Best Meeting Practitioners 2007: Xerox's Ferranti Leverages Hotel Data For Registration, Attendee Tech

An extensive meetings technology initiative, completed in 2006, drove down Xerox Corp.'s cost per attendee by expanding hotel-sourcing data, requiring advance meeting registration and travel booking, integrating internal conference space into the site-selection process and automatically highlighting cancelled space for rebooking.

When Pamela Ferranti joined Xerox in 2004, a meetings policy and a largely outsourced program was already in place, but she was charged with implementing attendee registration software. By working with both Xerox's technology provider and its meeting management companies to streamline the process, Ferranti's meetings department was able to gather data to leverage even better deals with suppliers.

Ferranti, manager of meetings management solutions for Xerox, in 2004 started to collect data after choosing meetings technology from OnVantage, now part of meetings technology firm StarCite. That process was eased by Xerox's structure, as nearly all logistical planning is handled by dedicated meeting planners employed by BCD Meetings & Incentives and Rochester, N.Y.-based DePrez Travel.

"Because we had the software and we had a very simple, streamlined process, it was easier to capture the data," Ferranti said. "Once we had the data, we were able to start implementing additional process improvements."

The tool also allowed the team to expand the type of data it captured and develop new cost-savings initiatives. For example, Ferranti used newly collected data to identify cities where Xerox frequently held meetings, and subsequently developed new meetings contracts with hotels, including those in Rochester, N.Y., where Xerox maintains offices, and near its Stamford, Conn., headquarters.

To help limit contractual damages, anytime a meeting is canceled, the slot is immediately posted in Xerox Meetings Online, the firm's name for its StarCite-powered meetings portal, so meetings planned around that time or that city can be renegotiated to fill the space. "We really have reduced any and all attrition issues since we started that process," she said.

Xerox has used its meeting management companies to help with cost avoidance. "They have the information, so they can recommend it be done virtually," Ferranti said. "They have the ability to see our onsite Xerox conference locations, through use of the software, and recommend internal service offerings and/or make sure they're leveraging Xerox's negotiated contracts," she said, adding that when remote conferencing is recommended and used, the meetings management company gets credit for cost avoidance.

Any meeting with 15 or more attendees, of whom 10 require air travel and/or hotel rooms, are required to register through Xerox Meetings Online. Other Xerox departments help with policy enforcement.

"We work very closely with global purchasing," she said. "They can't just go and book or sign a contract or open a purchase order with a hotel. They have to register through our process." The data gathered from the registrations "definitely helped us a lot with our negotiations" with suppliers, she added.

Ferranti and her team also cut down on last-minute changes by shutting down registration sites earlier.

"Now that we've captured more of the spend, in an industry where everything is going up, our cost per attendee is going down. A lot of it is because of advance registration," she said. Attendee registration is automatically closed 16 days before an event. The initiative increased the average advance ticket purchase from 19 days in 2005 to 24 days in 2006. In early 2006, 45 percent of registrations were completed 45 days in advance; by year-end, that number had increased to 71 percent.

Also in 2006, Xerox Meetings Online linked with GetThere's DirectCorporate online booking tool, so that at the end of registering for a meeting, attendees are automatically pushed to book air travel.

Ferranti has pushed the initiative, seeking other meeting-spending buckets where cost could be reduced. "We used to only capture hotel, ground, food and beverage and air spend," she said. "It didn't take too long to say, wait a minute. There's a lot more expenses involved in putting on a meeting than just that."

In another example, Ferranti realized that offsite LCD projector rentals cost anywhere from $600 to $1,600 per day. Since Xerox already used in-house LCD projectors for the company's onsite meetings, the meetings team developed a proposal to buy LCD projectors and ship them to external meeting sites. "It was a very easy business case sell," said Ferranti, noting that, due to the cost savings from not renting external equipment, the projectors paid for themselves within the first month of use and already has saved "thousands and thousands of dollars."

Ferranti's quest for even the smallest savings has even led her to include language in contracts requiring some hotels to provide meeting coordinators with such items as Post-It notes, scissors and tape, to avoid duplicative spending.

Xerox's cost-per-attendee metric, which once only included hotel, air, food and beverage and car rental, now includes such costs as production crews.

Since Xerox doesn't have internal meeting planners, communicating with the administrative assistants, managers and other employees who stage meetings can be difficult. In 2006, a meeting coordinator distribution list was created, as was a meeting coordinator council, which meets quarterly and where "pretty much anybody who's been at a meeting in the previous quarter is invited to attend, so we can get the voice of the customer," Ferranti said. A quarterly electronic meeting coordinator newsletter is distributed as well.