Posted February 8, 2012
Travel and meeting managers that use preferred suppliers become frustrated when their travelers or meeting attendees bypass the policies and use non-preferreds. Case in point, when we went through our Six Sigma measure stage at PwC (2007) to identify the rogue or maverick meeting spend that was not funneling through our meetings team, we learned that our strategic meetings management program only managed 49% of the total spend in the firm.
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Posted June 22, 2010
Putting the term "commodity" in the same sentence as travel and meetings is like adding Lady Gaga as an inductee to the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame; you either agree or disagree with the parallelism but there is no denying that it is the big elephant in the room. Do you believe that business travel, meetings and events are commodities? The term caused us to stir in our seats while participating in an NBTA/StarCite-sponsored meeting yesterday.
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Posted February 3, 2010
Large, mid-size and small organizations with any kind of spend, in the U.S. or globally, should use enterprise-wide corporate cards to pay for everything from travel and entertainment expenses to legal services in order to increase the card rebate, gain visibility into expenses, decrease fraud and reduce accounts payable cycle time. Although the move to an enterprise corporate card system feels like a complex initiative, the implementation produces a streamlined business process. Even organizati
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Posted January 19, 2010
If we fail to plan, we plan to fail. No quote is truer in a crisis management situation. The organization that does not have the time, money or skills to dedicate to crisis management may lose clients, products, services and even worse, staff.Read More »
Posted October 29, 2009
How do you measure your travel and meetings Corporate Social Responsibility ('CSR') program? What are your CSR priorities? Read More »
Posted September 26, 2009
In speaking with a colleague today, I learned that one of his clients does not have a T&E preferred supplier program in place for airlines, hotels or ground transportation. In fact, this company spends millions on travel and allows their travelers to buy tickets from any place of their choosing. They have no travel policies. Their employees look up the typical trip cost estimates in their travel database and use it as a guideline when booking trips. With the estimated trip costs in hand, the
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Posted September 13, 2009
If your CFO, or another leader, asked this question, can you provide the answer? Do you know how many internal and external meeting planning professionals were involved in planning meetings and events? Do you know how many executive assistants, marketing or human resource associates planned meetings?Read More »
Posted September 8, 2009
How do you measure your travel and entertainment expense behaviors and outcomes? Most leaders are taught to focus on the bottom line, and then cut, cut, cut expenses. I recommend reviewing the leading and lagging controls that are in place to obtain cost reduction.
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Posted August 17, 2009
Years ago, when I worked at Westinghouse Furniture Systems, our conference rooms had a 'meeting cost' calculator on the wall. In theory, if average salaries were input into the system, the calculator would display the cost of each meeting. While it did not really gain momentum, I often wonder if we recognize the value of ti Read More »
Posted August 8, 2009
Virtual meetings complement, and sometimes replace, face-to-face meetings. When supported properly, virtual meetings can be interactive, engaging and build camaraderie. Without the proper knowledge, skills or attitude, a virtual meeting program will be unsuccessful. Read More »