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.