This document contains speaker bios for a presentation on strategic meetings management. It introduces Debi Scholar, president of Scholar Consulting Group, Mark Hubrich, VP of client relations at SignUp4, and Matt Hodge, VP of sales at SignUp4. It provides details on their relevant experience and qualifications.

1. Debi Scholar, President Scholar Consulting Group
Mark Hubrich, VP Client & Industry Relations SignUp4
Matt Hodge, VP of Sales SignUp4

2. SPEAKER BIOS
DEBI SCHOLAR
• Author, President, Scholar Consulting Group
• Designations include GLP, CMM, CMP, CTE, SSGB, & CTT
• T&E Plus Blog has over 31,000 views & described as “must-read” by industry magazine
• Selected as one of the top 20 Changemakers of the industry & BTN Practitioners of the Year
• Formerly managed Pricewaterhouse Cooper’s SMMP for over 2,000 meetings & budget over
$200M and was first Meeting Director to include Virtual Meetings under her direction in 2002
MARK HUBRICH
• Vice President of Client and Industry Relations
• Technology entrepreneur with over 13 years of software development
• Guest lecturer on meetings technology at Univ. of North Carolina Charlotte &
Kennesaw State University
• Meeting Industry Ambassador with GaMPI
MATT HODGE
• Vice President of Sales
• Over 14 years of successful sales & sales management
• Lead technology sales at Datastream Systems, MFG.com, & Knowledge Storm

3. Typical components to SMMP
Pre-Planning: Sample Questions to Ask
Common Misconceptions & Pitfalls to Avoid
Key Implementation Steps
Post Implementation Best Practices
Questions & Answers

4. Strategic Meetings
Management (SMM) is a
disciplined approach to
managing enterprise-wide
meeting and event
activities, processes,
suppliers and data in
order to achieve
measurable business
objectives that align with
the organization’s
strategic goals / vision,
and deliver value in the
form of quantitative
savings, risk mitigation,
and service quality.
Global Business Travel Association produced the first
whitepaper on SMM in March 2004.

5. Pre-Planning: Sample Questions To Ask
• Do you currently have a meetings policy?
• Who are your key stakeholders?
• Number of meetings held annually?
• Annual meeting costs (hotel, travel, catering, etc.)?
• How are hotels/vendors procured & is it consistent across the
company?
• Is your company at risk by not having standardized contracts
for vendors?

6. Finding Meeting/Event Spend and Volume
• Extract data from Accounts Payable and Cards (corporate, Pcard, etc.) - Finance and supplier reports
• Ask for historic spend and forecasted budgets.
• Survey administrative assistants and other key ad hoc
planners.
• Ask key suppliers.
• Use industry benchmarks.

7. Common Misconceptions
Requires hundreds of thousands of dollars
& years of data collection

8. • One meeting manager only used benchmark data to
convince leaders to move forward.
• One meeting manager wrote a short memo to her leader
explaining how she could help keep the organization stay out
of future lawsuits.
• Many organizations started without any data - but needed to
comply with future regulations.
• Many organizations want to comply with section 404 of the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which regulates companies' internal
financial controls and procedures.

9. SMMPs are only for enterprise level/Fortune 500 companies

10. 7 Risk Exposure Categories without SMM
Risk Exposure is REAL
if you plan
1 meeting or
1,000 meetings
Planner Types
• Corporate
• Association
• Higher Education
• Government

11. Implementation is difficult and overwhelming

12. Start Simple
30 days
60 days
90 days
• Recognize
opportunity (save?
risk? efficiency?
compliance?
transparency?)
• Prepare and perfect
elevator speech
• Don't get
overwhelmed; most
mature programs
take years to develop
• Gather and analyze
whatever data is
available
• Identify stakeholders; • Continue meeting
start meeting with
with stakeholders
them
• Read your T&E
policy or meeting
policy
• Identify quick win
opportunities
• Tackle 1 or 2 quick
wins
• Collect best practices • Document pros/cons; • Enjoy the journey
and learn
may want to develop
and course correct
business case and
as necessary
proposed project
plan

13. Dramatically changes existing processes

14. Pitfalls to Avoid
DO: Ideally your organization will have a
meeting policy defined. However, many
simply need to start gathering data in order
to validate to management the “Why.”

15. DO: Have a concise meetings request
process. One client of ours had a 300
question form and no one wanted to fill
it out because it was so lengthy.
Some clients may have 2-4 different
meeting request forms based on the
meeting type and complexity; a best
practice is to keep the forms as simple
as possible.

16. DO: Know what type of reporting you
would like to generate. This
determines the setup process for the
vendors and budget categories to
match up with accounting.
Standard and custom reports
are available.

17. Key Implementation Steps
Step #1 Define Goals
Identify the problem and opportunities.
Example: Driving measurable savings to support business
objectives

18. Step #2 Create An Implementation Taskforce

19. Know Your Stakeholders and HOW to Approach them
Stakeholders
Drivers
Finance
•
•
Maintain financial controls
Visibility into spend
Operations
•
•
Streamline processes
Efficiencies
Travel
•
•
Transparency into travel costs
Support group travel
Procurement
•
•
Select suppliers fairly
Leverage spend
IT
•
•
Secure networks
Support the right technologies
More Stakeholder Drivers at www.TEPlus.net
Tailor Discussions based on Personalities -
(e.g. B.A.N.K. System*)
*Contact Debi Scholar
for more information

20. Step #3 Collect Meetings Data

21. Step #4 Choose Your SMMP Technology Provider
Consider longevity, feature offerings, pricing, references and
most importantly ease-of-use.
Scrutinize the user interface.

22. Step #5 Develop The Actual Plan, Rollout &
Timeline
Create a business process map with specific action items,
timelines and supporting data.
Include opportunities for built in assessments and corrections
throughout the process.
Benchmark measurable goals to evaluate progress.

23. Sample Project Timelines
Debi@DebiScholar.com
for samples
©Debi Scholar. 2011

24. Step #6 Develop Internal Communication Plan

25. Step #6 Develop Internal Communication Plan
• Message
• Audience / Stakeholder
• Purpose or goal of communication
• Medium of communication (e.g. face-to-face meeting, phone
call, email, webinar, etc.)
• Developer
• Approver
• Deliverer
• Frequency
• Timing of communication

26. Post Implementation Best Practices
Registration
Define the meeting
Determine level of data required for registration
Outline spend categories related to total cost
Use unique meeting ID once meeting is registered
Approval
Budgetary
Financial
Compliance/Regulatory
Approval to come from senior executive above planner

27. Post Implementation Best Practices
Negotiations
Engage more than one supplier to ensure best rates & concessions
Multiple options prevents starting over if one should fall through
Negotiations can be reported by planners and sourcing team
Contracting/Risk Management
Centralized contracting prevents unauthorized commitments
Procurement can review and approve contracts along with legal
Create pre-approved meeting contract templates
Create commodity-specific agreements

28. Post Implementation Best Practices
Execution
Management should ensure policies & procedures are clearly documented
Roles and expectations should be clearly defined
Training should be included for new planners
Reporting
Develop organizational reports to present to leaders demonstrating ROI
Define metrics for success
meetings visibility, cost per attendee, percentage of total meeting
cost for major commodities
Use metrics to identify trends and opportunities for increased savings

29. Thank you for joining us!
Visit us at these upcoming conferences
Contact Us
Debi Scholar
Mark Hubrich
debi@debischolar.com
mhubrich@signup4.com