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Chapter One

Creating and FineTuning Your SMM

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Getting SMM Recognized – The ChallengesThe decision to establish SMM disciplines and committees within some of the major business travel organizations was not without its roadblocks and the kind of resistance one often encounters when trying to get a new project launched.

SMM: A History of Collaboration

Strategic meetings management and me?Way back, 10 years ago, I never thought I’d have anything to do with SMM or any doctrine or new process around how meetings should be managed.

There I was in 2003, winding down my two-year stint as president and CEO of GBTA (then the National Business Travel Association) and its foundation arm. It was an extremely rewarding post but also very challenging. Many of its members were still struggling during an economic slowdown that began after the tragedy of September 11.

by Kevin Iwamoto, VP Strategy, ACTIVE Network Business Solutions

But during my leadership at GBTA, I noticed that I was having more and more conversations with travel and procurement managers who, due to budget cuts at their organizations, had been given the responsibility to centralize management of travel spend categories. Their goals were to gain the greatest possible savings and efficiencies.

For most, that meant they suddenly had to get some kind of idea of the organization-wide extent of their meetings and incentive spending. And so, travel managers were reaching out, asking, “How can GBTA help me learn about this new category of spend that I’m managing? And where do I go to get access to information, resources and training?” They needed guidance on issues such as:

+ Providing a single view of all meetings held across the organization

+ Planning and managing meetings

+ Leveraging buying power with suppliers, cutting costs, eliminating inefficiencies

+ Reducing risk and assuring compliance

There were few readily available answers. I was no expert on meetings management. I was, however, very experienced in overseeing development, policy creation, strategy, and supplier management for various global travel spend categories at Hewlett-Packard – where I was senior global commodity manager. But at that time, I didn’t oversee meetings management.

Because I don’t believe in reinventing the wheel, I met with various industry groups that offered meetings resources; I described the changing needs of corporate buyers, including procurement professionals who were increasingly being asked to help apply their expertise toward meetings purchasing and to assist with contract management.

I heard things like this: “Meetings and events are very personal areas to manage;” and “You can’t tell planners they have to standardize sourcing and contracts because it’s too decentralized.” I remember thinking that many of these same things were once said about corporate travel. It also became obvious that many meetings industry leaders considered contracts nothing but a necessary evil, although meetings contracts are probably one of the biggest risks for companies, given the millions some companies spend yearly in cancellation and attrition fees.¹

What came from these realizations was a resolve to create—from scratch—a group of corporate travel/meeting experts who could put together educational materials to guide travel and procurement managers in this new, unchartered territory.

Establishing SMM at GBTAI distinctly remember my meeting with the GBTA board, presenting my case findings and decision to create the Groups and Meetings Committee. I thought long and hard about qualified candidates to head up this new group, and I sought recommendations from

1 Says a May 2013 American Express survey of planners and meeting executives: 37% of planners fail to forward ancillary contracts — for items such as ground transportation, A/V and entertainment — to a manager for review or approval. Further, just 6% of meeting leaders say planners are allowed to sign contracts, although 23% of planners say they do.

1. Stakeholder Management Connect with and recruit others in your company with responsibility for travel and meetings to champion, strategize and support centrally capturing spend data. Become the go-to person for data reporting and analytics.

2. Select Scalable Technology Choose meetings management technology that is scalable and ready to support your SMMP growth strategies. For example, if one of your goals is to cut hotel penalties, pick software that automatically attaches your company’s terms and conditions to hotel contracts – to protect you from onerous cancellation and attrition fees.

3. Use others’ best practices to your advantage Ask your meetings management company or SMM technology partner to provide client case studies that show how real companies are saving money and reporting ROI to their stakeholders. You can jump start your program by using lessons learned from other companies.

Kevin Iwamoto’s

Top 3 Best PracticesThinking of transforming your meetings and events by managing them strategically?

Refer to these 3 top SMM best practices:

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2 Meetings and Events: Where Savings Meet Success, CWT Travel Management Institute, 2010 3 In January 2012, ACTIVE Network acquired StarCite.

Kevin Iwamoto guides the strategy for the industry marketplace within ACTIVE Network Business Solutions. As one of the pioneer thought leaders around the creation of strategic meetings management, he also works with key influencers across industries to raise awareness of the benefits of SMM.

Iwamoto is a former President & CEO of the Board of Directors for the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), the leading source for education, advocacy, networking, news and information for thousands of corporate and government travel professionals and suppliers.

