T&E Plus

People Don’t Want to Come to Your Country

“Debi, do you realize that many people don’t want to come to your country…that is why virtual meetings demand will increase” is the message I heard three weeks ago during a conference call with a Supplier with attendees from U.K., France, and Netherlands.  Virtual and hybrid meetings are increasingly becoming a normal delivery method and meeting planners are encouraged to learn more about digital events. 

Do you want to learn more about how to deliver digital events?  Apply for a Digital Event Institute Scholarship here… https://www.facebook.com/PCMADigitalExperience/ or here:  http://www.pcma.org/pcma-education-foundation/scholarships/student-scholarships#.WNml2qK1s2x

If the message I heard is true, and if the Travel Ban and U.S. Government Budget Cuts will affect our travel, then Virtual Meetings will be important to add to your Meeting & Event Program. 

How will the Travel Ban affect Meetings, Events and other businesses?  Listen to Kevin Iwamoto in this audio clip: 

http://www.meetings-conventions.com/News/Third-Party/Kevin-Iwamoto-How-Trump-Administration-Disrupting-Meetings-Travel/?cid=eltrMtgNews&[email protected]

In addition, the Travel Ban and Budget cuts may affect small, rural airports, rail services as well as college tuition. 

How can you affect change in our industry?  GET involved and call your senators and congress.

“The Essential Air Services program would be eliminated, which means many small or rural airports would have to close. If you rely on these rural airports to fly out of where you live, you'll be faced with a much longer drive to the airport.”  “Amtrak will also take a hit, with funding changing to focus on the most popular routes, like the Northeast Corridor. Train service may shrink to just 23 states”

http://www.lifehacker.co.in/others/how-trumps-proposed-budget-could-affect-your-air-and-train-travel/articleshow/57776777.cms

“Consider how restricting immigration of foreign students studying at American colleges will affect tuition costs. College student debt is a concern of everyone regardless of political affiliation. Recent proposed travel bans, temporarily at least blocked, has led to some chaos among non-immigrants college students from abroad.”

http://www.coshoctontribune.com/story/news/2017/03/25/travel-ban-might-affect-tuition-costs/99494534/

Debi Scholar

Incredible Integration of Industries: Virtual Meetings by GetThere

If you're a regular reader, you know I love Virtual  Meetings and started the PwC Virtual Meetings Department in 2002 – 11 years ago.  Considering technology advancements and timelines, 11 years ago is like the era of using horse and buggy to travel.  Now, we're combining Virtual Meetings, Travel, and Meetings with our Global Distribution System provider / Online Booking Tool … Sabre / GetThere.  Amazing.  What a GREAT time to be in this fascinating industry!

To build your business case for Virtual Meetings, please download my whitepaper here:

Download Creating a Virtual and Meeting Event Strategy by Debi Scholar

We know that virtual / hybrid meetings are here to stay, and my previous PwC Virtual Meetings team has increased the quantity in their department to focus on Virtual Meetings, delivering thousands every year.  The integration of Travel and Video Conferencing helps manage Travel and Meeting expenses and increase ROI on technology investment.  In fact, while consulting at PwC, I helped a major worldwide organization decrease their travel expenses and use the savings to update and increase their virtual meeting technologies. (Fun Project!)

Fast forward, GetThere, the world's leading travel and collaboration management solution, has signed an agreement with one of my clients, Harman International, to make Sabre Virtual meetings technology available to Harman employees worldwide.

Excerpts from the Press release follow:

“Virtual Meetings is a powerful new travel management mechanism,” said Sally Abella, director of Global Corporate Travel for Harman International.  “Like most companies, we want to control our travel spend, yet we all know that travel is crucial to growing the business. By using video conferencing for more internal meetings, we can strategically redirect travel spend to trips that are customer-facing and sales focused.”

“Demand for video conferencing is increasing exponentially and more and more IT departments are called upon to support this demand,” said Thomas Blanchet, director of IT Infrastructure Architecture at Harman International. “Sabre Virtual Meetings gives our employees a way to easily reserve and connect video conferencing rooms in a secure and reliable enterprise-wide environment.”

“Sabre Virtual Meetings solves these challenges with an easy-to-use, global scheduling system. Room availability, compatibility, and connectivity are all seamlessly verified, so employees know where to book, what’s available and what to do when they show up to a meeting,” said Suzanne Neufang, president of GetThere and Sabre Virtual Meetings. “Our Virtual Meetings solution also enables public room and partner room access for those companies looking to maximize visual collaboration.”

Sabre Virtual Meetings is the only solution providing enterprise-wide, secure access to private and partner video conferencing rooms as well as a global network of over 4,000 public rooms. Similar to online travel reservations, all options for a given city pair search are provided in a single, secure booking path. Filtered by company policy and room availability that the corporation explicitly authorizes, employees can choose the room options that best meet their business needs.

