Planners Diverge On Outside Assistance

The pressures and time constraints of planning meetings with fewer in-house planners and the growing inclination of some corporations to develop enterprisewide meetings management programs have led corporate buyers to involve a wide array of third-party suppliers for both single-event and overall program support, according to an exclusive Meetings Monitor study.

The survey of 101 corporate meeting buyers found that travel management companies most frequently are the recipients of outsourced meeting functions, although destination management companies are nearly as popular. Twenty-nine percent and 25 percent of respondents, respectively, cited those suppliers in a poll in which buyers were permitted to select more than one option. Independent planners and meetings management companies combined were cited by 17 percent of respondents and 14 percent selected convention and visitors bureaus.

It's difficult to assess the marketplace and determine whether corporations are outsourcing more or less, but it does appear that third parties today receive more varied requests for services than in previous years. Though traditional third-party functions—site selection, onsite staffing, housing and registration—remain frequent requests, corporations now also request online registration and meetings consolidation.

In addition, corporations that traditionally have pursued and outsourced meetings strategies are seeking different services from their longtime third-party suppliers. "A lot has changed, and it's due to downsizing and increased planner workload," said Michael Lyons, president of destination management company Global Events Partners Philadelphia. "Due to limited resources, planners are outsourcing things they normally have done internally. Even meeting planners holding events in their own geographic markets, where they are familiar with the vendors, are using companies like ours because they simply have no time."

Typically, like many DMCs, GEP Philadelphia's business largely is comprised of out-of-town planners who are unfamiliar with local suppliers and often outsource all meeting planning functions, save site selection, Lyons said. That business also has increased, he added, which he attributed to the wishes of senior management in Northeast-based corporations to hold meetings nearby. "They've done New York a million times, but they want to stay close to home, so Philly becomes a good option," he said.

Yet, the influx of requests from local planners is a new part of Lyons' palette of business. These clients, often representing large, local pharmaceutical firms, have requested DMC services for transportation, special event venues and catering, though they frequently are aware of local options.

"It's a big shift from a year or two ago, and it's a little unusual," Lyons said, "but they're so short-staffed and don't have enough people. At one of our large pharmaceutical clients, each planner is now handling 150 meetings per year, so it's out of necessity."

"We're seeing more requests for project management, onsite staffing and Web registration and less full service meeting management," said Steve O'Malley, vice president of operations at Maritz Travel Co. "There are still many corporations with a large in-house staff that still have a need to call upon professional meeting companies at certain times, especially for larger, more complex or higher-profile meetings."

To be sure, outsourced meetings consolidation has not swept the industry. Only 3 percent of respondents to the Monitor survey indicated that they outsource that function, compared with 17 percent who outsource staffing and 16 percent who outsource housing and registration. Yet, given that those functions are limited to a single event, increases in the number of requests for consolidation proposals have drawn the industry's notice.

"In the large corporate environment, the buzzword is consolidation," said Rick Binford, national director of corporate sales for Twinsburg, Ohio-based independent meetings management giant Conferon. "Various customers are in various stages of the process, and they're talking to people like us about how we can help support it and what they could outsource or keep in-house."

Though rising in prominence, Binford said, consolidation is one meetings piece that few have fully outsourced and completed. "There are more in-process clients than those with completed decision-making," he said. "It is a 12-month to 18-month request for proposal process."

As to more common and less complex outsourcing trends, Binford pointed to incentive site selection and corporate meeting sourcing, registration and onsite staffing as current areas of growth for his firm.

"On the incentive side, people definitely want us to sharpen our pencils, disclose all costs and be very price competitive," Binford said. "A lot of incentives used to be based on relationships and history, but that's now being reevaluated because of cost issues. And a lot of corporate customers want sourcing, registration and staffing support. They are key pieces that people consider logical to outsource because it's a finite step in the process."

At Golden, Colo.-based Coors Brewing Co., a team of six onsite and contracted planners handles all aspects of the company's 200-plus meetings, except its large annual meeting. "We handle 99 percent of our meetings ourselves, but the annual meeting is huge," said meeting manager Linda Patterson. "For that meeting, we use Conferon for site research and sourcing, contracting and onsite staff. We have more than 200 meetings, but many are small and less complex, so I don't see any indication we'll change the level of outsourcing we have now."

"The level of our outsourcing has remained status quo because, as our volume has increased, we've hired new people," said Robin Buzzeo, corporate travel manager at Taro Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., an Israeli company with U.S. headquarters in New York. Taro's meetings program is consolidated fully through its travel department. "The only thing we'll outsource on occasion is site selection, but we don't use DMCs or those types of companies, as I happen to like that aspect of the work and find it creative. I also like the control." For site selection functions, Buzzeo rather exclusively uses the services of a small, independent meeting planning firm. "They're a local firm," she said, "and they have a good amount of that kind of experience."