Companies with no designated meetings departments sometimes delegate that responsibility to their travel managers. A 2012 Global Business Travel Association survey showed that 43 percent of 592 travel manager respondents were responsible for planning events and 38 percent were expected to develop strategic meetings management programs.
This has proven true for global Fortune 500 contractor Kiewit Corp. Kiewit's transient travel and meetings and events departments work closely to execute the company's strategic meetings management program, a practice that has saved Kiewit thousands of dollars since being implemented in 2011.
Kiewit annually holds about 500 events, ranging from 100 to more than 1,000 attendees. When Kiewit director of global travel Cindy Novak joined the company five years ago, she identified meetings as an area the organization needed to address after receiving a distressed phone call from a Kiewit employee who was canceling an event. When Novak reviewed the contract for the meeting, she realized the agreement "heavily favored the vendor," Novak said.
"I started looking at some of these contracts that were coming through [the company] and realized we had a lot of people signing contracts who probably didn't understand all the terminology and implications of the clauses," Novak said. "That was the first indication to me that, in addition to the huge spend we have in meetings and the amount of money we could be saving, it was the risk and the liability that had me concerned, and we really needed a formal meetings policy in place."
Novak was aware of the resources available for building an effective strategic meetings management program and didn't attempt to "recreate the wheel internally," she said. "There are a lot of resources that can help if you don't have the expertise or knowledge base within your company." But before she could move forward with the program, Novak had to gain executive buy-in by presenting a strong business case for SMM to Kiewit's senior-level management.
When pitching the idea to executives, Novak divided her meetings strategy into bullet points, or "hot-button items," she said.
"If you take the full [GBTA strategic meetings management program model] and try to explain that, it's very overwhelming," Novak said. "I showed [executives] the savings we anticipated that we'd achieve based on a consolidated program that leveraged our [meeting] spend. Then we talked about the risk management piece of it, and then we discussed having a very consistent and professional image for our meetings. We wanted all meetings to be at a certain standard." She added, "We now have very specific requirements for hosting a meeting."
Once senior-level management supported the SMM program, Novak consulted with "some key meeting planners at Kiewit," she said. "We talked through what the districts would like to see, and we assured them, 'We're here to provide resources for you and streamline the process.' " Kiewit began taking steps to register all meetings in 2011, using software through its travel agency, and collecting meetings data. Leaving content up to the districts, Novak's team handled logistics and sourcing. "We designated people within the corporate travel team who handle small business meetings," Novak said. "They handled flight manifests and sourcing and some of the planning [for Kiewit's events]."
In November 2013, Kiewit hired manager of strategic meetings Mary Beth Jensen, who works with an outside events team that communicates directly with event hosts, following up on meetings request forms.
Kiewit's SMM program was introduced to business units using a "soft sell," Novak explained. "We're requiring districts to register their events, but not requiring them to use the events team to plan," Novak said.
This strategy has proved effective. "People understand, if they can have someone review their contract and help them negotiate, then they can get the best speakers and build the best agenda, because they have more time to dedicate to content," Jensen said.
All Kiewit's meetings request forms, including detailed budget information, must be submitted through the company's SMM software, deployed in January 2014. Before SignUp4, Kiewit had a very "rudimentary homegrown registration program," Novak said. Kiewit also has integrated human resource files with the SignUp4 software, creating "robust and detailed travel profiles" for all employees, Novak explained. Soon, these profiles will preload into the registration site automatically. "We're elevating the level of professionalism at our meetings, and this is part of that process," Novak said.
Kiewit's transient booking tool also is integrated with its SMM software. "That's a piece that we need to work on closely with the business travel team," Jensen said. When a meeting is registered, it's assigned a number within Concur, so group air spend is calculated for that specific event.
"There is a lot of buzz about consolidation of business travel and SMM. They were very separate in the early years," Jensen said. "People who were looking to group events and group spend didn't look at transient travel, and now the thought process is, 'Okay, we're looking at our group spend, we're capturing all that data, why not team up with corporate travel and transient?' "
However, while Kiewit combines transient and group travel, many of the suppliers the company works with do not. "They say, 'Well that's a different side, I'm only responsible for this side,' " Novak said of vendors' group and transient sales personnel. "We want the hotels to track for both group and transient. I want Kiewit to be able to go to individual hotel brands and easily pull data about what we're spending. It will take some coaching and some work with suppliers to get us to the point where we negotiate that way."
Kiewit's SMM software also includes a calendar, providing management with event logistics and contact information. "Having meetings on the calendar increases visibility and that's one of the main goals of any SMM program, to increase visibility of meetings and events across an enterprise," Jensen said. She also can track cancellations to see if any rebooking clauses allow the company to reuse the funds, and is in the process of developing a meetings card product, to be introduced later this year, that will be used to "capture spend on a separate reporting structure."
In addition, Novak and Jensen created a group on Kiewit's internal platform for sharing information solely concerning meetings and events. "For the rest of 2014, my duty is communicating why we're doing all of this internally and externally, and collecting data," Jensen said, "so that by the end of this year, we'll have data to look at, and in 2015 we can take the next steps." Kiewit is also in the process of designing a meetings and events portal on the company's internal network that will be a resource for meeting planners, acting as a central location for all events-related information.
Novak and Jensen collaborate with risk management and human resources as well. "The risk management team at Kiewit is aware of every airline reservation made and aware of any future planning when it comes to meetings," Novak said. "This is part of why we want people registering their meetings, so we can avert risk when going to an area that would be of concern." An internal messaging system keeps Jensen, Novak, human resources and risk management all informed on the whereabouts and safety of Kiewit employees. "Part of the requirements to register these meetings is [planners] can't just provide the city, we want to know the particular hotel, the particular property. We want to know where the people are," Novak said.
To improve Kiewit's SMM program, Jensen hosts webinars internally concerning meetings and monthly "open-mic sessions" where planners and Kiewit employees can give suggestions and feedback. In addition, Jensen is developing a meetings, events and travel council, "maybe to meet annually or twice a year for brainstorming," she said.
Kiewit's strategic meetings and transient hybrid program already has resulted in substantial savings for the business. "In the contracts that we've had to negotiate, we've seen significant savings," Jensen said. "From implementation [of the strategic meetings program] to the three-year point, we've had pretty good compliance. We've seen about 15 to 20 percent savings per meeting, a combination of actual savings and cost avoidance."
This report originally appeared in the August 2014 edition of Travel Procurement.