Congratulations to Jeremy Stubbs, General Manager of Sabre Virtual Meetings, (and a colleague who participated on the GBTA Groups & Meetings Committee with me), all of the GetThere staff, and of course, Sally Abella at Harman International for continuing to be an industry leader and visionary.

Click here more information on Sabre GetThere Virtual Meetings.

Debi Scholar

Note:  Day 390 and LinkedIn still has not solved my inability to edit my LinkedIn Summary on my profile page. Frustrating.

An overdue update ...

Goodness, it has been almost 6 weeks since my last post and I've been meaning to write my latest blog topics on leveraging transient and group hotel spend, and commissionable rates.  But, the days keep slipping away from me.

The good news is that I have been busier than ever with clients, learning, speaking and webinars.  While I should be keeping everyone updated as to my whereabouts for speaking and webinars, I've been hardly able to keep my own calendar straight lately.  I owe a huge THANKS to Susan Losurdo who keeps me sane and helps me with the business.

I have a series of upcoming webinars on Strategic Meetings Management with GBTA. Here is a link to join the first webinar of the series:  The 70 SMM Services

Next week I'll be traveling to Amelia Island to speak at a Customer Advisory Board and then off to San Diego to meet with a client and then on to ISM/GBTA to speak on two panels.  The ISM/GBTA meeting is a really great event so I hope to see you there. Then, I'll be speaking at a Meetings Technology Expo in Chicago and two upcoming events for EMC Venues.  If you want any additional information on these topics or want to join us, please send me an email or call me and I'd  be happy to help you.  Soon, you'll also be hearing about a couple more partnerships too! The good news is.... Strategic Meetings Management is a hot topic!

I've started delivering my own webinars in addition to webinars for other organizations. If you want to be included in these invitations, please drop me a line.

The past couple of months I've also taken the opportunity to learn more.  My favorite saying is "The Truly Educated Never Graduate."   I'm proud that I've earned two more designations, the Global Travel Professional (GTP) and a Certified B.A.N.K. Sales Trainer (CBST).   Goodness sakes...do I really NEED any more designations, you're asking??  No, but I love learning and teaching...the designations are just the sidebar.

Yet, I need to remember to slow down and smell the roses. This past week after spending 4 days in Las Vegas going through my B.A.N.K. Sales Trainer class, I ended up in the hospital with food poisoning for a couple of days.  Guess it was my body's way of saying "take some time in bed and watch TV" for a change.  Ha ha. 

So, my goal is to get my blog moving again.  Thanks for sticking with me and helping me learn from you! I always appreciate your feedback.

Debi Scholar
[email protected]
908-304-4954
www.smmbenchmark.com

 

Creating a Virtual Meeting and Event Strategy

Virtual meetings and events, a critical component to a strategic meetings management (SMM) strategy, expand organizations’ options to communicate, and they broaden a meeting planner’s toolbox of planning solutions. There is no doubt, virtual meetings are on the rise and will continue to be used more by planners.

But not all perceive the same definition or expect the same services when hearing the term, “virtual meeting” or “virtual event.” By definition, a virtual meeting or event provides for live or archived communications among small to large and local to global attendees. Yet, the three tiers of virtual meetings and events offer different experiences for attendees and require various levels of support to be successful. Various types of virtual meetings and events exist.

There are three primary tiers to virtual meetings/events as illustrated below.

See the benefits of virtual meetings/events, the metrics that you should capture, and the responsibilities of a virtual meeting/event planner.

Use the attached whitepaper to build your program.  Recogize significant savings, reduce emissions, and expand your message to more people quickly.  If you need any help, please ask me!

Download Creating a Virtual and Meeting Event Strategy by Debi Scholar

Debi Scholar

Meeting Tech Expo

Presenting a NEW session on Monday at Meetings Tech Expo - how much SHOULD you pay for meeting services? We will talk about pricing strategies used and how meeting planning companies itemize their costs.  Also, a session on the ROI of using technology.  Hope to see you in Washington DC! 

 

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

 

 

Virtual Meetings and Events: The 20+ Roles and Responsibilities of the Virtual Meeting Planner

A major travel management company recently lost a significant piece of business because they did not offer a comprehensive Virtual Meetings service offering. Sure, they said that they provide ad hoc virtual meetings as clients request them but the RFP failed to articulate their ability to provide a full service virtual meetings team. What is a virtual meeting and why is a team needed?

A virtual meeting or event provides for live or archived communications among small to large, local to global attendees by the use of technology. A virtual Meetings and Events team provides support to those meetings/events that are not self-service.

A Virtual Meetings and Events (VME) Meeting Planner has at least 20 different responsibilities for the virtual meetings that surge into the Virtual Meetings team.  What are these roles and how do they differ from the typical IT role?

