Lockheed Martin Corp., which ranked sixth in BTN's Corporate Travel 100 this year
(BTN, Aug. 26), is developing its first managed meetings program, which will emphasize gearing volume to specific preferred suppliers but not centralizing meeting sourcing.
The aerospace and defense giant, which spent about $400 million on U.S. travel and entertainment in 2001, has begun communicating to the numerous administrators, managers and meeting planners that handle Lockheed Martin events that group airfares now must be booked through the group air desk of the company's consolidated travel agency, Navigant International.
The Bethesda, Md.-based company has negotiated multi-meeting agreements with some preferred airlines based on zone fares, securing better terms, including better advance purchase and minimum stay requirements. That, however, is only the first step in the development of a program designed to allow the company's travel department to compile meeting volume data for the purpose of negotiations but allow the current planners to continue to handle most meeting logistics.
"Nothing has been taken away from them," according to hotel and meeting group business manager Claudia Bonetti, who leads the development of the program. "This will make it easier to collect data and negotiate better deals, and make their jobs easier and more simplified."
The next step in meetings program development should occur next month, when Lockheed Martin selects an online meetings management system to assist in the compilation of booking data.
Bonetti's group has whittled the contending suppliers from seven to two, which she declined to name, and will make a final decision soon.
Bonetti said the decision on which system to select will be based on the tool's ease of use, data collection and budgeting abilities and the capacity to analyze meeting specifications and suggest cost-effective locales. Once selected, Bonetti will begin the process of implementing the system and training employees on its use.
"We want to give administrators and meeting planners the ability to register their meetings and issue hotel requests for proposals," Bonetti said. "Currently, it's all manual. We want to get the data for the land portion of that."
Many Lockheed Martin meetings are staged in a few major locations, including Denver, Orlando, Philadelphia and Fort Worth, Texas. Measuring volume in those cities will allow the company to negotiate deals with specific properties there to maximize meeting spending.
"Suppliers' first questions are about our volume," Bonetti said. "Once we get that in place, we can then negotiate meeting rates with preferred properties." The company currently does not have any specific policies governing meetings management. However, that likely will change shortly, as Lockheed Martin soon will revisit its corporate travel policy and likely will include some new meeting regulations.
One change that will not occur, at least for now, is the centralization of all meeting planning and sourcing. The company is too big to implement that change now, according to Bonetti.
"There would need to be some compelling business reason to go that way, but, at this time, we don't have any," Bonetti said. "Right now, we just want to give administrators the ability to streamline, but that doesn't mean that one day we won't reconsider."
The lone exception to decentralized planning operations might be contract review, she said, which would entail requiring approval of terms and conditions to avoid onerous attrition and cancellation clauses before returning the meeting to the original planner.
"We may even look at a standard contract once we get everything rolled out, but that wouldn't be until phase two," Bonetti said.
Any change in a meeting program has the possibility of raising employees' hackles, a possibility Bonetti has tried to avoid through the development of an internal focus group comprised of administrators and planners from several Lockheed Martin business units. "The focus group is positive, and they're looking forward to having something like this in place," Bonetti said. "Unless their buy-in is there, we won't be successful."
The move is one of several that Lockheed Martin has made during the past two years to upgrade travel management procedures. In January 2001, the company named Richard Wooten as its first director of corporate travel, replacing what had been a council of five travel managers. Since then, Lockheed Martin has consolidated companywide travel to a single agency, Navigant, and cut its U.S. booked air volume by $38 million.
"We've reorganized, reduced the number of people directly involved and created a central base to manage travel," Bonetti said. "We took a look at what we were doing—and saw that a lot of companies were looking at meetings management—and realized we needed to get this managed to capture costs. There are a lot of ways to potentially save money."