Background
Upon selecting CWT M&E as their lead agency, we learned that this client, a large global healthcare company did not have visibility into much of their spend data as business units and departments were using individual technology instances or manual processes.
Another key challenge was proper control for meeting budget approvals. Historically, a meeting owner would manually input information tied to the meeting, which can translate into human error as well as potential circumnavigation of company process. With more than 300,000 global employees, an unregulated process can have critical cost and quality control implications. CWT M&E assisted them with a central tool to manage spend and to provide an enhanced experience including:
- Optimized workflow approval through key controls for budget approval
- Customized Meeting Request Form (MRF) to drill down into components, such as key indicator metrics and business trends
- On-demand reporting for individual events
- Centralized hub for resources and information
Challenge
Two years after we began our partnership, this client had reached maturity with their Strategic Meetings Management (SMM) program, yet still missed critical cost and quality control elements in the M&E process. The client wanted greater visibility into total spend as internal planners and other external agencies were not using their centralized technology.
Their non-mandated environment provided opportunity for leakage and lack of oversight and governance. Additionally, the client was experiencing challenges due to an influx of acquisitions that brought with them loyalty to legacy agencies, processes, technologies, etc.
We have worked with the client to elevate their strategic program into a Total Meetings Management (TMM) strategy by creating a plan to transition all meetings and events into their program and make holistic recommendations and solutions for critical gaps.
Solution
The foundation of the Total Meeting Management strategy was created when we worked with them to develop a preferred hotel supplier strategy to maximize savings and contracting efficiency. A preferred supplier RFP was sent to targeted suppliers and brands to ensure fit for a wide breadth of meeting sizes and complexity. It also has achieved the following critical success factors:
- Pre-negotiated terms and conditions
- Speed to contract
- Competitive discounts and savings
As their lead agency, CWT M&E remains agnostic in respect to our client’s roster of preferred meeting and event suppliers to provide non-biased expertise and guidance. For each event, we review the client’s entire ecosystem of preferred M&E suppliers to recommend the supplier that is the best fit for that event. Sometimes the best fit is determined by price, sometimes availability, and sometimes past successful experience. Without this consultation, many clients may see leakage from their preferred supplier’s utilization. For TMM success, it is critical to socialize a client’s entire M&E supplier ecosystem, not just services provided by CWT M&E. Doing this offers users choice and the ability to select service delivery based on attendee and meeting planner experience as well as price.
For example, although CWT M&E provides production services, the client has long-standing preferred relationships with other production suppliers. As an expert in production, we educate each stakeholder to help them understand what supplier may be best for a specific event and its unique needs. This is helpful especially when you have stakeholders that may have been using a particular supplier for some years and are unaware of other suppliers that may be better suited to deliver differently or more cost effectively.
In parallel, this client had a large number of acquisitions being onboarded regularly which meant stakeholder engagement was a full-time effort to ensure adoption and education around the strategic program. To do this, we worked with the client to implement a dedicated role to educate newly acquired stakeholders on the importance of the centralized program in place and the crucial information needed to request services and engage suppliers.
We provide detailed reporting that brings awareness to opportunities where stakeholders and business units are using services and suppliers outside of the program, providing visibility into potential future savings. As the client’s lead agency and sole venue sourcing provider, we provide a comprehensive reporting package providing critical data advising on potential lost savings and spend.
Finally, to keep all M&E processes and visibility centralized, we made sure the meeting intake process is scalable to efficiently track data, including virtual meetings and events. This includes cancelled hotel space and their associated credits, budgets, and new categories of vendors. We have helped this client see the full journey of their data to pull valuable reporting and metrics around their portfolio of products and changes in spend from previous years with mainly live events. This process is optimized by using a common M&E technology for which we have contracted on their behalf.
Results
We have helped our client achieve 80% preferred supplier program compliance in the first six months through extensive stakeholder engagement. We are working with them to reduce their 20% leakage to non-preferred suppliers by socializing all M&E suppliers and increasing program awareness with stakeholders as their overall M&E subject matter expert.
The client has achieved a mastery level of maturity by encompassing the totality of meetings and events through unique stakeholder education and advocacy and advancement of policy and governance.
Additional data collected on a regular cadence from their other agency providers and integrated into their technology tool ensures visibility of total spend.
By leveraging the selected preferred hotel suppliers, the client has achieved $2.1M+ in year one savings.
The client is thrilled with program success and is focused on elevating, simplifying, and adapting additional TMM concepts. Their leadership continues to appreciate complete visibility into meeting spend and vendor feedback surveys, which directly tie to our SLAs and significantly raise the trust and transparency of our partnership.
“Our ability to administer an enterprise-wide solution with complex data requirements was the wise choice for this client. The continued enhancements and auxiliary products have proven beneficial to managing the client’s business needs.”
Senior Director, Global Customer Management