Unleash the power of a strategic meeting management programme

Congratulations - you’ve just been handed the keys to your company’s meetings and events. Whether you raised your hand or got “voluntold,” here’s the good news: this is your chance to turn it into a well-oiled machine that delivers real results.

Let’s call it like it is - without structure, corporate meetings can be a black hole of blown budgets, tangled spreadsheets and compliance whoopsies. But here’s your secret weapon: a Strategic Meeting Management Programme (SMMP). It’s not just about keeping things organised - it’s about taking control.

When you put the right framework in place, everything changes. You get full visibility into where the money’s going, keep stakeholders aligned and uncover savings no one knew existed. Suddenly, Finance isn’t chasing you down - they’re high-fiving you. Legal’s not worried about contracts - they’re impressed you spotted the risk before it happened.

A smart SMMP doesn’t just fix issues; it sets you up to lead with strategy, streamline operations and make meetings matter. Sound like a win? Let’s dive into how to make it happen.

What is strategic meeting management?

At a high level, strategic meetings management is the coordinated practice of wrangling all your company's meetings and events under a standardised methodology. No more departments doing their own thing: booking random venues, hiding costs in different budgets, and making up processes on the fly.

A strategic meeting management programme centralises and controls everything through:

  • Formal policies dictating how vendors get sourced, budgets approved, risks mitigated.
  • Bulk sourcing and consolidated purchasing to leverage economical pricing.
  • Robust meetings tech for streamlining all those meeting attendees and logistical nightmares.
  • Centralised data streams capturing performance metrics, attendee feedback and ROI.

Sounds a bit like how your travel programme is run, right? Same deal – strategic meetings management applies those core disciplines of policy, supplier management, streamlined operations and spend transparency to the meetings/events universe. Event success starts here.

The benefits of a strategic meeting management programme for business

If organising corporate meetings currently has you reaching for the paracetamol, a strategic meetings approach will feel like someone just handed you the keys to a much simpler world:

The money munchers exposed

Right now, getting a clear picture of what your company spends on meetings across departments? Good luck with that. Different teams bury costs in creative budget lines and book through whatever channels they fancy. It's a safe bet you're leaking money faster than a sieve holds water. Strategic meeting management pulls all that scattered spending data into one place, letting you track every dollar and finally spot where the savings are hiding.

No more policy lip service

Having rules and policies around risk, sustainability and budget approvals is cute in theory. But when execution is a free-for-all making compliance total guesswork? Not so cute. Strategic meeting management builds those requirements right into the process itself. It makes compliance the path of least resistance rather than something people conveniently forget when it doesn't suit them.

Meeting logistics on autopilot

For those organisers stuck playing endless whack-a-mole with venue hunting, contract negotiating, and all those fiddly logistical details for every single event - strategic meetings management calls in the cavalry. You'll get streamlined event related processes that handle everything from sourcing to execution, clear processes, pre-vetted suppliers and a whole team taking ops off your plate.

Event management returns you can measure

What's the ROI on all those meetings and events your teams have been running? Drawing a blank? Thought as much.

Strategic meeting management programs wrap proper reporting about everything that matters: attendee engagement trends, feedback ratings, cost-per-attendee and other quantifiable returns – all under one analytics umbrella. So you can finally prove your events aren't just expensive social clubs.

In other words, strategic meetings management brings budgetary controls, compliance enforcement, logistical streamlining, and performance accountability to your M&E roster. So, how do you make that happen (without a company-wide meltdown)?

Running a tight strategic meetings management ship (step-by-step)

Pulling off an optimised strategic meeting management programme isn’t a walk in the park. It takes a phased, methodical approach across these core components. We'll walk you through the steps.

1) Get a sense of where you're at 

Before cooking up any new strategies, take an honest look at the current meetings and events landscape in your organisation. How's it operating across departments right now? Who owns what pieces of the puzzle? Where are all the inefficiencies, gaps and missed opportunities hiding? Don't just skim over this diagnostic phase.

