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Understanding the Scope and Benefits of SMM Area of Focus Goals Steps
Reassess senior management’s meeting and event vision and objectives.
People
Identify enterprise-wide meeting and event planners, administra- tors, and stakeholders—and their meeting activities, process- es, goals, and skill sets.
Templates
Put together a meeting-needs assessment, meeting-approval procedure, and master meeting and event calendar.
Procedures
Develop meeting- and event-planning processes and procedures that include attendee communications, learning out- comes, and on-site meeting management.
Venues
Create a hotel-site search, crite- ria for evaluation, a value-based negotiations process, and a cus- tomized hotel-contract process that addresses all hotel-contract components, value-added con- cessions, hotel fees and sur- charges, performance clauses, and liability language approved by the legal department.
Benefits
Achieving management and stakeholder meeting goals and objectives
A focus on core competencies
Improved planning processes and team productivity
Integrate other meeting functions, including registration and housing
Risk mitigation (financial and legal compliance); meeting consolidation/ leveraged spend
crucial to solicit support and feedback from any and all stake- holders. You will need to give them a big-picture vision and compelling reasons for everyone to work together.“We are now in the process of implementing ourSMMplan, and we are building our case by showing all stakeholders a new busi- ness model that will simplify the planning process and add significant value to the organization,” Demyanovich said. “Our associates are seeing the benefits to this shift in how business is done, and in the process, they are gaining recogni-
While a carefully designed and imple- mented SMM programcan save an organization 12 to 24 percent a year, itis notsolely aboutsaving money.
60 pcma convene January 2011
tion, too. I just received a call recently from sales managers in Latin America and Asia whoare ready toget on board with ourSMMinitiative.” A carefully designed and implementedSMMP (a frame-
work is provided in the table above) can save an organization 12 to24 percent annually, according toNBTA, which is cer- tainly a powerful way to get senior management’s attention and support. ButSMMis not solely about saving money. Too much emphasis is placed on cost savings and not enough on howSMMcan help guide and improve the meeting design and its strategic outcomes. And it’s also a process.Once anSMMP is implemented,
the plan requires continuous evaluation, stakeholder collabo- ration and feedback, and tweaking to improve processes, procedures, and value-based results. “While we are in the early stages ofSMMimplementa- tion, we are seeing greatly improved communications and