Managing Meetings At: ConocoPhillips--Defining Mtg. Roles Yields Savings

Energy giant ConocoPhillips Co. during the past two years has saved more than $2 million through improved meeting contract negotiations and an initiative to increase efficiency by clearly defining the roles of meeting planners and sponsors, according to the head of the Houston-based company's meeting services department.

Lisa Stanford, program administrator for travel and meeting services, said focusing her department's role on meeting logistics has helped to address concerns over control of meeting content and avoid miscommunication. ConocoPhillips has saved "well over $2 million" in the past two years through the use of the meeting services department, she said, despite the fact that meeting spend is tracked manually through Excel spreadsheets and data is limited to money saved through contract negotiations. The company soon plans to adopt an online registration tool, she said.

"Our goal is to show at least a 15 percent savings by using our department versus an admin or whoever doing it on their own," she said. "We feel that with the skill, the knowledge and the buying power of our department, 15 percent is a very realistic savings number."

ConocoPhillips has a non-mandated, centralized but not consolidated meetings management program, Stanford said. Company employees are strongly encouraged to use the meeting services department for events with 10 or more attendees that require a room block or air reservations, she said. The department handled about 700 corporate meetings and events last year, which Stanford estimated was about 75 percent of the total number of events.

"With the new Sarbanes-Oxley regulations we've become very strict with signing authority and what you can commit the company to, so I see a shift of admins who typically had been planning those meetings and signing those contracts that are now coming through our department," Stanford said.

However, contract authority, like meeting planning, is not under a mandated policy at ConocoPhillips, and Stanford said she relies on communication and incentives for employees to use her department's three meeting planners and one group air coordinator.

Stanford said that she uses a RACI chart—which is an acronym for responsible, accountable, consult and inform—to clearly define what roles various meeting stakeholders have in an event.

"The RACI chart has been really successful in clearly defining the roles of the meeting planner and the sponsor. The way we present this is that we do the logistics, they do the content," Stanford said.

The RACI chart includes 41 meeting activities and seven categories of stakeholders who are assigned a letter indicating their role. For example, in "negotiating a meeting location contract" a meeting planner is assigned an "R" because the planner is responsible for negotiations, the department executive is assigned an "A" because he or she is accountable for the decisions made, an administrative assistant is assigned a "C" for consult and the group air agent is given an "I" because he or she needs to be informed of where the meeting will be held.

ConocoPhillips adopted the RACI chart two years ago, shortly after Stanford began managing the meeting services department.

"We had duplicate work being created where our meeting planners would be talking to our hotel vendors and getting bids and so were the admins," Stanford said. "It was also frustrating for the vendor because they didn't know who was taking the lead on the meeting."

Now with the use of the chart, duplicate work and miscommunication have been eliminated, Stanford said, and helped ease concerns that her department was taking control of all meeting planning.

"The perception was that we were going to take everything away from them, that they weren't going to have any control or any input on what the meeting was going to be," she said. "The chart really helps with showing that the sponsors are still responsible for the agenda, the content and final decision on where they want the meeting, we're just doing the behind-the-scenes things."

Contract negotiations and logistics are also where the meeting services department can add the greatest value, Stanford said.

Planners should be considered professional negotiators, she said. "The value of the meeting planners is in how we track savings; it's meeting by meeting on what we saved for things that we've negotiated."

Stanford took leadership of the meeting services department after the $15 billion merger of Phillips Petroleum and Conoco in late 2002. Prior to the merger, Conoco had a meetings management program in place for "15 or 20" years, Stanford said, but Phillips had no meetings program. The combined company is the third largest integrated energy company and the largest refiner in the United States.

ConocoPhillips meeting buyers use individual corporate credit cards to pay vendors.

"Everybody pays for their own stuff on their own cards, so if we want to track how much money we've spent on meetings, we don't have that data because it's on individual expense accounts," Stanford said.

The lack of a consolidated purchasing system for meetings has made it difficult for the company to leverage meeting spend with transient spend, she said, but ConocoPhillips has successfully leveraged total air spend with carriers. Recently the company has begun to track how many meetings-related room nights at hotels are with preferred transient vendors.

"We try to steer group business to our preferred vendors," according to Stanford. "We start with our transient hotel program, and then we have a list built on top of that with conference centers."