After the initial implementation of a strategic meetings management initiative or meetings management technology, savings and/or cost-reduction opportunities typically are readily identifiable. More challenging, say veteran meeting strategists, is continually finding new ways to stretch meeting dollars, especially in a mature program.
"Significant additional savings and efficiency opportunities" can be found, provided corporations and travel management companies look hard enough at the data, according to Kimberly Meyer, principal with Peter Matthews in business intelligence startup Meetings Analytics. The company formally launched last fall, but for more than three years has been working with meeting buyers at Fortune500 pharmaceutical, financial services and other companies, as well as with travel management companies, to identify savings, cost avoidance and process efficiency opportunities in meeting programs.
The company does this by mining data--lots of it. Meetings Analytics takes data feeds from such meetings technology firms as Arcaneo Metron and StarCite (formerly OnVantage), as well as from spreadsheets, according to Meyer. Software it developed cleans and analyzes multiple aspects of each meeting bid process, sourcing, budgeting and final expenditure, as well as the workload and performance of all planners. The intent is to clean the data, identify errors or missing information and then assemble it in 72 key metrics and 24 standard reports to help clients better leverage the information.
In recent weeks, companies also have asked Meyer to take data feeds from their procurement cards, individual corporate cards and accounts receivable files to identify meeting spend to support a business case to address it. The companies "have no idea what their global meeting spend is, and they want us to tell them," Meyer said.
[PULL_1]Analyzing well over $1 billion worth of meetings spending by its clients during the past three years, Meetings Analytics has found the greatest potential for hotel savings occurs in "additional opportunities to leverage data to drive negotiations around property choice, average group rate and total spend." In one example, Meyer said, the analysis identified more than $2 million in such opportunities in a mature consolidated meetings program.
Using the analysis, a company easily can see that it has booked hundreds of meetings into a city, such as Las Vegas, and not always used the preferred hotels there that deliver the greatest savings potential, Meyer said. Meetings Analytics helps companies identify their top 10 meetings destinations and properties that would deliver the greatest savings, provided the company would shift share to those similar properties. Part of the analysis, Meyer said, is to identify the savings targets and then use the data to develop the best strategy to achieve them. Once the target performance goals are set, the reporting helps monitor compliance to them.
One often overlooked area for corporations and some travel management companies is commission recovery, Meyer said. "Everyone thinks that they have this one under control, but, actually, collection rates can be less than 75 percent of what is owed to the corporation, even when a third party is responsible. Automation and in-depth reporting resulted in over $450,000 in additional collections for one corporation," Meyer added of the potential in this category.
Perhaps the biggest area, from both a cost- and risk-management perspective, she said, is "unmanaged spend."
"Meetings sourced by a central service generally achieve savings of more than 10 percent above those managed outside a program, and risk declines significantly," Meyer said.
One of the standard components of its data analysis of meetings programs, Meyer said, is a comparison of the savings or cost-avoidance dollars negotiated by individual planners within a company or its third-party outsourced providers. The intent of this reporting, she said, is to help the company identify the best practices of its best performers and encourage replication of the tactics across all meetings. "We look at the performance of the individuals" on a third-party firm's support team. Reports have revealed that one individual negotiated 4 percent savings, while another achieved 17 percent and managed many more meetings during the specified timeframe. "You're leaving money on the table with that 4 percent performer," she added. "Increasingly, we are being asked to perform such third-party audits" to help clients quantify the performance of individuals.
Another area that the company researches as part of the regular data dives, Meyer said, is the operations management of outsourced providers, such as travel management companies. "TMCs traditionally report on their own performance and show glowing savings achieved on the overall program," Meyer said. "Independent reporting of third-party performance can provide specific data to audit TMC performance in relation to service-level agreements and related performance bonuses." One recent such audit, she added, identified immediate savings of $250,000, as well as other performance improvement opportunities to save even more.
No matter how mature the meetings program, Meyer contends that their analyses help clients save more than "15 percent" of purchasing and operational spending on meetings.