business Plan

It is that time of year again when those who are sitting for their Certificate in Meetings Management designation are looking for help with their business plans.  I've been asked countless times over the last couple of years to share my generic business plan.  I've given it to over a hundred people and parts of it are also incorporated into the SMMC class.  In addition to coaching CMM attendees, I also provide presentations on different variations of the business plan - if you want a presentation to your organization, please contact me. 

It is posted on another website by an industry publication.  Now, you can download it here too. Let me know if you have any questions!  Good luck to those of you who are writing your plans! 

Download Generic Building an SMMP Business Plan v2

Download Business Plan - Case Financials 26 Jan 2011

A BIG THANK YOU to all of the meetings and travel leaders who continue to support me through the T&E blog, LinkedIn groups, client engagements and most important, your friendship.

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...

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

•           Author, Strategic Meetings Management: The Strategy Quick Reference Guide (2011)
•           Meetings Management Mover and Shaker as selected 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 as selected by Business Travel News (2007)

*Debi is proud to be a regular contributor to Business Travel Executive Magazine.
*Debi is proud to be one of only seven 2011 Editorial Board members for Hotel Business Review at http://www.hotelexecutive.com/ for Conferences & Meetings.
*Debi created two LinkedIn groups (GBTA SMM and T&E Plus) that now claim over 2,000 worldwide members combined.
*Debi is proud that this blog has received over 23,000 views to date. 

Visit me at one of my upcoming speaking engagements; Topics vary per conference
Some sessions include components of SMM Bootcamp© and/or SMM Challenge© 

December 1 – EMC Venue’s MEET
December 15 – EMC Webinar
January 10 - PCMA
January 11, 12 – MCAF
February – EMC Webinar
February 23-24 - GA MPI
March 1 - VA MPI
March - Meetings Technology
April – EMC Webinar
June – EMC Webinar
August – EMC Webinar
October – EMC Webinar
December – EMC Webinar

 

Measuring the 7 Types of Meetings

Meetings are defined differently by organizations yet sometimes meetings are not defined at all. Some people differentiate between meetings and events while others use the terms interchangeably. Meetings may be referred to as one or several days in length. Meetings often include numerous events that must be integrated to provide a seamless experience for the attendees. No two meetings or events are alike. 

Whereas a meeting may be a workshop, project team meeting, training session, retreat, or conference, an event may be a client reception, town hall, entertainment event, a team-building activity, a fundraiser, or dinner event. Events are often a few hours to one day in length. Yet, multi-day events may often be the most challenging and offer the greatest return on investment as with the case of planning for a golf invitational that includes high profile clients.  Meetings and events are further defined by the Convention Industry Council and other organizations.

What are the 7 Reasons we have meetings?

1. What is the meeting objective?
2. What is the general purpose of the meeting?
3. What do you hope to accomplish?
4. What is the expected outcome and how will it be measured?
5. Do you require a baseline of information before the meeting/event starts so that you can compare the information to the after-meeting/event results?

If we understand the purpose of the meeting and the expected outcome, then we can plan the meeting with an understanding of the expectations and plan for success.

Meetings or events are generally held to communicate, motivate, educate, celebrate, generate revenue or regenerate the workforce. The following table describes some meeting types, the purpose or goals of the meeting, a question to ask to develop ideas on measurement, and sample measurement ideas. Many organizations require that the meeting sponsor or budget holder be responsible for ensuring that the meeting/event expenses are valid, reasonable and necessary to achieve the desired business objectives.

You may also want to offer virtual meeting options to replace or complement meetings when the objective is to communicate, educate or generate revenue. Whereas, it is more challenging to use virtual technologies to motivate and celebrate.