Iwamoto has been honored with numerous business travel industry accolades, including most recently, the GBTA’s Industry Icon Award, the association’s highest honor, which recognizes contributions to managed travel that are so important as to elevate an individual to the status of an industry icon.

In 2004, Iwamoto was awarded the prestigious GBTA President’s Award for his numerous industry contributions and leadership. In 2003, Business Travel Executive named Iwamoto as one of 13 Top Visionaries in business travel. Meeting News, Business Travel News and Successful Meetings have all named Iwamoto one of the top 25 most influential executives in business travel and meetings. In 2002, BTN also named him Travel Manager of the Year for his leadership and industry contributions.

Kevin IwamotoGLP, GTP, VP Industry

Strategy, ACTIVE Network Business Solutions

industry colleagues. After a long and serious deliberation, I asked Tracy Wilt, then manager of Global Travel and Meetings Management at Xerox, and Madlyn Caliri, who at the time was managing meetings for AT&T, to co-chair.

Under their leadership, the group quickly expanded to include many talented individuals. In 2004, the committee coined the term (SMM) and unveiled the first-ever SMM white paper, “Building a Strategic Meetings Management Program.” Since then, a bounty of other papers and resources has followed. My initial plan also included creating a session on SMM for the GBTA annual convention, where I was to step down and hand over the responsibility of the association to my successor.

Never did I ever think the group would go on to create a strategic meetings management program road map that would serve as the guiding foundation for organizations to learn about and develop their own SMMPs. The overriding success of the Groups and Meetings Committee spawned several task forces to create specific industry tools; these included the SMM Maturity Model and the creation of a long-dreamed-of program of strategic meetings management certification (SMMC), a course of study designed for travel and procurement professionals.

The results of these efforts to establish SMM guidelines and resources are staggering. In today’s $357 billion global meetings market, it is estimated that 10%–25%2 savings can

be achieved through the implementation of a robust SMMP, aided by state-of-the-art technology. Many programs boast even bigger returns. Success stories abound, and all the evidence points to the compelling value proposition of SMM.

Fast forward: Now… and the FutureEver since joining ACTIVE Network in 2009,3 I’ve been traveling the world evangelizing about the merits of SMM.

And thanks to the internet and velocity of technology development, instead of taking years to change, SMM has quickly gone from a concept to a globally recognized “must-have” strategy.

From its birth, the SMM journey has been incredible to witness.

What will the “new normal” be for SMM down the road? I already see SMM disciplines encroach into event and convention management and the focus on persistent engagement of attendees is starting to become the new norm in this dynamic marketplace. The next generation of SMM will include expanded focus on event engagement and will compartmentalize cost savings as one of many other tangible benefits of SMM. It will be fascinating watching the future development of SMM play out.

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“The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes

Maturing Your SMMP: Getting to Where You Want to Be

I love this quote because it so appropriately describes the strategic objective of the SMM Maturity Model, created by the Global Business Travel Association Foundation in partnership with ACTIVE Network | StarCite.

Companies worldwide have adopted strategic meetings management programs (SMMPs) to better manage a range of processes involved in planning their meetings and events, including:

by Linda J. McNairy, VP, Intermediary Relationship Management, ACTIVE Network Business Solutions

+ Budgeting+ Planning+ Sourcing

Some companies have only a few of the individual elements; some have a robust and overarching program.¹ But regardless of the depth and reach of the individual elements, the incorporation of SMM provides value and opportunity and improves the organizations’ meetings and events activities.

But the question remains: “How do I determine what is the right mix for my organization?” The SMM Maturity Model and its online Maturity Model Index enable companies to apply established measurements to evaluate their own SMM journey. (For more information, visit gbta.org.)

+ Attendee management+ Attendee engagement+ Payment

+ Analysis of business intelligence

¹ The 2012 Business Travel News Strategic Meetings Management Survey, a poll of 295 corporate travel and meeting professionals, found 36% have SMMPs in place in the U.S., while 88% have some policies in place that govern aspects of the meetings management process.

The model helps them determine where there is room to grow and gain further savings and efficiencies. It is the responsibility of the SMM champion within an organization, whether they reside in travel, meetings, procurement, or elsewhere, to decide whether to adopt a single element of SMM, embrace the entire system on a holistic basis, or improve upon what their organization already has in place. After all, SMM champions know best their companies’ own indirect expense management programs, as well as their readiness to advance their program.

Why Do We Need a Model?As thought leadership and practical application of the concepts of SMM developed, the talk track around SMM also grew. Unfortunately, so did inconsistencies of definition, application, and measurement of success.

