Solutions & Consultancy

Up & running

Does this sound familiar? ‘I keep reading about Strategic Meetings Management (SMM) and know we need to do something about it.’ Or ‘I’m struggling to prove the ROI value of SMM.’

Our Quick Start Strategy is an easy way to get you up and running with a clear program, fully aligned with your business and clear next steps.

Define & review

We instantly add value to your SMM program by making it easy to process and reconcile meeting related expenses.

We solve all kinds of problems, including lack of visibility about spend and missing supplier data.

The result is a transparent payment process, data capture and analysis, and standardized processes, aligned with your internal controls and key fiscal objectives.

Listen & learn

Just reporting data doesn’t get you far: you need insights and business intelligence. CWT Meetings & Events (CWT M&E) provides advice to show the value of your SMM program to key stakeholders. It includes:

• Your current data with customized data analytics
• Gap analysis between where you are now and where you want to be
• Comprehensive business intelligence strategy
• Scorecards that engage key stakeholders

With this you’ll be able to find the story within your data.

Simplicity & compliance

Do you need a policy that supports regulatory requirements? Do you want to use your SMM policy to standardize processes and gain operational efficiencies? Would it help if you could increase the use of preferred suppliers?

Our experts have designed and deployed policies for medium to large companies all around the world. We can help you create a customized policy that reflects your specific needs by:

• Reviewing your existing policies and benchmarking with best-in-class policies
• Helping you develop your policy based on your objectives and corporate culture
• Developing a “Life of a Meeting” process map to engage your stakeholders

Your new SMM policy will provide clear direction, making it easy to follow and drive efficiencies and savings. 

Engage & deploy

Mobilizing stakeholders is key to the success of an SMM program.

Are you embarking on an SMM program? Do you have a program in place but no traction? Or perhaps you have limited communications experience?

Our SMM solutions experts will develop an engagement strategy by:

• Developing a short and long term engagement plan
• Delivering a detailed stakeholder map
• Providing communications templates
• Working with you to deliver program launch workshops and interactive strategy sessions

By engaging the right people in the right way, you’ll maximize adoption of your SMM program, making it become part of the fabric of how your company operates. 

Plan & draft

Contract negotiation and management can be challenging, but we’ve got the experience to sort it.

Our experts will help you develop a process that removes the pain, including:

• Development of a suite of contract templates
• Understanding your objectives around contract and business risks versus rate negotiation
• Ensuring the processes are controlled, auditable, and designed to maximize leverage and minimize risk

You’ll then have a streamlined contract management process. It’ll be aligned with your company’s risk mitigation strategies and you’ll minimize repetitive contracting. Imagine how much easier life will be.

Plan & plan again

There is no simple SMM checklist or one-size-fits-all strategy. So we help tailor your strategy to your company’s goals and objectives.

We make sure your program starts off on the right foot using:

• Opportunity analysis and competitive benchmarking
• Understanding where you are now, where you want to be, and how to get there
• Framework and strategies for each SMM component
• A comprehensive business case to get internal buy-in

Your SMM strategy will link directly to your overarching corporate goals, provide complete transparency and operational efficiencies. We give you a step by step process to make the complex look easy.

Select & embed

It is important to understand your SMM process and key objectives before making a technology investment. Our experts can guide you with this. And we know many different technology solutions and can help you maximize your technology investment through:

• A customized technology functionality matrix
• Detailed and phased strategies around initial launch of technology, and subsequent program enhancements and expansions
• Weighted measurement tools to assist in comparing potential suppliers
• Configuration assistance to ensure your solution is ready to support your program and processes
• Ongoing management to maximize technology investment

The right technology solution will help automate your process and ultimately increase adoption to your strategies.  

Consolidate & save

Getting the most out of your hotel relationships requires the right mix of resources, analytics and technology tools.

What we do?

• We look at both your meetings and travel spend. We’ll work with your travel buyers to highlight importance of creating mutually beneficial relationships and the best ways of doing so
• We identify opportunities to save, based on travel patterns in key and emerging markets plus we provide extensive benchmarking
• Last but not least we align your hotel strategy with your group needs and the attendee experience that you wish to create

The consolidated hotel strategy is truly a ‘win-win’. If you’re worried about meeting your savings goals and create a good attendee experience - just let our experts help you shape your global hotel program to achieve it.

Understand & negotiate

It can be hard to find strong negotiating positions to drive hotel discounts. But we’re here to help.

Our SMM sourcing experts use our venue sourcing dashboard with real-time data and market summaries to give you an advantage when negotiating.

This dashboard has all the information you need:

• Your history with a specific hotel or in a city
• Year-on-year hotel comparisons within a market
• Rate comparisons with CWT M&E benchmarks
• Seasonal fluctuations to set realistic budget expectations

The result? A better negotiating position to get cheaper rates.