During the past three months, Navigant Performance Group has stepped up efforts to tap into the broad client base of its parent company, TQ3Navigant, and offer new and existing clients more comprehensive and global service for meeting and event management, according to the company's new president. Even in a procurement-driven sourcing environment, the head of NPG said he hopes to increase the company's client base by 15 percent to 20 percent per year by building on long-term client relationships.
"In this business you don't have to be a rocket scientist. You have to be a good person that has good ethics and morals and you'll be surprised how far that takes you," said Steve Some, who formally was named president of NPG in April. Some had been acting president of the company since December 2004, following the departure of former president Jonathan Danforth
(BTN, April 18).Some said NPG would use TQ3Navigant's global presence to offer multinational service, for which clients have asked in requests for proposals. NPG has three operating offices and four satellite offices in North America.
The company handles an even mix of corporate meetings and incentive management, and about 75 percent of the company's corporate meetings management business comes from the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, according to Some.
"We're concentrating on building relationships with existing accounts and at the same time making every effort to integrate with TQ3 customers. That's where a lot of our emphasis will be in the next year or two," he said.
Though NPG has focused mainly on internal training meetings and product launches for its pharmaceutical clients, Some said he sees an opportunity to tap into continuing medical education events, in which pharmaceutical companies connect with doctors through symposiums or hospital visits.
About 10 percent of NPG business comes from CME, which Some said he would like to see at least double during the next six to 12 months.
"We're finding that with some of our larger pharmaceutical accounts, we're not involved in CME at all. We're involved in just their meetings management," Some said. "This is one way where we can go in and get another piece of the pie."
Some said he is pushing an expansion of NPG's services this year as the meetings management market polarizes into large companies that can handle all components of corporate meetings and incentive management, and smaller firms that specialize in certain industries or services. "The change that we see from year to year is that the big companies are getting a lot smarter and offering many more services," he said.
NPG offers group air transportation, online registration, meetings management and incentive program consulting, among other services. Some said the average NPG client has been with the company for seven to 10 years, and that many corporations have evolved their relationship with NPG from using one service to more comprehensive programs of meetings and event management.
"You would think, in this day and age, it would be a one-time program and then companies move on but, even with procurement, relationships are everything," he said.
Some stressed the importance of building relationships with clients and for NPG to be more than an "order taker" for meeting and event management. He said NPG is working to build trust with its clients by creating a pleasant atmosphere in which to do business, while still paying attention to the bottom line. "If we can convey a feeling of a family atmosphere among our own associates, our customers will feel that as well," he said, "and that's how you develop relationships."
Some previously headed Parsippany, N.J.-based Incentive Connections Inc., which Navigant International acquired in February 2004. NPG expected ICI, with a staff of 25 and $40 million in annual sales, to add more corporate meetings management clients to its roster of incentive travel clients and give the company a larger presence in the pharmaceutical market
(Meetings Today, June 7, 2004). Some became vice president of NPG, which reports about $100 million in annual sales.
"I'm trying to build up NPG to be a big player certainly within the United States and eventually around the world," Some said.