If you do not have access to all the information you need, that is already a green flag reason to implement a strategic meeting management programme. If you have the right technology for reporting and analytics, you can easily view key meetings metrics, quantitative cost savings, track bookings with preferred suppliers and more.

2) Get everyone on board

Strategic meeting management programmes impact tons of different groups - marketing, HR, finance, legal, you name it. So, get those key stakeholders aligned from the get-go. None of this making unilateral decisions locked in an ivory tower. Collaboration with multiple stakeholders and two-way communication are absolute musts if you want long-term buy-in and adherence.

3) Craft the master policy and strategy

With full visibility into everyone's needs and that key stakeholder feedback, you can start designing the core policies that'll form the backbone of your strategic meeting management programme. We're talking sensible budgeting guidelines and savings opportunities, a process when you compare venues and suppliers, practical approaches to mitigating risks and sustainability requirements, and those big-picture strategic priorities that keep everything pointed in the right direction and your key objectives on track.

If you did not have the data to hand at the start, the strategy may come at a later time, once you understand the full picture of your company's spending habits.

4) Inject the tech fuel into meetings and events

There are lots of moving parts. You'll need robust solutions for streamlining venue sourcing, logistics, event registration, attendee data and reporting workflows. Not just fragmented technology tools scattered across teams. Find the right system intersection tailored to your organisation's meetings needs.

Event technology tools include attendee management and event registration tools, technology that allows you to quickly compare venues and negotiate contracts, and in-event technology like polls or interactive elements that boost the attendee experience.

5) Optimise, optimise, optimise 

Once your strategic meetings management program is up and running, the work is far from over. Gather continuous feedback from stakeholders, analyse all that juicy performance data and keep working on evolving your policies, processes, staffing models, tech - everything. Using valuable insights for continual optimisation is what unlocks results over time.

It's a journey for sure, but a disciplined approach and staying the course pays off massively.

The bottom line of a robust SMM programme

Implementing an enterprise-wide meetings programme? That's how you start crushing those measurable business objectives and unlocking serious cost savings for future meetings. By consolidating meetings and events across your organisation, you get full visibility into every penny of meeting spend. No more financial management worries. And that amplified purchasing power? It maximises your leverage to negotiate deals with preferred suppliers for your organisation's events.

You also enable proactive enforcement of policy compliance, duty of care and risk mitigation, and sustainability - not just box-ticking. And with unified data intelligence, continuous optimisation to drive quantitative cost savings becomes easy. We're talking about boosting attendee engagement, precisely containing costs and aligning events to powerfully achieve business objectives. You're equipped to manage it all masterfully.

The upsides are so impactful that authorities like the Global Business Travel Association champion strategic meetings management for meetings and events. It's the difference between just hosting events and strategically turbocharging them as impact drivers for your organisation. And taking the steps to achieve measurable business objectives.

Why call in the SMM pros

Got all your meetings under one strategic meeting management programme? Finding a vendor might feel like mission accomplished. But the event management organisations truly getting ahead know the real magic happens with a connected ecosystem and disciplined approach that breaks down traditional barriers.

At FCM, we've built that unified ecosystem merging travel, consultancy and FCM M&E. Our travel management brings policy chops and service quality that seamlessly extend to meetings. The consultancy crew optimises processes and frameworks. And our business meetings and events offering? Fully integrated - no silos here.

By interconnecting these disciplines, our squads align policies, data streams and supplier deals into one well-oiled approach for your organisation.

This delivers advantages for future events like:

• Aligned travel/meetings policies so there's no wiggle room to go rogue

• Maximised supplier strategies and leverage so you get the best rates every time

• Combined data visibility to see if you're meeting measurable business objectives and key performance indicators

• End-to-end strategic support

Looking for an event planner? Tired of your company's meetings and events feeling like a side hustle? Let FCM's strategic meeting management solution at FCM Meetings & Events take that burden off your plate. Contact us to explore the future of meetings and events for your organisation.