My last post mentioned that, for many companies, cost savings is not enough of a driver to secure complete buy-in or get the go-ahead to implement a meetings management program, the question of financial implications will inevitably arise. Before undergoing any business case conversation with your executive team, it is important to at least have a baseline estimate.
I recommend that you walk yourself through the following calculation for your business:
Estimate both a low and high-end potential spend. Gut check these numbers and adjust the multiplier if it seems too high or low.
- Annual Company Revenue X .01 = low-end estimate
- Annual Company Revenue X .03 = high-end estimate
Estimate potential savings. Based on your meeting spend estimate
- Meetings spend estimate X .25 = potential savings
Some of the most frequent sources of tangible dollar savings will come from automating manual processes, centralizing contracts, supplier consolidation, re-use of meeting space from cancelled events, reduction of printing costs through use of a mobile app, and real-time budget visibility. Based on your organization’s current processes, ultimate savings will be higher or lower than industry averages.
Cvent has developed a calculator to automate these calculations based on your industry.
This post is part of a series on strategic meetings management. To see other blogs in the series, click here. This content was originally posted on blog.cvent.com in 2014.