The Changing Face of Meeting Management in the Post-Pandemic World

Conferences. Trade shows. Sales meetings. For the past two years, these much-anticipated staples of business fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving a trail of empty badge holders and cancelled blocks of hotel rooms in its wake.

Today, that narrative is starting to change. According to the American Express Meetings & Events Global Forecast, a full 81% of business events in 2022 are expected to have an in-person element.

This is not to say that event planners can dust off their old agendas and pick things up where they left off. Like so many things in the post-pandemic world, the challenges and requirements of meeting management have fundamentally changed.

These include:

The emergence of the hybrid conference model

Just as the pandemic made the hybrid work model the norm for many companies, it also changed how organizations approach their conferences and client events.

“Although companies are getting back into the swing of in-person activities, they also recognize the value of having virtual components that enable them to get their conference sessions in front of more people,” explained Marchelle Klippenstein, Vice President, Value Experience Group, SAP Concur. “Planning for and managing those virtual components, in addition to the physical components, adds a new level of complexity.”

Planners have to find a way to connect the live and virtual audience, ensure the right technology is in place, and locate a venue that gives both in-person and online audiences the optimal experience, on top of myriad other considerations — including cost.

Greater budgetary oversight

Traditionally, conference and meeting expenses were managed across multiple systems. The meeting planner might have a budget for the venue, the sessions and the company-sponsored activities, but attendee travel, client entertainment, and other expenses were often allocated across multiple departments and cost centers. So, there was no viable way to understand the total cost of that event or how that money was being spent.  

“Today, having visibility into the true cost of events is critical to measuring ROI, and ensuring costs stay within the allocated budgets,” Klippenstein said. “Instead of looking at pieces and parts, organizations need the visibility to effectively manage that entire category of spend.”

Budgetary oversight is particularly critical in a year like 2022, when there’s little or no recent in-person event spend data available.

“Event budgets and travel budgets are zero base now, since many companies reallocated those funds to other areas when in-person meetings and travel were cancelled,” Klippenstein said. “Now, those budgets have to be reset, and the thresholds they’re setting are kind of an unknown. So, the more oversight and visibility organizations have, the better chance they have of staying in control of their costs — even if the projected budget is a bit of a moving target right now.”

Increased focus on safety 

While safety of employees and event attendees has always been important, that focus has increased ten-fold since the pandemic.

“You have to get people to your event on the least number of connecting flights, and ensure that they have safe transport to the hotel that fits within preestablished guidelines, which, for some companies, means no sharing rides,” Klippenstein said. “Logistically, there are a lot more boxes you have to check than you did before the pandemic began.”

Organizations also must keep up with any state, county, or facility mandates, like requiring masks to attend indoor events, proof of vaccines or testing upon arrival. If there is an outbreak or other safety concern, they need to be able to quickly locate and possibly transport those attendees to another location.

“Governance is more important than ever before, no matter what size the event,” Klippenstein said. “You have to make sure people book within your travel tool, or in a way that gives you visibility into where they are and how to contact them at any time.”

Policy adherence now becomes mission critical, not only from a budgetary standpoint, but a safety standpoint as well. So, organization management needs a dashboard view of when and where meetings and events are happening, so they can react, when needed, to ensure both employees and guests are always safe.

A greater demand to personalize the attendee experience

In the past, personalizing the attendee experience might have meant ensuring vegetarian or gluten-free options were available. Today, that’s all been kicked up a notch, with some companies going so far as to color code name badges to indicate whether an individual is comfortable with hugs, elbow bumps or requires a six-foot interaction.

Managing those options, and making every attendee feel comfortable, requires more effort than the personalization requirements in years past. Without technology to track those preferences, it would be near impossible to manage, particularly for larger events.

Meeting the challenges with a more centralized approach to event management

To meet these new challenges, organizations need a more comprehensive, centralized approach to make meeting management faster, easier, and more cost effective. This was the catalyst for the creation of Concur Event Management by Groupize.

This solution is an extension of Concur Travel and Concur Expense, which consolidates all the aspects of meeting planning and execution into a single solution that:

• Holistically captures all associated event spend in one place.
• Leverages established travel and expense policies, rules, and approval workflows.
• Provides branded event registration and travel booking.
• Provides dashboards to easily track spending, employee locations, and metrics in near real time.
• Offers in-depth reporting and cost analysis for budgeting and to inform future policy decisions.

In short, Concur Event Management simplifies and streamlines the complex task of meeting planning in 2022 and beyond, while giving organizations the comprehensive tools they need to keep attendees safe, keep costs in line, and effectively measure ROI.

For more information on Concur Event Management by Groupize or to see a demonstration, please contact your Client Success Manager or visit us here.