Meetings Management
Meetings Management Program Development
The key to meetings management is managing your business in a disciplined, innovative, and compliant manner – it’s all about attention to detail.
Today, the meetings management environment is an ever-evolving process that varies greatly depending on corporate culture, executive understanding and buy-in, meetings management policies, budgeting, and the internal expertise needed to negotiate contracts effectively so that meetings will produce positive ROI. Developing and implementing effective management and operational controls can significantly reduce excessive meeting spend through compliance and governance controls, the structuring of innovative practices, limiting liability exposure, and ensuring efficient workflow processes – all the while leveraging meeting spend bundled with the corporate transient travel budget. Therefore, attention to detail has never been a higher priority.
GTAS has corporate meetings experts with decades of experience in this discipline who work with corporate meetings managers to develop methods, processes and policies to drive significant ROI with companies of any size and meeting budget.
Strategic Meetings Policy Assessment / Development
A key best practice within a corporate meetings management department is to periodically perform an independent management, financial and operational assessment of the Strategic Meetings Policy in order to ensure it is current and being applied in a compliant, effective and efficient manner. This assessment addresses all sections of the meetings policy for applicability, compliance, key meeting fundamentals, as well as overall corporate strategy and goals.
The key objective for the development of a Strategic Meetings Policy is to manage the corporate meetings function through a smart, responsible and disciplined approach that protects the corporation’s reputation and contributes to shareholder value. The foundational basis for the creation of a sound Strategic Meetings Policy is to: (1) Manage compliance and governance; (2) Control and contain all meeting spend elements; (3) Ensure meeting attendee safety and security (Duty of Care); (4) Eliminate fraud, waste and abuse; (5) Serve the internal customer and protect the corporate reputation and shareholder value; and, (6) Ensure that a company achieves the maximum value for each meetings travel dollar spent.
GTAS assists its clients in benchmarking current policies and recommending updates as well as developing new corporate Strategic Meetings Policies. We employ a smart, responsible and disciplined approach that aligns with corporate objectives.
Small Meetings Management
The numbers don’t lie. As the economy continues to grow, and as corporations continue their expansion to meet demand for their products and services, small corporate meetings are rapidly on the rise and the corporate world is searching for ways to deal with this growing phenomenon. As these meetings are proliferating at a rapid pace, it is incumbent upon corporations to begin recognizing that they must manage these meetings through a disciplined and compliant process.
GTAS consultants have the experience and talent to assist corporations meet these new demands on corporate resources by introducing a sound, solid and comprehensive strategic approach to small meetings management.
No meeting is too small to be professionally managed as small meetings are historically unmanaged events, and this is a major issue for duty of care and cost.
Strategic Meetings Program Assessments
A key best practice within a corporate strategic meetings department is to periodically perform a management and operational audit to ensure it is operating in a complaint, effective and efficient manner. GTAS assessments are focused on organizational and operational structure, program data and business intelligence, workflow processes, technology, compliance, data management, contract review, program metrics (KPIs), and audits of both internal and external influencers to ensure that appropriate financial controls are in place. Additionally, the evaluation addresses the identification of gaps between current meetings management practices and industry practices beyond best-in-class.
When combined, GTAS is able to effectively assess the Current State Design environment and provide recommendations for improvement. Another option is to develop a comprehensive Future State Design environment. The ultimate goal is to provide a roadmap for an effective and well-structured organization whose business processes reflect management practices that exceed best-in-class standards.