 

Debi's 7 Reasons why we have Meetings
Meeting Type Examples	Goal or Purpose of the Meeting	Question to ask to understand how to measure the outcome of the meeting or event	Measurement Ideas (not all inclusive)
Business, committee meeting, project meetings, executive meetings, etc.	Communicate	Was the communication used and understood?	Measure the effects of the communication efforts. For example, if a business meeting was held to discuss a new project, the measurement could be the success of the project completion as evaluated by the project sponsor.
Product Launch	Motivate	Did the attendees change or improve behavior through motivation?	Measure the effects of the improved behavior such as the familiarity of the new product or service before and after the meeting.  Later, more measurements could be tracked such as increased sales of the product or service.
Training session	Educate	Did the attendees learn something that would reduce cost or risk, improve productivity or quality, or generate more sales?	Measure the effects of the education, including an increase in productivity after learning the new skill, or an increase in sales after learning about the product or service.
Retreat, incentive type meeting	Celebrate	Did the attendees feel appreciated?	Measure the effects of the perceived value of the celebratory event.  The measurement could be the increase in accomplishments throughout the year or the perceived feeling that the attendees had during the event.
Focus groups, Feedback meetings, Advisory councils	Evaluate	Did the attendees evaluate the service or product as expected and provide the needed feedback?	Measure the depth of the attendee feedback or the level of participation in advisory councils.
Product launches, Sales meetings	Generate revenue	Did the event help generate more revenue?	Measure the effects of the leads generated, resulting sales or revenue generated.
Recruiting activities	Regenerate the workforce through recruiting	Did the organization hire more staff?	Measure the effects of the recruiting and interviewing efforts: the number of subsequent interviews held or the number hired who attended the job fair.
Debi Scholar© 2011.

Be sure to track all of your meetings and events through your meeting management technology system.  If you want any help measuring the effectiveness of your meetings and events, contact me.

A BIG THANK YOU to all of the meetings and travel leaders who continue to support me through the T&E blog, LinkedIn groups, client engagements and most important, your friendship.

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...

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

•           Author, Strategic Meetings Management: The Strategy Quick Reference Guide (2011)
•           Meetings Management Mover and Shaker as selected 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 as selected by Business Travel News (2007)

*Debi is proud to be a regular contributor to Business Travel Executive Magazine.
*Debi is proud to be one of only seven 2011 Editorial Board members for Hotel Business Review at http://www.hotelexecutive.com/ for Conferences & Meetings.
*Debi created two LinkedIn groups (GBTA SMM and T&E Plus) that now claim over 2,000 worldwide members combined.

Visit me at one of my upcoming speaking engagements; Topics vary per conference

Some sessions include components of SMM Bootcamp© and/or SMM Challenge© 

December 1 – EMC Venue’s MEET
January 10 - PCMA
January 11, 12 - MCAF
February 23-24 - GA MPI
March 1 - VA MPI
March - Meetings Technology

GBTA Meetings Lab

Meetings Lab – Piccardy, France

Wish I was attending the Meetings Lab by GBTA Europe! Looks like a great event! 

Piccardy, France : The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) holds their Meetings Lab, their new event dedicated to the meetings and event sector being held just outside Paris on November 10-11, 2011 at the Principal Hayley Château Saint-Just.

The event is to be moderated by Chris Elmitt, managing director of Chrystal Interactive with key speakers Torbjörn Erling, Meeting & Travel Manager from Ikea Group and Rob Leslie Jr, global technical architect from Cisco Events  being interviewed in the first session on the approach to effective meetings architecture and design.  Subsequent sessions will see speakers Carole Poillerat, Global Category Leader for Meetings & Events from AstraZeneca and Kevin Iwamoto, Vice President for Enterprise Strategy at Starcite kick-start interactive sessions with unusual and innovative formats.   

Sessions include The Collaborative Distraction, where delegates will work collaboratively on the creation of a model made from packaging waste whilst discussing the building blocks of a successful meetings programme. The Freudian Walk will have delegates divided into small groups to walk in the grounds of the Château to discuss contentious issues such as remuneration and transparency. The final session of the day, Pass the Problem will see delegates pass written issues on measuring the success of meetings programmes to other participants for them to contribute potential solutions, all to the sound of inspiring music. 

The organisers have announced that a number of high level meetings and event professionals from companies such as Accenture, American Express, Coca-Cola, Lanyon, LEO Pharma, Logica, Philips and PwC have already committed to the event, which is being supported by Starcite, Chrystal Interactive and Principal Hayley.  

Paul Tilstone, managing director of GBTA Europe, said, ”This experimental event is attracting individuals who have a real passion for innovation and enjoy the opportunity to try something new in the Meetings & Events space.  This type of event is at the heart of GBTA’s approach to the sector, challenging and exploring the issues and methods of management we use.”  

