Only a third of companies
centrally manage meetings and even fewer have a consistent meetings and events
policy, according to Carlson Wagonlit Travel research released today that
claims a strategically managed meetings program and adoption of generally accepted
best practices could shave up to one-quarter of companywide meetings expenses.
On average, meetings and
event spend represents between 35 percent and 60 percent of the amount spent on
transient business travel, CWT estimates, and much of that spending is
unmanaged with best practices largely ignored.
According to a CWT survey of
222 meeting planners, two-thirds of respondents continue to manage meetings in
a decentralized fashion. "A lot of meetings spend is fragmented through
every P&L within a company: It's between sales, it's between communications
and marketing, it's everywhere," CWT North America director of meeting and
events Terry Sloan said. "The challenge there is getting your arms around
it and finding a way to track it, and technology is a greater enabler of doing
that."
Sloan said the first step
toward strategically managing meetings is to centralize management and
aggregate spending. After that, companies can set and enforce policy, set
budgets, strategically source suppliers, establish companywide processes for
meeting approvals, attendee registration and payment, CWT said in its report.
Depending on the maturity of
the meetings management program and the level of meetings spend, CWT said
companies could save between 10 percent and 25 percent on meetings and events spending
if they adopt those best practices.
CWT noted the degree of
centralization varies by industry type, as companies in finance and pharmaceutical
industries lead the pack in mature meetings management, with 64 percent and 54
percent, respectively, centralizing meeting planning. CWT said those more
mature industries are prone to spend more on meetings and therefore have come
around to centralized management sooner than such industries as manufacturing,
which has the fewest adherents to centralization.
Still,
the move toward centralization is fraught with internal battles and other
barriers. "Meetings are incredibly
personal to certain areas within companies," Sloan said. "A lot of
those areas have concerns that if they give it up to a centralized program,
they will lose control. As a result, there is a tendency to fight that
centralization. With all my years in the industry, that's my sense as to why it
doesn't happen."
Sloan said the movement is
toward more centralization, not less, echoing a similar path corporate travel
management has treaded, Sloan said. "If you go back even 15 years ago, we
thought we would never see centralized travel management happen," Sloan
said. "Then, big corporates realized there's a huge opportunity for
savings. Now, I think you will see, and the statistics are proving, that we are
moving this way with meetings and events. The economy has had a great
impact."
CWT estimates that the
global meetings and event market totals $650 billion, 55 percent of which are
corporate expenditures.
CWT Travel Management
Institute conducted the research between September 2009 and March 2010, basing
its conclusions on a survey of 222 meeting planners in 15 countries, another
survey of 2,360 meeting attendees from six countries, interviews with more than
40 meetings industry participants and analysis and case studies of clients.