Often viewed as the last bastion of unmanaged travel, huge strides in technology and a climate conducive to change is allowing corporates to manage M&E exactly as they manage transient. Gillian Upton finds out how Tesco has done just that

The under-utilisation of internal meeting space and a lack of control was the main driver for supermarket giant Tesco to get a better handle on M&E spend and thereby create a great savings opportunity.

Like many corporates, the company had primarily been focusing on the effective procurement of its transient accommodation and travel. “We had under-utilised internal meeting space. We had space in our office locations and in Tesco stores locally which was not being used properly,” explains Danielle Bartlett, buyer manager, group travel at Tesco.

“People in the business were simply not aware of the opportunity to use internal space. It was a situation no-one was satisfied with,” she says.

The company’s strategy was simple: to introduce mandated policies and to launch an online tool for booking internal and external meetings with the initial objective being to reduce meetings and events spend by 20 per cent. Furthermore, Tesco also wanted to simplify the booking processes and drive policy compliance.

“Leveraging our accommodation and MICE spend was something which made sense but we also had to ensure we had the right supplier first and the time and resource to attack the project properly,” recalls Bartlett.

From concept to roll out took seven months during 2008 and the results have been amazing. In the first two years alone, partner BSI booked 74,000 internal meeting bookings. Occupancy hit 97 per cent in high, mid-week periods and 60 per cent in off-peak periods such as the month of August.

The company saved £6.9million in ‘cost avoidance’ meetings – which represented a 40 per cent drop in external meetings – and saved 26 per cent on the average cost of 24-hour delegate rate, down from £37 ex-VAT to nearer £28 to £29. Read on for a step-by-step guide to how Tesco achieved its goal of reining in its M&E spend.

Step 1: Data collection was the bedrock of the project and did present challenges. “If we were to successfully develop a robust meetings programme then we had to arm BSI with as much information as possible to assist them in negotiating the venue programme,” explains Bartlett.

Lack of data is often the reason many corporates put the brakes on such projects, but Tesco persisted. “This was a challenge,” admits Bartlett, “especially due to the lack of historical MI providing line item detailed information. It took a long time to pull together what we could from historical MI and historical invoices.” To bolster the information, Tesco worked closely with stakeholders in training and management teams to establish past and likely future demand. “This gave us the necessary baselines,” Bartlett explains.

BSI's Sam Welch, head of account management, and working on the Tesco account since 2004, advises to get as much data as you can: ”Don’t panic if you haven’t got full data and make sure you use your data and measure it.”

Step 2: Getting the right suppliers in place was the next step. Tesco already worked with BSI for strategic accommodation management and appointed them as its preferred meetings management supplier (including venue finding, event services and online booking technology) after a six-way tender process in late 2008.

“BSI was already successful in the meeting management market and won our business on merit. The partnership has worked well for us because it has met our desire to harmonise the transient accommodation at the same time,” says Bartlett.

Supplier consolidation then followed, as BSI's Welch explains: “They also knew they couldn’t get their number of AV, team build, conference build and film suppliers down to one so they set up a consolidated framework.” The event agency suppliers were whittled down to just six who work alongside BSI

Step 3: Tesco then began work on a supplier venue programme. It used an unmanageable number of external venues so it undertook an RFP in 2009 to start to consolidate these venue supplier numbers.

Step 4: There was a meetings and events policy in place but it was only a guideline policy. Tesco wanted to introduce a new mandated policy that stated that any meeting had to be placed internally first, then to Ponsbourne Park – the company’s own venue – and only then to an external venue space. Approval from a board director was required to book any external meeting space.

It is mandatory for meetings involving less than 20 people to be held internally unless there is insufficient space available with each exception to policy being authorised by a manager. Every meeting for more than 20 people must be made through BSI, who selects the best venue from a preferred venue list negotiated by BSI.

Naturally, Tesco had to tread gently on its bookers and spent time with the events team, the senior PAs and the training team in the early stages of change, before the policy went live. There was also a series of focus groups which helped to communicate the changes, and close involvement with HR too.

Tesco does not have a specialist events team so, in fact, every Tesco employee could, in theory, be a meetings or event organiser. An event management decision tree was created and a series of roadshows were staged across the country to introduce the approved suppliers and rules around their deployment.

“Effective communication is fundamental to ensure the success of any programme,” says Bartlett. The upshot was that Tesco neatly handled any resistance head on.

“The personal preference of many bookers had previously held sway with the direction of our meetings and events spend,” explains Bartlett. She continues, ”Gaining their buy-in for the new policy was of fundamental importance to its success. We already had the buy-in of our board and HR, and this top level support meant we were able to neutralise most negative feedback early on.” BSI’s Welch adds, “Everyone’s taken to the new policy.”

Step 5: Technology also played its part as Tesco wanted a process and a system to manage that internal space. There was a whole range of staff across the company making the M&E bookings, including reception staff. The implementation of an online booking tool, BSIDirect, took care of the process, with full training too, delivering face-to-face and webcast sessions with great success.

“BSIDirect integrated with our internal meetings facilities which we didn’t have before. We were immediately able to see all of the internal meetings space as well as view details of a large number of external venues, in-line with our policy nationally,” explains Bartlett.

Tesco cut the cost of over 74,000 meetings as BSIDirect only allows an external venue to be booked if all internal space is taken.

Also implemented was a meetings and events portal built by BSI and accessed from Tesco’s intranet site ‘Check Out’, that promotes all preferred suppliers. “It acts as a central reference point for anyone organising a meeting,” explains Bartlett. It also acts as a communications platform to reinforce policy.
“The portal is one of our biggest aids in ensuring compliance to company policy and working with approved suppliers, and every user can access it,” says Bartlett.

Step 6: Three years on and the project is still evolving, explains Bartlett: “The project is still a work in progress. The line item detail available from BSI management information is supporting ongoing programme evolution and cost saving initiatives.
“For example,“ she continues, “individual meetings programme enhancements to meet the needs of different business areas – one size doesn’t fit all.”

There have been tweaks to BSIDirect too. A newer version of the internal booking tool has just been launched, for simultaneous booking of two internal meetings rooms, which is the ideal solution for Tesco employees arranging video, teleconference or conference calls.

“We’ve also worked to understand what internal space exists within our store and distribution network in the UK, and migrated these to BSIDirect. Although it would be naive to expect to eradicate the cost of external meetings completely, we are challenging people to think about whether they need to go out of house,” concludes Bartlett.

COUNTDOWN TO SUCCESS

Tesco’s Danielle Bartlett has these top tips to share with other corporates contemplating a similar journey:

• Continued communication with internal stakeholders throughout the process is essential to get feedback, buy-in and support.

• Data collection and analysis is certainly the first step. As challenging as it may be, you need to engage all internal business stakeholders to ensure communication and buy-in, so view data collection as another opportunity to do so.

• Work with your selected specialist agency to develop and launch your policy but, wherever possible, ensure it is mandated with the backing of your HR team.

• Understand your internal meeting space. Ensuring you know what is available in-house and how this can be managed and optimised is vital.

• It is very important to work with a supplier that is able to provide great technology to create a bespoke meetings and events portal. BSI did this for us, and has created a one-stop shop that drives Tesco policy.

• Ensure your agency is customising T&Cs with preferred venue suppliers to fit the requirements of individual business areas so that you aren’t just getting an ‘off the shelf’ deal.

• Don’t be frightened by e-auctions. Contrary to
what people may tell you, they can work for meetings and events. Research each spend category fully, understand what each supplier does in-house and
what they can outsource.

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