Improved value and cost savings through SMM for our financial services customers

NYS
Apr 2, 2019
3 min read

Updated: Apr 8, 2019

Improved value and overall cost savings driven by efficiently managed meetings – that’s what our Strategic Meetings Management (SMM) is all about.

This approach has been created to ensure a clear return on investment through evolving initiatives, policies and processes whilst delivering on compliance, consolidation and efficiencies when it comes to booking a meeting.

We understand that governance is a top priority for companies in the financial services sector and that effective meetings management processes can involve complex, multi-hierarchical authorisation processes.

So, we support our financial services customers by making sure that approval procedures are reflected in user friendly self-booking technology, and via our specialist booking consultants.

Driven by insights

Our first step to SMM is understanding meeting planner behaviours, spend and data, working together to create measurable changes and positive results.

We have the data analytics and behavioural science expertise to take academic research and turn it into actionable insights that will influence desired behaviours. By challenging the where, the why and the how, we support and connect employees in the most efficient way possible. So, as a buyer, whether it’s cost reduction, duty of care, wellbeing, or a combination; our richer, more accurate understanding of how people behave is your key to achieving compliance and organisational goals.

The power of influence

With up to 50% of your working life spent in meetings, we are inspiring customers to connect differently whilst supporting behavioural change and ensuring delegate wellbeing is at the core of our meetings solution.

It’s more than just self-booking. Our intelligent portal offers a unique online meetings calculator that provides a view of the total meeting cost, based on where delegates are travelling from. It also takes into consideration employee wellbeing and the proactive promotion of internal meeting space to ensure that your organisation benefits from maximum occupancy levels.

Specialist technology

By giving meeting planners full control, meetingsPro® makes it possible to search, plan, book and manage all your meeting requirements, through one simple, easy-to-use online tool. Plus, there’s plenty of choice; meetingsPro® has a wide range of live venues with negotiated rates. From preferred to non-preferred, and not-for-profit to unique venues, finding the right venue at the right price has never been easier.

meetingsPro® delivers efficiency and cost savings by reducing the time spent on venue searching, negotiating, pre-meeting administration and budgeting. Not only this, it helps our customers achieve cost savings associated with end-to end online adoption and maximises attendee engagement through products like delegatePro.

Expert knowledge and service

With the best people in the industry, our open culture, and the latest technology, backed up by our relationships with trusted suppliers, we know we can deliver an unsurpassed solution for you. To do so, we will act as an extension of your team, listening and developing the end result around your precise requirements to ensure we exceed your expectations and deliver on your organisational objectives. A solution defined by you and delivered seamlessly by passionate meeting and event professionals.

Why us

By creating a strategic meetings management journey for our customers we are able to:

Maximise internal meeting facilities and connect your employees in the right way.
Ignite smarter buying; education hubs, policy management, compliance through confidence and saving guarantees.
Provide visibility and approval parameters around your meetings expenditure.
Deliver value through our leverage, market position and demand management.
Leading the way with our innovative online meetings management technology.
Drive efficiencies with our streamlined processes and our consultative approach.
Ensure employee wellbeing is at the heart of our service, ensuring duty of care extends to your meeting delegates.

Case study: UK based financial organisation

We’ve been managing this customer’s meetings and events venue sourcing requirements since 2006 and following a recent full market review, they chose to retain our expert services for another three years.

Consistently delivering savings in excess of 24% compared to open market rates, we have also delivered further savings of a 12% average through meetings RFP. Cost savings over the last two years alone achieved in excess of £3.2m from preferred venue negotiations.