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Strategic Meetings Management

Elevating results with the Total Meetings Management difference

 

What is Strategic Meetings Management?

Strategic Meetings Management is the management of enterprise-wide meetings processes, spend, volume, standards, suppliers and data to achieve measurable business objectives that align with an organization's strategic goals. It’s just like travel management for meetings.

Podcast: How to build a lean, mean meetings machine in a perfect storm of volatility

Kari Wendel, VP strategic and enterprise customers, and global operations at CWT Meetings & Events is at the helm of the agency’s ‘total meetings management’ approach working with larger customers with centralized meeting strategies, large events & corporate incentives. 

In this podcast, find out:  

  • How record demand combined with leaner teams, higher costs, fewer options and longer lead times have created a perfect storm and how your organization can weather it with aplomb
  • Why a centralized meetings strategy is critical in the current climate of unpredictability
  • New ways to look at managing risk and how to plan for unknowns

 

What is the value of Strategic Meetings Management?

Do you want greater visibility into meetings and events spend? Are you concerned about risk mitigation and increasing ROI? Are your meetings and events driving business decisions? These are just a few of the areas where the use of Strategic Meetings Management (SMM) elevates program performance to new levels.

Companies without a SMM program have a variety of roles organizing meetings, uncoordinated tasks and incomplete data scattered throughout their organization. Existing processes are manual, supplier contracting, and payment practices are not well managed. Everyday tasks such as planning meetings, sourcing venues, managing suppliers, and signing contracts need to be streamlined. Through the use of SMM, you’ll get better visibility and control of your process, spend and data while reducing costs and strategically approaching how your meetings are managed.  

The benefits of Strategic Meetings Management

  • 10-25% average negotiated savings 
  • Time and resource savings through driving efficiencies
  • Removal of duplication and confusion, through use of a systematic approach
  • Mitigated risk across contracting, supplier management, and payment practices
  • Quality customer care and commitment to responsible business
  • Simplicity and flexibility through a lead agency model 

 

What makes us unique?

 

Our SMM services and strategies are driven by three guiding principles which are centered around Total Meetings Management and our three SMM guiding principles of infrastructure, governance and administration.

We are challenging the status quo by elevating our SMM approach to provide solutions that answer our clients' unique needs to reach Total Meetings Management. By establishing the right organizational structure to support the strategy, oversight to drive changes and adoption, and processes for the day-to-day operation and support, you are on your way to the next in-class SMM that achieves your goals.

The highly experienced team of Certified Meetings Professionals working in our unique SMM Center of Excellence delivers an industry-leading service to our clients around the world, working across industry sectors while supporting the optimization of global, regional and local programs.

 

             Beyond SMM - Thinking outside the wheel


SMM Maturity Model

Moving Beyond Mastery

 

Our next level approach to SMM includes Total Meetings Management (TMM) Mastery strategies. TMM is our new proposition that introduces a new level of mastery and capability for SMM. TMM is unique to us and allows our clients to be the first to answer the most popular SMM question in the industry today, “What’s next?”. 

The TMM approach elevates current SMM practices and provides a new level of maturity to your program delivering previously unattainable levels of performance. Currently, SMM programs are measured in five levels from concept to mastery using an industry standard maturity model. TMM adds a sixth level to the maturity model and provides new concepts around data and reporting analytics and stakeholder advocacy that can only be achieved with this comprehensive approach.

 

Enhanced benefits with Total Meetings Management

  • Elevated approach to your current SMM program
  • Inclusion of your total meeting landscape
  • Enhanced stakeholder advocacy strategies
  • Policy and process alignment with a new lens
  • Prescriptive data analysis with actionable recommendations
  • Digital Enhancements
  • Program infrastructure uniquely designed to align with organizational and program nuances
  • Prescriptive analytics which reveal areas of program growth and adoption growth
  • Excellence in SMM administration
  • Benchmarking your success against internal clients and industry trends

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