Full event details and registration can be found at http://www.gbtaeurope.org/go/events/meetings_lab.html

 

Capture Regulatory Compliance Data in Meetings and Events

We discussed the importance of developing a compliance strategy ( Develop a Compliance Strategy ) in the last article; now let's list the data elements that you may need to report to verify your meeting/event compliance requirements. 

If you are using a Strategic Meetings Management (SMM) technology that has all of the functionality listed in this article ( SMM Technology Functionality), then there is a good chance your data element fields will be available to capture the information needed. If, however, you are not using an SMM technology, you should be capturing your meetings data using this spreadsheet (download below) or a database that includes the headings in this linked document. I do not support manual data entry such as using an Excel spreadsheet for thorough meetings management data intelligence, but we've all been there at one point and many of my clients still use databases and spreadsheets. Yet, it is important to find a full-functionality meeting management technology that is well-suited to track and report many, if not all, of your reporting requirements.

 Download The MASTER spreadsheet of meetings

In addition to what is listed in your SMM technology or the Excel spreadsheet, more data should be captured for pharmaceutical, medical device, and financial services industries; the most rigorous data collection being in pharmaceutical and medical devices.  

Whereas pharmaceutical and medical device companies may capture more thorough data for meetings that include Healthcare Providers (HCP), financial companies may capture more thorough data from government officials, representatives of a government entity or fund, and media representatives. Even though I have used the list of data collection elements below for clients, I encountered some gaps and appreciate StarCite's input and guidance that I received last week.

 
Debi's list of PhRMA (and Financial Services) compliance data gathering requirements

Pharmaceuticals, medical devices and other organizations may be required to comply with a variety of reporting requirements.  Often, multiple systems are used to collect data in order to produce reports.  Each HCP is uniquely identified to aggregate all payments and transfers of value to a single individual for reporting purposes.  Below is a sampling of data requirements that may be expected as a standard functionality of meeting management technologies.

Meeting Information
Unique identifier of the meeting/event
Name of the meeting/event
Description of the meeting/event
Start date
End date
Meeting type (may be one or two levels of types, e.g. business unit, type of meeting, customer event, promotional programs, etc)
Total number of attendees
Number of Heathcare Provider (HCP) attendees (or government officials, representatives of funds, etc.)
Number of non-HCP (or non-government officials) attendees
Number of (organization’s) employee attendees

Meeting Location Information
Unique identifier of the meeting/event location
Name of the meeting location
Fields for the meeting location (address, city, state, region, postal codes, country, etc.)

Attendee Information – Note that every place it says "HCP" for Healthcare Provider, you could replace it with the language government officials for the financial services market)
Unique identifier of the HCP
Last name of the HCP
First name of the HCP
Middle name or initial of the HCP
Suffix of the HCP
Professional designation of the HCP (may be a drop down for consistency purposes)
State of Licensure
State License Number
National Provider Identifier
Medical Education Number
Additional custom field(s)
Type of address supplied
Unique identifier of the address supplied
Address line 1 of the HCP
Address line 2 of the HCP
City of the HCP
State of the HCP
Postal code of the HCP

Health Care Organization Information
Unique identifier of the HCO
Tax ID of the HCO
Hospital identification number
HCO type
Name of the HCO
Alternate name of the HCO
Unique identifier of the address of the HCO
Type of address supplied (may be a drop down)
Address line 1 of the HCO
Address line 2 of the HCO
City of the HCO
State of the HCO
Postal code of the HCO
Country of the HCO

Product Information
Unique identifier of the product
Product group name or product name
The percentage of spend to allocate to this product
Product indication

Expense Information
Unique identifier of the transaction
Type code of the spend (expense category)
Secondary purpose of the spend used to further clarify the purpose of the spend
Date of payment or date returned funds were received
Amount of payment (in U.S. Dollars)

Education item / Give Away Information
Unique identifier for non-product item
Name or description of the non-product item
Type code of the non-product item
Retail value of the non-product item
Quantity of the item given

Source of Spend
Unique identifier of the source
Identification of the type of spend data
Global ID of the (organization) employee who entered the data for this transaction
Unique identifier of the vendor

If you need help selecting a technology, collecting your data, or developing your compliance strategy, please contact me.

