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and Ireland of HRS, believes that it hasn’t been built for the novice, while Ray McGroarty, solutions marketing sirector of Polycom, unsurprisingly cited advances such as a three- fold improvement in voice quality and 25 times improvement in resolution, plus the fact that VC had broken out of the room-only environment and onto laptops and mobile phones. “It can bring 30 per cent reduction in travel on average, a 25 per cent reduction in training and 19 per cent reduction in recruiting by stopping people flying round the world,” said McGroarty. Buyer Margaret Birse of SERCO consented that virtual meetings brought challenges in losing eye-to-eye contact and often expensive repairs but, on the plus side, “the benefits are there too,


in money, time and CO2 emissions savings.” SERCO purchased the hardware and pays a


fixed monthly fee for unlimited point-to-point calls, available 24/7, and with up to four simultaneous connections and pre-testing validation. It has replaced many regular meetings, training sessions and interviews and secured buy-in from the top driven by a weekly conference call between the CEO and chief executive. During the session's concluding Q&A, HSBC's Whiteing voiced the opinion that all VC was doing was replacing phone calls, not travel, but Polycom’s McGroarty believes acceptance will come with younger generations.


MEETINGS MANAGEMENT Tackling the last frontier of unmanaged spend – meetings – was the subject of the third session, and CWT's Alison Smith, director of business development UK & Ireland, outlined the eight key steps to rein it in: spend analysis; M&E strategy


and policy; annual calendar and budget to marshall resources; select and negotiate with preferred suppliers; establish formal planning processes; implement registration processes; handle payment and reimbursement; and finally, evaluate M&E performance and compliance. The advice from De Vere’s Ian Jones, director of agency sales, was simpler: “Don’t go after every piece of spend but split it down into simple


EVERYONE’S A WINNER


• Devrin Houssein won two first class overnight sleeper tickets from Scot Rail.


• Jo Andrews from the University of Bath won tickets from First Great Western.


• Theresa Mabutt of CIPD won a night's stay at the Brooklands Hotel.


• Val Tuson from Unilever won a hot air balloon trip with Skyline Apartments.


• Peter Macey of MDDUS won dinner at Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck, courtesy of SilverDoor.


DURING the course of the conference many delegates scooped great travel prizes that had been generously donated by suppliers. Here are the winners: • Linda Wadkin of Courtaulds won an apartment stay from Citybase.


• Beate Herrmann of Muller International won a hotel stay courtesy of Hotelscene and Principal Hayley.


• Emma Towsey of the Bank of Tokyo won a prepaid card with £25 loaded on it, courtesy of Advanced Payment Card.


• Charlotte Hammerbeck of GSK won two nights B&B from Mercure Hotels.


• John Elliot won tickets for Harlequins versus London Irish courtesy of Etihad Airways


• Lisa Pritchards from the University of Bath won two first class rail tickets from First Capital Connect.


• Androulla Pillas from In Flight Productions won two tickets for anywhere on the Virgin Atlantic network.


• Delegates completed a calling card to be entered into a grand prize draw for a trip to Brazil, courtesy of TAM Airlines and Pestana Hotels & Resorts. This was won by Mark Payne of Santander.


chunks, starting with the largest areas of spend that are controlled by a small number of individuals. Get those sorted and you’ve gone a long way.” PwC's Sam van Leeuwen, head of UK hotels


and venues, and handling a £52million-plus spend, gave her own steps, the first being to analyse spend that was collected from the TMC and accounts payable. ”It is a very painful


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