Managing Meetings At: Science Applications Int'l Corp.

<B> Managing Meetings At: Science Applications Int'l Corp.</B>
<I>Consolidated Contracts Cut Costs</I>

By Chris Davis

Even though travel mandates are anathema at employee-owned high-technology research and engineering firm Science Applications International Corp., its meetings and travel departments have shaved 10 to 15 percent off its meetings air budget by negotiating consolidated travel and meeting contracts with preferred airlines.

The San Diego-based company, which has acquired several companies in the past 18 months, now eyes some sort of long-term meetings consolidation program, despite the fact that employees are not required to register their meetings with the conferences department.

The company, which booked $82 million of air volume in 1998, about $3 million of which is estimated as meeting spend, has a travel policy that only encourages employees holding meetings of 25 or more to use the services of its conference-planning department, headed by director of conference services Lee Ann Adams.

Adams and her boss, vice president of corporate travel Joe Preimesberger, through creative volume-based meetings and transient air negotiating, offer an example for cost savings through the meetings program for companies with corporate cultures that don't support forced travel policies.

Adams' department handles about 250 to 300 meetings annually, a number that has more than doubled over the past five years as SAIC has grown and acquired several other companies. The acquired companies, however, maintain their own meetings departments and do not negotiate jointly with SAIC.

At mandate-free SAIC, capturing data about meeting spending for use in negotiations is a challenge. The company's corporate intranet enables employees to send requests for meetings support to Adams' department, but they don't have to. Nevertheless, Adams thinks her department has a hand in a majority of SAIC meetings, and captures the necessary data manually.

"We are judged on the money we save for our internal clients," Adams said. "We compile monthly status reports on the money we've saved and special air negotiations are a large part of that. We look at what the fares would normally be if the internal client were to call an SAIC agent on their own, and contrast that by the fares that we're able to get."

SAIC will use zone fares and other meetings fares for specific meetings, depending on the city pairs of the meetings and the carriers involved.

Equipped with that data, Preimesberger can negotiate combined volume-based group deals with SAIC's preferred carriers, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines. While some airlines occasionally have voiced displeasure with such deals (<I>Meetings Today</I>, Sept. 7, 1998), SAIC's $82 million 1998 domestic booked air volume carries quite a bit of weight.

"We reached that decision mutually with our primary carriers, United and Delta," Preimesberger said. "They had no problem with it. They know we're a valued customer that brings them a lot of business."

Adams believes her department at least partially handles a large percentage of SAIC meetings, but acknowledged convincing employees to do so can be challenging. The SAIC travel policy notes that meetings over 25 "should involve" Adams' department, not only for the cost savings through negotiations it can provide, but also for the planners' contractual expertise.

Fear of cancellation damages has been one key to drive more internal business Adams' way, she said.

"We've become very busy because clients are afraid to do anything contractually without talking to us," Adams said. "We also have to demonstrate that our department can plan meetings faster and more efficiently for less money, while always leaving the clients in complete control. In my company, the soft sell works best."

SAIC's hotel negotiations for meetings are different. The company negotiates with hotels on an event-by-event basis, and SAIC has preferred chains. "We don't guarantee we're going to drive a certain amount of meeting business to any hotel or chain," Adams said. "But we do try to give group business to our preferred properties whenever possible."

SAIC recently automated its payment systems and moved the corporate-card application process online (BTN, Oct. 4) Up next for SAIC is an exploration of some sort of consolidation or automatic data capture effort. But nothing immediate or concrete is planned.

"It's a challenge to centralize anything here," Adams said. "But we're trying to get our arms around the data.