A BIG THANK YOU to all of the meetings and travel leaders who continue to support me through the T&E blog, LinkedIn groups, client engagements and most important, your friendship.

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...

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

•           Author, Strategic Meetings Management: The Strategy Quick Reference Guide (2011)
•           Meetings Management Mover and Shaker as selected 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 as selected by Business Travel News (2007)

*Debi is proud to be a regular contributor to Business Travel Executive Magazine.
*Debi is proud to be one of only seven 2011 Editorial Board members for Hotel Business Review at http://www.hotelexecutive.com/ for Conferences & Meetings.
*Debi created two LinkedIn groups (GBTA SMM and T&E Plus) that now claim over 2,000 worldwide members combined.

Visit me at one of my upcoming speaking engagements; Topics vary per conference

Some sessions include components of SMM Bootcamp© and/or SMM Challenge© 

November 9 – NJBTA and ISM joint meeting
December 1 – EMC Venue’s MEET
January – PCMA
March 1 – VA MPI
March – Meetings Technology Expo

Develop a Compliance Strategy

Travel, meeting and expense policies that are well-defined and frequently communicated provide a robust foundation for adherence to legal and regulatory compliance requirements. Compliance in travel, meetings and expense management is primarily itemized into a) policy compliance and b) legal and regulatory compliance. Before an organization can monitor and manage compliance, it must identity the proactive behaviors and processes, and communicate the expectations preemptively before the behavior or process occurs. 

Consider these conundrums: 

• A client wants to ensure that senior vice presidents or leaders with titles above that level sign all contracts. Yet, the reluctant procurement leaders prefer not to mandate their meeting policy nor communicate it thoroughly because these activities may deter employee morale.
  
  
• A client needs to monitor travel costs and identify traveler whereabouts. Yet, the leaders allow unrestrained travel bookings through unmonitored processes because the leaders do not want to dissuade creativity through imaginary boundaries.

Dichotomy set aside of these true stories, some organizations do not believe that travel and meetings should be compliance-driven as part of its responsibility to maintain financial controls and manage risks. Curiously, leaders of cash cow organizations tend to abolish the proper management of indirect spend categories that seem to operate fine "as is." 

For those leaders and organizations that recognize that T&E spend and meetings requires policies and compliance to maintain financial controls, consider the use of the SCG C6-step© process to develop your compliance strategy:

1.  Identify and Categorize compliance requirements:  What behavior, process, or risk do you want to monitor and manage compliance to? Are there risks that could be exposed without the compliance?  Brainstorm the risk exposure to non-compliance in the SCG© seven risk categories of strategy, reputation, operations, regulatory/legal, information technology, market position, and financial impact.  

2.  Chart and rank compliance requirements:  What level of risk is estimated for each of the identified risks? Is the compliance requirement a high risk with a high likelihood of occurrence? Medium or low risk? Create a risk impact graph to map and rank the risk exposure which will provide you with the roadmap to risk mitigation and compliance plans.  For example, an organization may recognize that there is a high risk and high likelihood that unmanaged meeting contracts do not include the organization's required business terms. Legally, this could affect the outcome of litigation should an incident occur.

3.  Create proactive Controls:  What can be put in place to proactively mitigate risks so that compliance will be achieved?  What policies need to be developed or improved? For example, if standard contracts or addendums include the organization's business terms, put policies and processes in place so that sourcing and contracting activities use the standard contracts or addendums without allowing for misdirected contracts.

4.  Use Change management to drive adoption to policies and processes:  What types of change management, education and communication activities are required to bring awareness to the compliance requirements?  For example, use numerous communications mediums to educate everyone on using the standard contracts or addendums.

5.  Collect data before and after the meeting for thorough reporting:  What types of data intelligence do you have? From what systems or processes?  How can data be collected before non-compliance occurs?  For example, is it possible to obtain forecasts of upcoming meetings and ensure that the standard contract or addendum is used which would reduce risk exposure?  How can data be collected after the meeting occurs?  For example, is it possible to poll suppliers and/or budget holders for meetings that have been held that did not use the standard contract?  Is it possible to use this data to report non-compliance to business leaders? Data intelligence, through metrics, provides reactive policy monitoring such as highlighting the employees who failed to use the online booking tool, spent more than what is deemed "normal" in restaurant expenses, or ignored the lowest airfare.