In 2008, GBTA and Meeting Professionals International (MPI) came together to agree upon an industry accepted definition of SMM: a disciplined approach to managing enterprise wide meeting and event activities, processes,

suppliers and data in order to achieve measurable business objectives that align with the organization’s strategic goals/vision, and which delivers value in the form of quantitative savings, risk mitigation, and service quality.

In 2011, the GBTA Groups & Meetings Committee updated the representation of best-in-class components of an SMMP.

While this new definition helped clarify SMM, many practitioners still faced challenges in understanding how to assess their internal needs, determine where to start, and how to grow an SMMP within their own organization. A fully mature SMMP does not happen with the flip of a switch, so many well-intended organizations found themselves stymied by the magnitude of the endeavor, and as such, lacked an ability to determine both a starting point as well as a path for growth and improvement. Thus, the need for a Maturity Model was developed – inspired by a framework for process improvement created at Carnegie Mellon University.

3 Task Force members included co-chairs Kari Wendel, Sr. Director, Program Management & Solutions, CWT Meetings & Events; Debi Scholar, Director of Managed Meetings Strategies, American Express Meetings & Events; Linda J. McNairy, Vice President, Intermediary Relationship Management, ACTIVE Network Business Solutions; Carolyn Pund, Senior Global Meetings & Events Manager at Cisco Systems; Linda Bennitt, Sr. Event Manager, FreemanXP.

² Information source: GBTA

The Model and its online Maturity Model Index tool, which enables companies to apply established measurements to assess their journey along their own SMM path, is equally suited to organizations that are just embarking on their SMMP journey – as it is for those with more developed SMMPs. The beauty of the model is that it helps meeting managers – regardless of what stage of SMM they’ve developed – determine if and where there is room to grow in order to gain further savings and efficiencies.

The Task Force3 that created the Maturity Model felt strongly that SMMPs should work for all sizes and types of companies, not just global giants that have implemented many or all of the core elements of an SMMP enterprise–wide. And each SMMP should not be an exact duplication of all other SMMP implementations. What works within one organization may not be the best model for another.

SMM Index Maturity Levels

LEVEL TWO LEVEL THREE LEVEL FOUR LEVEL FIVELEVEL ONE LEVEL SIX

SMM Support processes are either non-existent or happening in an ad-hoc fashion.

The need for SMM Support processes are recognized and design of these processes may be starting.

Most SMM program basics are in place.

The SMM program is working and delivering value; compliance is beginning to gain traction.

The SMM program is working well, and is delivering value that illustrates the tie between the SMM program and overarching business objectives.

RANDOM

DISCOVERY

EMERGENT

OPERATIVE

EXCELLING

MASTERING

The Beauty of the Maturity Index

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1. Know your organization! Take the temperature of your organization to determine what kind of SMMP will fit your culture. Are mandates the norm at your company, such as the requirement to use a corporate travel agency or designated meeting card? If so, it’s more likely that meeting planners will accept required usage of event management technology and other SMMP elements.

2. Get Executive support for your efforts. And don’t forget to communicate that backing to everyone with responsibility for and involvement in meetings – including travel and meeting managers and procurement executives. Educate, educate, educate...and don’t forget to listen along the way and tweak your messaging based on your stakeholder audience.

3. Resist the urge to do it all at once. The beauty of the SMM Maturity model is that it helps you, regardless of what stage of SMM you have developed (even if it’s a single component), determine whether the time is right to expand to gain further savings and efficiencies. Maybe your best bet for now is to stick to your small, but effective, program.

Linda J. McNairy’s

Top 3 Best Practices You should create an SMMP that is right for you – unique to your company’s culture, employees and business goals. Here, ACTIVE Network’s Linda McNairy sums up some best practices for using the SMM Maturity Model and Index to help you get to where you want to be with your SMMP:

If a small or midsize company has adopted one or two elements, say, sourcing with eRFPs and automated attendee management, but not a unified system that includes a payment and reconciliation tool or data analysis and reporting, it doesn’t mean they don’t have a so-called

“true” SMMP. And, more important, it doesn’t mean they still can’t track their progress and, if they wish, incorporate more SMMP elements over time and, as needed, for a fuller, more comprehensive program as timing becomes appropriate.

