The world of events management has certainly evolved over the past few years. Like its “sister” category of business travel, this category was often seen as a mere cost of conducting business until enterprises realized that there was a strategic “edge” in approaching meetings management in an enhanced manner, understanding that a true connection to its customers and clients can be built via the concept of “engagement management.” CPO Rising is pleased to present a series of articles that discusses the tactical and strategic capabilities that can help enterprises develop superior events management programs.
The contemporary events management program must be founded on a series of both tactical and strategic capabilities that can be leveraged to not only effectively manage corporate meetings, but also support concepts that traverse beyond spend and supplier management. To drive real value out of modern-day events and engagements, enterprises must look to a series of strategic capabilities that not only address real-time needs, but also the long-term requirements of the greater organization from a financial, procurement, and marketing perspective.
The following “capabilities that matter” will help boost the strategic value of any meetings or events management and help to enhance existing processes around this complex spend category:
- Active collaboration between procurement and marketing. We’ve spoken about the collaboration between these two units previously here on CPO Rising, and this cross-functional capability will hold true for years to come. In order to strategically-manage corporate events, there must be consistent collaboration between the spend management and marketing management sides of the house. Marketing should obviously lead initiatives on the engagement management front, while procurement handles the strategic sourcing aspects. Regular communication between the two functions will ensure that events are leveraging consistent engagement methods, standardized supplier management attributes, and are able to managed on or below budget.
- Ability to measure the true effectiveness of meetings and events (aka “the ability to measure emotional ROI”). The notion of “quality” is one that has penetrated many quantitative areas of the modern enterprise. How can a company effectively measure the quality of items such as contingent labor, business travel or, of course, corporate events? There are multiple ways of developing quality-tracking capabilities that traverse beyond the realm of simple performance measurements. Post-event surveys are one means, but social media presence measurement (number of retweets, etc.) and social feedback is another. These days, it’s all about boosting the attendee experience…and the only way to do that effectively is to know if past events are “connecting” with attendees.
- Strong link between financial, procurement and events management analytics, data, and intelligence. Big Data has certainly permeated the complex spend management arena, in that every contingent workforce management (CWM) or travel / expense management program includes a focus on analytics. In the world of events management, there must be a strong link between financial (cash / budget), procurement (suppliers), and events management analytics to drive maximum visibility that can be leveraged to not only track / monitor the budgets tied to events, but to also forecast for the future and place events management into the executive boardroom as a major planning piece.
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