6.  Determine Consequences for non-compliance:  What will be the consequences for non-compliance?  Are fees imposed for regulatory non-compliance?  For example, if a meeting budget holder does not use the standard contract or addendum, will the issue be escalated?  Are there tiered consequences for repeat offenders? Consequences for non-compliance may include warnings, non-payment of expenses, or termination.  

For example, if an organization wants to:

• Ensure that employees use the preferred travel booking method, then it could communicate these expectations, enforce the travel policy, audit expenses, and impose consequences for non-compliance; and/or
• Limit its spend per day, per person, per meeting, then it could communicate these expectations, enforce the meeting policy, audit meeting spend, impose consequences for non-compliance, and add controls to its meeting management technology to alert meeting planners when the costs exceed a predefined amount.

Codes, Codes, Codes…

Selecting suppliers fairly through the use of request for proposals and evaluation scorecards fulfills some of the Sarbanes-Oxley guidelines.  In the pharmaceutical and medical devices industry, additional requirements are necessary so that the organizations abide by the PhRMA or AdvaMed code or other codes based on country requirements. The Physician Payments Sunshine Act reporting requirements will begin soon.

In the financial and insurance industry, additional requirements may be necessary based on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform report and the Consumer Protection Act.  The report came out and recommended that uniform fiduciary standards are appropriate for the industry but they have not been passed yet. However, organizations are preparing by getting their meeting/event strategy, processes, and technology in order now.

If you and your organization need to create, update or audit your compliance strategy, contact me.   Look for the upcoming BTE November article on compliance, with interviews with key leaders, at Business Travel Executive.  For other BTE articles on Strategic Meetings Management, search for "Scholar" in the site-wide search box.

A BIG THANK YOU to all of the meetings and travel leaders who continue to support me through the T&E blog, LinkedIn groups, client engagements and most important, your friendship.

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...

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

•           Author, Strategic Meetings Management: The Strategy Quick Reference Guide (2011)
•           Meetings Management Mover and Shaker as selected 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 as selected by Business Travel News (2007)

*Debi is proud to be a regular contributor to Business Travel Executive Magazine.
*Debi is proud to be one of only seven 2011 Editorial Board members for Hotel Business Review at http://www.hotelexecutive.com/ for Conferences & Meetings.
*Debi created two LinkedIn groups (GBTA SMM and T&E Plus) that now claim over 2,000 worldwide members combined.

Visit me at one of my upcoming speaking engagements; Topics vary per conference

Some sessions include components of SMM Bootcamp© and/or SMM Challenge© 

November 9 – NJBTA and ISM joint meeting
December 1 – EMC Venue’s MEET
January – PCMA
March – Meetings Technology Expo

GBTA announces new Global Meetings Taskforce

Thank you to the Global Business Travel Association for starting the new Global Meetings Taskforce.  Even though many in the industry still have lingering questions, the task force will be a wonderful new endeavor that deserves applause, especially considering that non-U.S. members may be added which will give the new team a broader perspective.
GBTA announces new Global Meetings Taskforce

A new Global Meetings Taskforce communications followed the announcement last week of the elimination of the Groups & Meetings committee. Unless there is transparency and strategic communications, these types of situations pose challenges. For example, questions arise such as how is the task force different than the committee? Will the previous committee members be included in the new task force? If not, why not? Is the task force a temporary or permanent solution? How were the leaders/members chosen--using what criteria?  Why did the announcement come out without the former committee members' knowledge? Is it just a changing of the guards to reorganize and lose dead weight?  Will people from other technology companies be allowed to participate?  Many people still have questions that will be answered in the coming days and weeks.

 If you are going through changes at your organization, consider change management initiatives and a thorough communications plan so that your colleagues, clients, and staff are all on the same page.  If you make changes without key stakeholder involvement and without thorough communications to all the right audiences, it feels like deception and lacks transparency.    

For example, the following table can be used as a simple method to begin planning your communications plan.

