Strategic Meetings Management Resources
Strategic Meetings Management (SMM) programs allow corporations to increase visibility into meetings activity and risk across the entire organization. One of the main components to the success of your SMM program is the usage and adoption of technology solutions. The resources on this page were written to provide information on the value of implementing an SMM program and to help you get started. Have more questions about Strategic Meetings Management or meetings technology? Contact us today to get in touch with one of our experts..
Strategic Meetings Management Information
What is Strategic Meetings Management?
As defined by GBTA’s Groups and Meetings Committee, SMM is the enterprise-wide management of all meeting-related functions with the goal of achieving business objectives such as savings, risk mitigation and improved service. But what does this mean for your organization, and how can you go about putting a Strategic Meetings Management Program in place?
Learn how to leverage Cvent’s Supplier Network eRFP tool to manage the strategic sourcing process for events and meetings across your organization. The Supplier Network consolidates all meeting and event sourcing data into one platform and tracks the usage of preferred suppliers. With a customizable and easy-to-use interface that will save time spent booking meeting space across your organization, our enterprise sourcing solution has been shown to decrease sourcing costs by as much as 30%.
SMM Matters Series
Technology enables SMM programs and provides meeting, travel and procurement departments with the tools necessary to achieve goals of risk mitigation, cost savings, enterprise wide visibility, and business process automation. In order to achieve these goals, you need an intuitive solution that will be adopted across all divisions.
Cvent simplifies major meeting processes, including meeting planning, budgeting, sourcing, and attendee management, and captures the data necessary for detailed analytics on meeting activities and spend across the enterprise. Learn more about Cvent’s approach to meetings management in our “SMM Matters” series:
At Cvent, we take a highly personalized, consultative approach to implementation with every client. Find out what implementation challenges you’re likely to face, how Cvent’s SMM implementation solution is unique, and why 95% of our clients are “very satisfied” with our implementations.
Budgeting & Tracking Meeting Spend
Tracking meeting spend has long been one of the most difficult and dreaded aspects of managing a meetings program. See how Cvent’s SMM solution introduces time-saving automation and customization to make the process as easy as possible.
Federal, state and corporate regulations require life sciences companies to track healthcare provider (HCP) spend – a daunting task. Our solution is highly configurable, able to generate the necessary summary-level reports despite the fact that HCP data is often housed in multiple silos.
Meeting planners and procurement don’t always see eye-to-eye on venue selection; it’s a battle of creativity and intangibles versus the need to cut spend. Cvent’s strategic sourcing approach gives procurement the ability to implement guidelines and standard procedures without sacrificing the planner’s creative control.
Sometimes the real meetings management challenge begins when attendees enter into the process. Learn how Cvent lets you integrate user-friendly, feature-rich attendee management into your Strategic Meetings Management Program.
You can have the best technology and the most well-thought-out set of meetings policies in the world, but if your planners don’t use it your Strategic Meetings Management Program will fail. We work with clients to develop and implement an organization-wide adoption strategy.
Accurate reporting is key to proving the success of any Strategic Meetings Management Program. With configurable dashboards and custom reports, Cvent puts meetings data at your fingertips.
Meetings management is more global than ever before; companies are organizing events in multiple countries, with different languages and currencies. Cvent’s solution was designed to be flexible enough to handle these challenges and more.
The above topics are all available in one book for complete look at Cvent’s end-to-end meetings management technology best practice advice.
Strategic Meetings Management Video Resources
Featured Webinar: Buying Meetings - Working with Procurement
Seamless collaboration among meeting and procurement professionals is key to a successful meetings program. This webinar addresses common challenges, questions, requirements and best practices on how to bridge the divide between meetings and procurement.
Business Travel News & Cvent Webcast: Making Meetings More Efficient
Hear from industry experts on optimizing your meetings processes, including tracking, reporting, and incorporating strategies to save costs. Attend this online-only event and learn how your organization can better manage meetings costs and as a result drive a higher return on investment.
Meetings Management Blog
Learn tips to help improve your meetings management program and policies, get the latest news about Cvent and our solutions, and find out what’s new in the field of meetings management.
Strategic Meetings Management White Papers
Five Myths of Strategic Meetings Management
Strategic Meetings Management has emerged as a key business methodology since it first came into use more than ten years ago. But because SMM is constantly evolving, myths regarding its exact purpose, components and capabilities continue to circulate.
The Aberdeen Group’s Strategic Meetings Management Report
In this 2011 report, the Aberdeen Group collected data from over 115 enterprises to analyze the effectiveness and overall state of their meetings management programs. The data in this report make the case for implementing an end-to-end SMM solution: among other findings, they determined that the companies that most effectively implemented SMM policies realized 75% greater cost savings on SMM spending compared to other organizations.
Best Practices in SMM Strategic Sourcing
When it comes to SMM savings, strategic sourcing is often the largest piece of the pie. For many organizations, it’s also the logical place to start when implementing an SMM program. Written with meetings and travel experts from the BTN Group, this white paper outlines the path to executing a successful strategic sourcing strategy.
