The world of organising corporate events can be fraught with pitfalls. Peter Manning offers a step-by-step guide to delivering successful company gatherings that provide a measurable return on your investment.
BE COMPLIANT
Companies are beginning to introduce more and more compliance measures into meetings management in order to help control cost and policy adherence. It may be worth establishing a Strategic Meetings Management (SMM) model, a disciplined approach to managing meetings across the business. An SMM model can include guidelines on choice of venue, contract content, location and agendas, so before planning any event check your company’s procedures to ensure that it remains policy-compliant.
SET CLEARLY DEFINED OBJECTIVES
When we organise meetings and events, we first establish our client’s objectives. This determines how the function will be run, and also helps with post-event analysis. For example, if you are responsible for hosting a team-building day, ask participants to complete a questionnaire about how they work as a team before and after the event. Combine this data with the total spend of the meeting and you will be able to measure the return on investment (ROI), potentially providing justification for future work and budget adjustments.
DETERMINE THE STYLE OF THE EVENT
Once you have defined the objectives, decide the style. Your objectives and other factors such as budget, duration and purpose will impact where and how a meeting will be run. Understanding these details can help result in quicker decisions, giving you a longer lead time.
Utilising a meeting sourcing solution can help organisers avoid the pitfalls associated with drafting contracts with suppliers. It can also assist with negotiating aspects such as room allocation, food and beverage requirements and any other ancillary spending.
Meeting suppliers can help ensure that what is written in the contract with regards to cancellation fees aligns with the company’s policy, avoiding the payment of unnecessary fees. Furthermore, if you have a long-standing contract with a venue, always make sure that your negotiated rates and paperwork are completely up to date.
MANAGE DATA EFFICIENTLY
A well-organised event is contingent on the efficient management of delegate data. Meeting management and web registration tools enable you to co-ordinate delegate information, providing details on accommodation, enrolled activities, ground transportation and transfers. Other online tools can be used to achieve greater visibility of spend per head for flights, hotels and transportation.
A corporate meetings card can also be used to manage your expenses. The spend data provided by the card, combined with the data from other online tools, can be used to compile detailed expense reports, helping you understand and assess the overall spend for an event.
CONSIDER NEW MEDIA
The American Express Global Meetings Forecast for 2013 identified that planners are responding to the expectations of delegates by employing social media throughout the life cycle of a meeting. Social media can be used to connect with attendees before and during an event, as well as putting participants in touch with one another. Post-event, social media can be used to extend communications and foster enduring bonds between delegates.
Meetings and events are often considered one of the last frontiers of unmanaged corporate spend, and gaining visibility of your expenditure in this sector is important. Consolidating your activities with one supplier can help in the end-to-end management of a meeting, as well as providing you with a better understanding of how and why your budget is spent, thereby allowing you to deliver successful meetings with a demonstrative ROI.
Peter Manning is the UK Director of American Express Meetings & Events.