In addition, here is a link to the SCG Change Management information:

Download SCG Change Management Matrix 

Last year, I provided 4 webinars to M&C Magazine; attached is an excerpt on communications plans if you would like more information:

Download Communications Plan - extracted from M&C webinar

If you are interested in understanding how to calculate the cost of change, please visit this link:

Cost of Change

Great move GBTA; keep the communications coming.

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...

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

•           Author, Strategic Meetings Management: The Strategy Quick Reference Guide (2011)
•           Meetings Management Mover and Shaker as selected 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 as selected by Business Travel News (2007)

 

*Debi is proud to be a regular contributor to Business Travel Executive Magazine.
*Debi is proud to be one of only seven 2011 Editorial Board members for Hotel Business Review at www.hotelexecutive.com for Conferences & Meetings.

 Visit me at one of my upcoming speaking engagements; Topics vary per conference. Some sessions include components of SMM Bootcamp© and/or SMM Challenge©

November 9 – NJBTA and ISM joint meeting
December 1 – EMC Venue’s MEET
January – PCMA
March – Meetings Technology Expo

The Scholar Consulting Group LLC
Trusted Advisors and Superior Solutions for the Travel and Meetings Market
[email protected]
908-304-4954

Benchmark your Strategic Meetings Management Program:  http://www.smmbenchmark.com 
Purchase the SMM Quick Reference Guide:  http://amzn.to/qoM4dw 

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 (SSGB)
•           Chauncey Certified Technical Trainer (CTT)

Strategic Meetings Management: The History by Debi Scholar

With the GBTA announcement this week that the innovative, thought-leadership Groups & Meetings Committee has dissolved, I had quite a few people ask me if I would consider excerpting the Strategic Meetings Management History chapter of my book which is now available on Amazon and iTunes.  Honored to be a co-chair and participant of that genius group of leaders, I present the SMM History chapter in its entirety in the attached document.

 Download Strategic Meetings Management-The History by Debi Scholar

One paragraph excerpted follows:

Kevin Iwamoto, who worked for Hewlett-Packard as Senior Global Commodity Manager and was finishing up his two-year term as President and CEO of the National Business Travel Association, noticed that travel and procurement managers had begun asking him advice on how to reduce the costs of all travel spend categories, including meetings and events. These curious leaders were becoming responsible for centralizing the travel and meeting expenses yet knew nothing about these indirect spend categories. Kevin could easily provide them with travel expertise, yet he could not find anything about meetings management. Sure, plenty of education existed on how to manage and plan meetings, but nothing about the business of meetings management. As if there were a darkened veil over far-fetched ideas during this era, he too was turned away by industry groups and associations claiming that he was delusional to even think that procurement could ever get involved in meetings management…”It’s too complicated and personal,” they claimed. With that rejection, he vowed to create a group of corporate travel and meeting experts who would create educational materials to guide travel and procurement managers in this new, unchartered territory. Approaching the NBTA Board seemed like an odd choice as NBTA was primarily devoted to business travel, yet why not expand the association’s business travel thought-leadership to include meetings management? After Kevin received support from his NBTA Board, he sought recommendations from industry friends and colleagues as to who should lead the new NBTA Committee. After much deliberation, he asked Tracey Wilt (Manager of Global Travel and Meetings Management at Xerox) and Maddy Caliri (AT&T Travel and Meetings Procurement Leader) to co-chair the new committee titled the NBTA Groups & Meetings (G&M) Committee.

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...

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

•           Author, Strategic Meetings Management: The Strategy Quick Reference Guide (2011)
•           Meetings Management Mover and Shaker as selected 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 as selected by Business Travel News (2007)

 

*Debi is proud to be a regular contributor to Business Travel Executive Magazine.

*Debi is proud to be one of only seven 2011 Editorial Board members for Hotel Business Review at www.hotelexecutive.com for Conferences & Meetings.

Visit me at one of my upcoming speaking engagements; Topics vary per conference; Some sessions include components of SMM Bootcamp© and/or SMM Challenge© 

December 1 – EMC Venue’s MEET
January – PCMA
March – Meetings Technology Expo

The Scholar Consulting Group LLC
Trusted Advisors and Superior Solutions for the Travel and Meetings Market
[email protected]
908-304-4954

Benchmark your Strategic Meetings Management Program:  http://www.smmbenchmark.com  

Purchase the SMM Quick Reference Guide:  http://amzn.to/qoM4dw

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 (SSGB)
•           Chauncey Certified Technical Trainer (CTT)

Getting a Baseline for your Current State Meetings Analysis

I am hopeful that you do not need this information and these tools. Instead, I am optimistic and hopeful that you use an automated meeting management technology. If you are in the latter group and capture all of your meeting and event data, produce metrics and continuously improve your meetings program, please stop reading this post and enjoy your day.

