Scott Graf
Powered by a significant rebound in corporate meetings volume that BCD Meetings & Incentives president Scott Graf said boosted first-quarter revenue by 30 percent year over year, the meetings management firm is considering further expansion in Europe and Asia. Graf spoke to Management.travel's Chris Davis about the maturation of strategic meetings management, the risks of stagnation in meetings technology development and BCD M&I's evolving relationship with its sister company, mega travel management company BCD Travel. Excerpts follow.
What is the scope of the meetings rebound, and how has that changed your strategy?
The last 24 months has been a very good growth period for us. For our enterprise business, or strategic meetings management programs, considering the pure rationale for what an SMMP is, the recession played right into that. Companies who have avoided or dabbled with SMMP took the step forward and committed to a program that helped them mitigate costs and reduce risks. We were the beneficiary of that. About two years ago, we made a conscious decision to embark on an "E2E" [events-to-enterprise] strategy. Customers don't care how we segment their business. There's a middle ground of the E2E strategy, with a simplified pricing strategy, and we've really grown that middle ground for resources that can handle anything. We've continued to invest in technology in all areas, but particularly proprietary DecisionSource reporting technology. We don't choose to have technology that is specific to sourcing, contracts or planning. We use six or seven different technologies today--StarCite, Cvent, SignUp4, you name it--in different parts of the world, for whatever best serves a client's needs. We used to be in the technology business, way back in the days of Plan2Attend, and we pride ourselves on knowing tech pretty well. We've developed a strategy that says we'd like to use anything and everything out there, and we consider ourselves heavy influencers of those companies. We talk to clients about features, benefits, pricing and the best fit for them. Where we choose to invest in our own tech is in the use of DecisionSource, which has the ability to take information from all those different technologies for clients, and the output is dashboard reporting that is meaningful at the executive level and helps clients make better procurement and buying decisions quickly.
How do you assess the maturation of those external meetings technology tools?
The maturation of these products has slowed. Respectfully to these companies, I realize the last 24 months of recession has meant that people have watched what they've spent, but for a tech company that constantly needs to be looking forward, tightening your belt on labor resources to enhance tech is really challenging. Therefore the output and maturation of these companies has slowed. I do not think there has been new developments or noteworthy developments on a broad scale. I'm sure there have been things that are client-specific or maybe sector-specific--for pharma or financial services, for example--but there's not been anything where the industry has said, "Wow, that's cool, and we need to go there." I would hope that, like everyone else emerging from the recession, these companies will say that it's time to invest the resources to come up with the next cool thing. I think our client base candidly would say the same thing. I'm not a big proponent of social media in the meeting space. I think it has its place, but I don't think there's broad application. I do think there's very broad application for mobile devices, and mobile applications are an area that tech companies are or should be focusing on. There is an opportunity for partnership or consolidation, but our traditional tech players should be looking in the mobile space. Right now, it feels like a transient product, but the truth is that most folks on transient business trips are going somewhere for a meeting. It flies under the radar of "a meetings piece," but it's a productivity tool--understanding what room I'm going to, changes on the fly, bar codes to get in and out of sessions, you name it. That's where we need to see the maturation kick back into gear.
Are you seeing any change in terms of your corporate clients implementing SMM programs, and once they do, sticking with it?
It is changing, but not dramatically. Five years ago, the Fortune200 were clearly doing this, strongly looking at it, or doing parts of it. In the last 24 months, the Fortune1000 probably has done some work to gain a better understanding of the benefits. So there are more people moving down this road. I just don't think we're in this 100 percent. Culturally, it doesn't work for some clients, and I believe some clients should not embrace SMMP 100 percent in its entirety. You have to say, "How does this work within my company? What are the cultural implications of an SMMP, and does it really tie into broader business strategy of the company?" If yes, move forward. If not, look at components: sourcing and contracting only; or a registration component; planning, but maybe not onsite, or vice versa. Clients are picking what works for them, and that's the event-to-enterprise middle ground. They all lead to good decisions, even the basic steps of employing a technology that gathers data. The data will help you make those decisions: "Should we employ a different hotel program strategy? Should we have conversations with our transient provider about that hotel strategy, or are we best left independent?" We absolutely should sit at a table with [intermediaries that manage] the transient hotel program and talk about the benefits to the customer. That's a big change. Traditionally, [agency] competitors don't want to sit down and talk like that, but if that's what's best for client, and it is, then we have to put those differences aside and say, "What's best and what can we leverage?"
How has BCD M&I's relationship with BCD Travel evolved?
In the last 24 months, there has been a significant increase in the number of joint opportunities. It's a very large organization with many customers who have trusted and respected relationships, and those are the customers who have finally said that "we should or we must look at our meetings program." From a sales perspective we are seeing many more joint bids, not only in the United States, but it's becoming a bit of a real or perceived best practice around the globe. Joint bidding may or may not be the best solution, but, clearly, exploring that and leveraging what you can, whether it's a lot or a little, is a smart thing to do.
On the corporate side, who is making those decisions, and has that changed?
It has. I would say the majority of that decision-making process is sitting with procurement and finance with heavy influence from the meeting planning function. What's different is that just two years ago, it was challenging when you got procurement staff, finance staff and meeting planning staff together to try to make a good decision. Perspectives were still strong, but the pressure of the recession has forced everyone to come to the table together. Now what we see is that it's just an accepted practice. It's no longer being resisted strongly. Those groups are willingly working together. Procurement has its role, finance has its role and of course meeting planning has its role. The buying decisions as to who is awarded a contract are clearly running through procurement, with a finance influence.