The Maturity Model Index, an online tool residing on the GBTA Foundation website, enables managers to assess where their companies stand in the SMMP process and where they can move forward to strengthen their programs. The index lists and rates various components that are part of SMM, including:

+ Strategy

+ Policy

+ Registration of events

+ Approval

+ Sourcing and procurement

+ Supplier relationship management

+ Payment and expense reconciliation

+ Data analysis and reporting

+ Meetings technology

+ Stakeholder management (including training and development)

+ Communication and leadership

+ Measuring the three R’s (return on objective, return on investment, and return on equity)

+ Resource modeling and management

Rating Your SMMP The tool enables SMMP champions to look at various stages of best practices for the processes mentioned above and determine where they are on a rating scale of 1 to 6. For example, under the Maturity Model component

“sourcing and procurement,” in measuring the use and adoption of a preferred supplier program, an organization would score 1 (Random Meetings Management) if preferred suppliers are not in place for meetings and events. The score would be 2 if the company recognized the value of a preferred supplier program and put the basics in place, and a 3 would be earned if less than half of meetings and events adhere to preferred supplier programs in the business units where the SMMP was implemented.

Meanwhile, a score of 4 would mean that 50%–75% of meetings and events adhere to preferred supplier programs in implemented business units, while 5 would necessitate that 76%–90% of meetings and events adhere to preferred supplier programs for all meeting types and virtual meetings in business units implemented. At the top, mastery level 6, an organization has more than 91% of meetings and events adhering to preferred supplier programs enterprise–wide, according to the index.

Another important area of an SMMP is creating and communicating a meetings policy—governing everything from planning procedures to using preferred suppliers. In the area of communicating policy, on one end of the spectrum the index rates as 6 any organization that has set the SMM policy as the standard for how meetings and events

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As Vice President, Intermediary Relationship Management, Linda leads and manages ACTIVE Network Business Solutions group’s strategic business partnerships with the top global and regional event, meeting and travel management companies as well as event agencies.

Prior to this position, Linda was VP, Global Account Management at ACTIVE Network | StarCite, heading up a total team of 25 people who interface directly with and drive success with ACTIVE Network | StarCite’s largest customers, ensuring successful technology deployments and widespread planner adoption levels.

Linda has over 20 years of experience in the meetings industry, including direct corporate planning experience as well as many different roles as a supplier to the industry. She has a passion for the meeting industry and is driven to constantly elevate its professionalism and make meeting strategies an integral part of the overall organizational success. She is Chair of the GBTA Global Meetings Task Force and a past Vice-Chair of the GBTA Groups & Meetings Committee. She has also served on the GBTA Strategic Meetings Management Certification Task Force and the GBTA Foundation SMM Maturity Model Task Force. She is also a past President of the Indiana Chapter of Meeting Professionals International.

Linda J. McNairyVP, Intermediary Relationship

Management

are implemented. And all categories of the policy can be readily referenced—for example, via the corporate intranet—by any staff. Conversely, organizations that have not created a policy, and therefore have no need to communicate it, score a 1.

Easy Does ItWhile the SMM Maturity Model and Index enable companies to benchmark their progress against the mastery level of an SMMP, practitioners should also see the tools as a way to reassure themselves that where they are right now in their own program may be just the place they need to be. Rather than interpreting the tools as a point of reference showing where they “should” be on the SMMP scale (the tendency to immediately focus on the mastery level), it should provide SMM champions with the information they need to decide at what level they “want” to be, and how to get there.

There’s no rush to creating the “perfect” SMMP. Indeed, it may be premature to push through a program just for the sake of having one, since your organization may not be properly prepared for the changes a system-wide SMMP would bring. However, the model enables you to get started as your organization prepares itself to manage a more mature program.

Use the Maturity Model Index as a checklist to determine your pace so far and what needs to be done to advance. For example, in the area

of “communication and leadership,” are you at the point where SMM communications strategy and deployment is nonexistent? Or perhaps your communications strategy has been deployed across multiple stakeholder groups and the message content is customized for the audience.

But to advance to the mastery level, you’d need to implement a multifaceted communications strategy—across multiple stakeholders and business groups, and one that is woven into your firm’s overall business strategy—and ongoing messaging across your entire enterprise, including and involving preferred suppliers. You’d also need to measure if those communications were pushing up levels of policy compliance. On the other hand, there may be other components of your SMMP program that need to be developed before you will want to be at mastery level in communications. The last thing you want to do is communicate and set expectations if your systems are not ready to support the usage.

The bottom line in working with the Maturity Model and its prescriptive report is to use them like an online road map. You can select the route that is right for you, or even use a combination of several options. Use the new model’s resources and information to support your program and plot desired advancement, rather than make it a measuring stick that will force you into creating something that doesn’t fit your organization.