The reality is that for most companies, meetings and events are a blind spot. It was the industry's dirty little secret that offline management of meetings was the status quo. While everyone agreed there was risk in not managing this 43 percent of travel spend, no one agreed whose responsibility it was to fix it.

Pre-COVID, that meant tolerating costly, manual, time consuming, tedious tasks dependent on dedicated human resources. Post-COVID, it really can be a life or death decision to de-risk meeting management. Now the C-Suite has a spotlight on those processes to contain costs, eliminate risk and reduce liability in their travel and meeting programs.

Meetings and SMM

New Solutions, More Flexibility
Finally, Travel Managers are finding allies in new places, including Human Resources, Security, Finance, Marketing and more, because at times like these, containing costs, managing risk and minimizing liability while focusing on traveler safety is a priority for every company. That means every company needs an entry point for all employees to begin managing any and all components of a meeting.

Moving forward, every event – regardless of the size and scale – will likely require pre-event approval, along with budget and pre-trip approvals to follow. More importantly, meeting planners, travel managers, executives and travelers will all need to become more flexible in their processes because meeting logistics will always be in flux.

Core components such as dates, locations, venues, attendee lists, which in the past were rarely adjusted, will now increasingly be subject to change. Additionally, new responsibilities such as social distancing guidelines, attendance protocols and virtual attendance will continue to evolve. Every company with even one meeting on the books will need to standardize managed meeting processes, policy and logistics – making every step trackable and auditable in a central platform.

The only way to meet the needs of a meetings program in today’s world is with a complete platform available for enterprise-wide use on a self-service basis, and that does not have additional fees per user and/or per attendee. At a time when it is mission critical to track every attendee at every event or meeting, there should not be price tag on each person’s safety.

Groupize Assurance
Groupize Assurance includes the first in the industry enhanced solution to standardize managed meeting processes, policy and logistics – making every step trackable and auditable within its central platform. This matches the same scrutiny which has long been given to transient travel programs.If you are looking for resources to assist in policy development or benchmark your program, access the Risk Assessment Calculator or the Groupize eBook: Prepare for a changed world, Meetings Culture for Modern Companies in the new world.

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