Here’s how to earn your CEU hour. Test Time CERTIFICATION MADE POSSIBLE
Once you finish reading these two CMP Series articles, read “A Strategic Perspective for Meetings Management,” a chapter from Professional Meeting Management, Fifth Edition (PMM5), available at the CMP Series link below.
To earn one hour of CEU credit, visitwww.pcma.org/convenecmp to answer questions about the information contained within these two CMP Series articles and the PMM5 chapter.
The Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) is a registered trademark of the Convention Industry Council.
mature programs indicated that not having it measured to begin with could be a distraction to progress. They advised that planners make some assumptions based on the data they know and project fromthere. Hard data earns respectwithin an organization and facil-
itates a change in the team’s role.With data, you can have a different conversation with management, especially during budget season. Tamer suggested partnering with the HR department to come up with a report that shows how many training events each employee attended over the course of the year — which would help indicate how much money the company is investing in training. Another option is to hire a consultant who specializes in
mining through company data in order to help analyze it. While the industry has not yet developed benchmarks, it was suggested that planners could benchmark their program’s performance against that of their peers who work for simi- lar organizations.
Meetings Procurement Cards for Payment The group reported having a variety of experiences in using payment cards (P-Cards) for meetings, such as: For some, this is a great way to help track meetings spend, allowing them to segment expenditures by internal general ledger codes or generic categories. Others have trouble with compliance and, as a result, with streamlining the payment process. They reported that they now are managing two processes—compliant and non-compliant payments. Several participants stressed the importance of making P-Cards part of the travel and meetings policy—and to have executive-level support on this initiative. One person
“It is important to use sharp facilitation skills [for consensus] and remain open for stakeholder input and feedback. Mandates do not work.”
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reported that an offender at her company is an executive who likes to build up points for personal travel use, which some in the group found to be unethical. The challenge with using P-Cards is in controlling which expenses are used for general T&E expenses versus key meeting expenses. Suggestions included developing a pol- icy on the use of P-Cards for consistent utilization, and working with P-Card providers to help provide more effi- cient reconciliation capabilities and obtain a comprehen- sive understanding of true meeting spend.
Meetings Technology Many participants commented on the importance of technology resources to generate greater efficiencies. More participants this year seemed prepared to make an investment in technology than at theNBTAbreakfasts the year before. Corporate procurement staff seem to be early adopters and are pushing the demand. One table discussed the misperception that technology
enables an organization to operatewith fewer staff. Technology is an enabler, making the process easier, but it still takes smart people to use sound event-management processes and strategy. Another participant acknowledged that his plans call for an
outsourced third party to manage the technology for his orga- nization’s benefit to ensure budget and policy compliance. Some participants expressed that itwould be helpful if more
event-budget calculatorswere provided as part of the technol- ogy solution, to help less-experienced stakeholders have a bet- ter comprehension of meetings budgeting. Post-event, actual costs against budget are proving to be a challenge and can be a result of the multiple reimbursement processes in usewithin many corporations. One participant said that she has been successful in making
the case for technology by proving that her company had organized a series of meetings in the same hotel over the course of a fewweeks—and none of the planners knewthat other parts of her companywere there at the same time. After analyz- ing the contracts, itwas found that each had gotten very differ- ent rates and concessions, and all had incurred attrition penalties. The casewas made that a technology tool could make it clearwhat meetingswere being planned company- wide, so that her company could benefit frommaking a bulk buy and reduce its risk.