The collapsing global economy is battering the meeting and event industry. Corporate leaders are postponing or eliminating any expense for which a strong business case cannot be made or is not affordable. Most leading economists predict it will take years for equity markets and the global economy to recover. A tsunami-scale ripple effect is being felt in the meetings industry.
Large numbers of meetings and meeting planner jobs are being cut. Most, if not all, off-site larger meetings are under scrutiny by CEOs and CFOs as candidates for down-sizing or elimination. Most meeting planners in major public companies say that half or more of all their off-site meetings have been cut for 2009 including their annual convention and large conferences.
Survival threats
Meeting professionals and event managers are under enormous pressure to justify their meeting expenditures – and their jobs. Heads of corporate and association meeting and event departments are downsizing staffs as the number of meetings shrink. A strong business case needs to be made to maintain meeting planners on the payroll when outsourcing is available.
The tragic disconnect is that while overall industry research shows that meetings and events generate the highest ROI of any marketing expenditure, most individual meeting professionals are incapable of proving that their specific meetings deliver meaningful business impacts and ROI.
Job security and company survival are fast becoming job one. The toll on jobs throughout the meeting industry is beginning to be felt in many key sectors; airlines, hotels, conference centres, training and production companies, exhibit companies and a whole host of specialty suppliers. They are facing plummeting sales and difficult times ahead. A frightening number of these businesses, large and small, may not survive in the months ahead.
Some associations are seeing meeting registration revenue from members levels fall by 35 percent or more with supplier participation down dramatically as well in 2009, plus membership renewal revenue slipping as members’ budgets become more restricted. Professional and trade association may be forced to curtail some member services and events as their revenues shrink.
Cost justifications for large corporate meetings are being required and reviewed at the highest levels in companies today – now spurred on even more by the glare of a public spotlight President Obama is shining on large meetings in companies receiving TARP money – which is also illuminating large meetings in all companies. Greater public visibility of large meetings is triggering many corporate leaders’ instincts to duck and cover instead of defending and protecting valuable meetings that deliver proven business results.
We should identify, preserve and protect meetings and meeting professionals that deserve to survive.
Survival strategy
Learn from Darwin. Adapt. Develop new abilities to succeed in this environment.
Here are step-by-step measures to achieve this:
A. Think both short-term survival and long-term renewal:
Short-term, adopt a triage approach. Identify and invest only in essential meetings that will drive organisational performance, meetings that deliver proven business impacts and demonstrate a positive ROI.
Long-term, raise your game. Renew yourself as a more valued professional. Learn how to design results-driven meetings and how to prove their value with measurable results including ROI.
B. Adopt a New Strategic Mindset:
Meetings that deliver real value (measureable results/positive ROI) deserve to survive.
Understand and accept the new reality. In these difficult economic times, and probably forever after, any expenditure for a large meeting will have to be justified with a strong business case – specific, measurable, value-driven business objectives, a rationalised budget and an assessment plan.
C. Change C-level perceptions of meetings from an expense to a valuable investment:
Corporate leaders need to understand and view meetings as justifiable investments that deliver measurable value to improve organisational performance.
The meeting Industry should band together in common cause to communicate and promote the value of meetings to corporate leaders and meeting owners. Promote meetings as professional communication events for which a strong business case can be made, that deliver real value – measurable results, business impacts and ROI that drive organisational performance.
Meeting industry leaders – associations such as MPI, PCMA, etc and major corporate meeting and event sponsors including hotels, airlines, credit card companies, etc – should form an industry consortium and become highly visible, vocal advocates – everyone participates, supports and carries the messages.
D. Set new standards for meeting value and effectiveness:
Raise the level of expected value from meetings – the efficacy of a meeting.
Adopt and standardise on a meeting value chain approach that drives design, implementation and measurement of meeting results, one that will insure high-value, effective meetings with outcomes that produce strong meeting business cases
E. Train, develop and certify meeting professionals with results measurement skill sets:
1. Teach meeting professionals a process for developing measurable, results-driven meetings that deliver business impacts and financial results.
2. Teach meeting professions how to measure meeting results and ROI.
F. Elevate the professional image of meetings and meeting professionals:
Make meetings more effective by recommending, supporting and providing the development of meetings that deliver measurable results.
Start surviving today – action steps
1. Identify and preserve meetings which are indispensible – that can be proven to deliver high value, measurable results including ROI.
Measure the largest, most expensive, most important meetings that have taken place during the past four to six months using an ROI Snapshot Survey or other ROI measurement process to determine a meeting’s business impacts and ROI.
Analyse and decide whether or not a business case can be made that those meetings deserve to be repeated in the future.
2. Eliminate meetings that have performed poorly from being repeated or redesign them to deliver significantly greater value.
3. Future Planned Meetings – design meetings to insure they deliver the highest value at the lowest cost. Build a solid, fact-based meeting design that insures delivery of real business value and a measurable ROI whenever possible.
Measure pre-meeting values to define the essential value chain that the meeting must produce.
Build a business case for the investment. Design the meeting to achieve outcome values.
Measure post-meeting – levels 1-3 results within a couple of weeks and levels 4-5 (business impacts and ROI) results within three to six months.
4. Establish value standards and tracking of meeting effectiveness over time – with industry benchmarks developed and made available to all.
To assist their members to make a strong business case for attending annual association meetings for next year, a demonstration of the ROI generated by individual attendees of this year’s annual association meeting would be a strong investment justification to attend again.
With a modest investment in a post-meeting ROI survey, information about an individual member’s ROI produced from the annual meeting could be provided to individual attendee members as well as reporting and promoting member attendees’ overall ROI averages to stimulate annual meeting attendance for the coming year.
A golden lining – renewal
There is a golden lining in this economic calamity for meeting makers who are willing to seize this moment as an excellent opportunity to raise their game. By improving the effectiveness and value of their meetings by delivering measurable business impacts and ROI, they can change the way their meetings and themselves are perceived and respected by C-level leadership.
We can come through this difficult time having transformed meetings into indispensible communication events respected for having a professional development process that produces credible, measured business results – and an industry dedicated to professional meeting results standards and clarity of contribution equal to any other professional-level endeavor in business.
ACTE held its Global Education Conference in Prague, 25-27 October 2009.
