Case Study: Strategic Meeting Management

Clearwater Events works with a large global childcare provider. They organise a series of company-wide events along with departmental meetings and training seminars, many of which are attended by the public. They also have a number of trainers and management staff visiting sites and therefore booking hotel accommodation.

Events were being booked by individual departments with no cross referencing across teams with venues being selected based on conveinience, rather than value for money and delivery. There was little consistency in venues being used and often large disparities in quality of delivery and service.

Hotel bookings were being made by the individual, using third party booking sites, direct internet bookings and recommendation. As such, there was little compliance to procurement policies.

The Objective

We suggested creating a SMM solution that aligned to the company’s procurement policies and guidelines, offering a central tool that managed all event and hotel bookings. By centrally managing all event and hotel accommodation enquiries, the objective was to:

– Ensure events aligned to procurement spending guidelines
– Ensure that there was no cross over of events, looking at event aims and objectives and consolidating where possible
– Align hotel bookings to procurement policy and per diem guidelines
– Offer a central point of contact for all bookings, offering a centralised venue find and hotel booking tool
– Offer a consistent standard of venue and event offering
– Reduce exposure to venue contracts, reduce bedroom cancellation fees, whilst controlling over spending that was not aligned

The Solution

Firstly, Clearwater Events created a policy based upon the company’s procurement guidelines, providing a set standard operating procedure based on requirement. Secondly, we researched and studied what data was available, understanding what events were being booked (and at what cost) along with hotel spend.

With this data, we were able to set preferred rate agreements with key hotel chains aligned to the company’s procurement guidelines. With initial rates and agreements in place, a dedicated booking tool was introduced, providing a central point of contact for all team members to submit event and accommodation requests.

With strict SLA’s designed by Clearwater Events in place, our initial solution targeted 23% cost saving based on first negotiated rate.

The Results

Clearwater Events has 12 months of financial data tracking meeting spend per team and department whilst offering line item reports on hotel spend across the company.

This data is now being used to leverage greater cost savings with specific hotel chains and venues with deeper discounting negotiated for 2018 (now that consolidated tracking can be provided). Contractual terms have been negotiated with reduced exposure to attrition whilst cost savings are averaging 30% for the year ahead.

A standardised event solution is being offered throughout the company, with a set quality ensuring that all training meetings have the same look, feel and consistency. This includes venue type, meeting layout, food and beverage and audio visual.

We now have a dedicated booking tool in place with same day turn around for hotel accommodation bookings and 24-hour turnaround for venue finds. In turn, a standard operating procedure for specific department meeting bookings has been created, ensuring greater consistency.