In brief

CHALLENGE

Client’s small meetings were deemed “too small” by the company to be treated as “strategic meetings.”

SOLUTION

We pinpointed all the small meetings that were not classed as “strategic” at the company, and started looking for opportunities for consolidation, shared A/V equipment, best use of the senior manager’s time, and assistance with Duty of Care.

RESULT

We devised a plan to consolidate and manage their smaller meetings and identified that the client was missing out on saving $1.3M, by not having all of their small meetings go through the SMMP.

The details

First Look

When our account manager first started looking into the account and talking to hotels and venues, we discovered that the small training courses were being held at approximately 26 different venues. This meant that there was no understanding of spend or duty of care should anything go wrong, as the meetings didn’t exist – they were too small to be classed as “strategic.” When we examined this account further, we were able to understand other areas of the business, that also ran small meetings that were not classed as “strategic.”

All Into One

By getting all of the PAs, EAs, coordinators and assistants using the same tool, the bigger picture became more apparent and we learned that 25% of the total meetings spend of the company was deemed “non-strategic” and therefore fell outside of the SMMP, and was being booked by the meeting holder themselves or their PA. Meetings were taking place with senior management engagement, and they were all under the radar.

We discovered that the client could show a clear savings opportunity if we were to consolidate and manage these smaller meetings. It became clear that all small meetings needed to come into the SMMP, either through the online booking request tool or a small meeting online booking tool, to get clear visibility and therefore control over this spend. Using this tool and inviting attendees through it gave our client the ability to track their employees when there was risk to their safety for one reason or another.