As we continue to recover from the pandemic, Strategic Meetings Management (SMM) is coming into greater focus. Companies who have been delaying SMM programs for years are rushing to catch up. In this blog post we explore some of the reasons behind this trend.

What is SMM anyway?

The term “Strategic Meeting Management Program “(SMMP) was coined by the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), the world’s leading organization for business travel and meetings as “a disciplined approach to the organization of enterprise-wide event-related processes, activities, metrics, standards, and supplier strategies…”. Check out our recent blog post for more on What is SMM, Anyway?

Why is SMM a big focus for companies right now?

Many organizations that have not had a robust SMM program before are now seeing an opportunity to return to meetings and events in a more strategic way, especially since the pandemic has caused us all to question the way in which we do business. The ability of SMM programs to clearly demonstrate their cost and benefit is a great comfort to organizations in the current marketplace. People want the transparency and visibility of spend, as well as the opportunity to make strategic budget decision on meetings and events moving forward.

Some of the important questions a good SMM program will answer…

So how do you tell if your SMM is up to standard? Savvy companies are arming themselves with information to answer important questions like these:

• What is our budget for meetings and events for the year?

• What is our meeting and event travel policy?

• Which events deliver the most return on investment and should restart?

• Which events should remain virtual or hybrid and which should be in-person?

• As we restart in-person events, which destinations are the safest and most cost-effective?

• Who is travelling for a meeting or event right now and are they safe?

SMM programs harness the power of event data

Now as we immerse ourselves in digital and hybrid events and look forward to the world of live events restarting, having an SMM program in place is more important than ever. Over the past decade, events have been fast becoming HUGE sources of data that savvy companies to use to great advantage in a variety of areas in including marketing, sales and product development. The huge leap forward in digitization of events we all experienced due to the COVID-19 Pandemic has accelerated this process and now we have even more opportunities to collect valuable data via events than we ever have before. But how do we collect this data and how to we organize it in a way that makes it useful for different parts of the organization? That’s where SMM comes in! A well designed and customized SMM program will ensure all relevant data is collected and displayed in a user-friendly format for the various users from marketing, to HR, Finance and Procurement.

And this is just scratching the surface.

Contact Huddle today to take advantage of our FREE 1-hour consultation with an SMM expert.