Download Virtual Meetings and Events - Roles and Responsibilities 9 Jan 2011

For 20 reasons to use Virtual Meetings, refer to this post from 19 March 2010.

Don't forget to track your Virtual Meetings using your Meeting Management Technology!

If you have any questions or need assistance with anything mentioned above, please contact me as I was the first Meetings Leader to combine Virtual Meetings in the same team as face-to-face meetings and since, have helped numerous clients move towards Virtual Meetings.  Good luck to you! 

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

• 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)

The Scholar Consulting Group LLC
[email protected]
908-304-4954
Benchmark your Strategic Meetings Management Program:  http://www.smmbenchmark.com

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)

 

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

Benchmark your Strategic Meetings Management Program

Strategic Meetings Management is a notable force in our hospitality industry and the term means different things to different people.  Concisely, Strategic Meetings Management (“SMM”) provides direction to guide the strategy, operations and tactical activities of meetings and events in order to improve business processes, quality, and return on investment, and reduce costs, risks and inefficiencies. 

An industry first, you have the ability to benchmark your SMM business processes against other SMM programs.  When you compare your business processes to other leading organizations, the resulting information offers a foundation to develop improvement plans that will guide you towards best in class, or mature programs.  The www.smmbenchmark.com website asks a series of questions that will result in qualitative benchmarking for your strategic meetings management program against other organizations’ programs.

With budgets cut and leaders clamoring for recognition of their efforts, the free benchmarking site provides for validation of their SMM endeavors and offers an opportunity map to continuous improvement.  The self-assessment benchmarking site uses a 6-level process maturity continuum starting with “unaware,” those organizations that are at the beginning of the SMM journey through “mature,” those organizations that may have a mature program in place. 

A completed confidential survey will return a benchmark report that provides the self-assessed level of program maturity, an action plan, best in class practices, savings opportunities and the risks of your program remaining status quo.  An executive summary of the benchmarking results will be provided quarterly for those who participate in the free self-assessment.

An added benefit for SMM leaders, the benchmarking report will motivate teams to think and work collaboratively using the benchmark data as a roadmap, and educates how to move a program forward to maturity.

For those who do not want to complete the benchmark assessment, there is an SMM Benchmark LIVE to peer into the aggregated results.   The website also offers the SMM Strategy Articulation Map, the industry’s first SMM Maturity Model, the 10 pillars of savings opportunities, the 7 risk categories, the change management matrix, and the 80 components that make up a meeting policy.

If you have any questions or need assistance with anything mentioned above, please contact me.

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

• 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)

The Scholar Consulting Group LLC
[email protected]
908-304-4954

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)

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

 

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

Virtual meetings join thoughts while travel joins hands; integration of both embodies the best results

With millions of travel and meeting dollars at stake, and procurement principles posted on cubicle partitions, corporate clients are rapidly demanding request for proposals (“RFP”) for travel and meeting services rather than the simpler method of renegotiating current supplier contracts. As advertised through supplier claims, new travel and meeting services brings about new RFP questions and requirements.

 

After creating a new global RFP for travel and meeting services this week and enhancing it in one long 16-hour day (that felt like two 8-hour days squished together, much like my butt after sitting and typing for that many hours), I’ve added a few virtual meeting support questions to the RFP.

 

Virtual meetings join thoughts while travel joins hands; integration of both embodies the best results.  Yet, without the right support, a virtual meeting feels like you’re in a flock of mute geese stuck in a rectangular, two-dimensional sludge. 

 

In your opinion, what types of probing virtual meeting questions should go into an RFP for travel and/or meeting services?  Many of my clients are not asking for IT technical or functionality support, but rather, the virtual meeting end user support.

 

Below are the questions that I’ve developed thus far for a travel management company, meeting management company or meeting planning company to respond to in a request for proposal.  Please share your thoughts or ideas.

 

NOTE: While this particular RFP does not require the technical or functional considerations, feel free to add those types of questions too. If you would like to respond privately, please contact me at [email protected].  Thanks!

 

Recommending/Offering Virtual Meetings from the TMC, MMC, or MPC perspective

1. Provide the services and processes that you offer for virtual meetings and events.

2. Describe how your company can encourage use of virtual meetings and events to pre-empt travel or meetings. Provide examples of how you have put this process in place for other clients.

3. List your preferred virtual meeting and event technology suppliers if you are recommending those suppliers be used for this client.

4. Provide information on the process used by agents or the online booking tool to recommend/offer virtual meetings as an alternative to travel. 

5. Is there a script for the travel agent or meeting sourcer/planner to use to recommend or offer virtual meetings as a complement or replacement to travel/meetings? 

6. Describe the skillsets that are necessary to support virtual meetings*

 

*Note to my readers…I have created a virtual meeting and event role/task responsibility listing that I will be sharing with you soon; it is an excerpt from a book that I’m writing. If you need it immediately, contact me. 

 

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)