If you are in the first group of not capturing your meetings data, please keep reading.

If you do not capture your baseline meetings data, it may be difficult for you to sell strategic meetings management to your leadership. No one wants to manually enter data into Excel or any other database, but you have to start somewhere. If you capture your data for one month, one quarter or one year, the information will provide you with baseline data to begin process improvement.

 

For example, if you do not know the average cost per person per day, by meeting type, how will you improve it?  If you do not know the percentage of your food and beverage expenses compared to your sleeping room charges, how will you compare your data to industry benchmarks? 

A "current state analysis" is easy to obtain so don't let any company tell you that it is not. You CAN capture your current meeting spend without a meeting management technology in place.

In addition to using meeting management tools, I use two automated solutions to produce meeting analytics:

1.  Spend Radar©
2.  SCG Procurement and Operations Analyzer©

The Big 4 Professional Services firms (PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, and E&Y) use Spend Radar or similar tools to extract data from systems so that all meeting spend can be captured and reported. Unlike tools used only for meeting spend and analytics, Spend Radar is a comprehensive SAAS tool that provides for data collection from any purchasing and financial data (AP, PO, Vendor, PCard, Expense, Contract, Budget, etc.) to identify spend and suppliers.

 SCG Procurement and Operations Analyzer^© is also used to collect, normalize and report the spend and operations data. The difference between using Spend Radar and the SCG Procurement and Operations Analyzer^© is that Spend Radar takes extracted data from expense management and AP systems and imports the data directly into their tool whereas SCG Procurement and Operations Analyzer^© inputs information provided from client/supplier data and then the tool is used to analyze the data. Spend Radar will always provide a more accurate accounting of spend and suppliers because it does not rely on user- or supplier- provided data but rather a direct export of system-provided data.

Scholar Consulting Group ("SCG") provides the attached Meeting Registration worksheet as a method to obtain a baseline of your meeting spend and behaviors if you do not have a meeting management technology in place. Hopefully, the data collected will help you substantiate the need to GET a meeting management technology.

Note that these forms in this workbook may be used to capture meetings data; however, an automated meeting management solution is recommended.  Additional columns and/or formulas may be desirable by your organization and this workbook is meant to be a guideline only.  It is designed to be simple so that you can begin collecting your data easily.

 

When you have some data captured, contact Debi Scholar for a free example of how the SCG Procurement and Operations Analyzer© can provide your organization with sample metrics to improve the management of your meetings and events. All columns in the Meeting Registration are not necessary but the more data you have, the more information SCG can provide to you. 

Download Meeting Analysis Baseline Forms to obtain Current State

 

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...

 

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

•           Author, Strategic Meetings Management: The Strategy Quick Reference Guide (2011)
•           Meetings Management Mover and Shaker as selected 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 as selected by Business Travel News (2007) 

*Debi is proud to be a regular contributor to Business Travel Executive Magazine.
*Debi is proud to be one of only seven 2011 Editorial Board members for Hotel Business Review at www.hotelexecutive.com for Conferences & Meetings. 

Visit me at one of my upcoming speaking engagements; Topics vary per conference. Some sessions include components of SMM Bootcamp© and/or SMM Challenge©.  

Sept 7 – HSMAI Affordable Meetings
Sept 20 – NYC for Benchmark  Hospitality
December 1 – EMC Venue’s MEET
January - PCMA 

The Scholar Consulting Group LLC
Trusted Advisors and Superior Solutions for the Travel and Meetings Market

[email protected]
908-304-4954 

Benchmark your Strategic Meetings Management Program:  http://www.smmbenchmark.com 
Purchase the SMM Quick Reference Guide:  http://amzn.to/qoM4dw

 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 (SSGB)
•           Chauncey Certified Technical Trainer (CTT)