The business travel calendar is awash with events, forums and exhibitions. Jonathan Hart asks where buyers can find value...
So much to do and so little time. It's a familiar refrain, often a precursor to another utterance of the old time-is-money equation, driven by the equally ancient time-and-motion, organisation and method maxims of prioritising time and eliminating excess to boost workaday productivity.
In increasingly automated mode, these same fundamentals have been applied with varying degrees of success to business travel in the wake of the global financial crisis. Yet for all its technological advances, quick click solutions and streamlined processes, the industry can still prove to be a questionably time-consuming proposition for corporate buyers of its products, services or guidance.
This is not so much evident in direct transactions with suppliers or intermediaries as in the proliferation of add-on events and participatory or partner programs offered by organisations, affiliations or associations.
Frequently portrayed as being integral to the ongoing battle to minimise costs while maximising benefits for company travellers, there is a multiplicity of these over the next year.
Opt in to learn, digest and progress is the overall message; but while the motives may be eminently worthy and suitably cost-conscious, these events can also appear to be either too fringe or fragmented, or too much subject to duplication for many. they can also clash.
This, in turn, can render them time-heavy to dissect or complicated to schedule as primary, secondary or tertiary for busy diary inclusion. And faced with an anything but straightforward choice, a principal question for buyers, juggling the precious extra working time and effort required in attendance, is: are they really relevant to the bottom line?
The more cynical among buyers will readily point to an army of industry suppliers, on the hunt and under any guise, trying to sell the equivalent of designer ice to Inuits, or surreptitiously add unnecessary fat to slimmed-down policies through below the line targeting of their primary revenue source. Or alternatively, via the side door of industry academia or advocacy, of subtly attempting to negate notions that they might be anything less than imperative to resolving currently scaled down corporate needs.
So a bridge for the traditional buyer/supplier divide, they're clearly not; either by accident or design.
Even from the more generous viewpoint of being topically vital or inextricable from the core procurement process in, for example, benchmarking and best practice, the value of these peripherals, despite being ever more tailored and targeted, can still be open to question in the pressured time/productivity equation for some buyers. Whether or not they're wary of the ancillary sponsorship or restrictive pitfalls that inevitably sprinkle the territory. This is particularly true for sole operators or those charged with non-related company tasks in addition to the purchase of travel; those whose normal working hours of skipped lunches and zero water cooler moments permit them little time to focus on much beyond speedy, learn-as-you-go negotiating and contracting.
Glued to a screen, either in or out of the office and either in or arranging a meeting, particularly when suppliers come calling, even full-time corporate buyers can also question the value of this optional extra-time involvement over and above the immediate task at hand, be it insourcing, outsourcing, procuring or policing within their set policy-parameters. Or, whisper it quietly, privately utilising that critical extra time on social media or screen-scraping for more competitive ad hoc web deals.
This is not to detract from general buyer awareness of the heightened networking, insider knowledge, and educational or personal promotional potential offered by the various industry platforms or programs, merely that these days they, or their bosses or accountants, increasingly need to be convinced of their absolute necessity and return on investment (ROI) potential.
Beyond membership of the independent and newly pro-active Institute of travel & meetings (ITM) and the Guild of management companies (GTMC), the principal callers on extra buyer-time essentially boil down to the multi-layered activities of two global associations and two annual trade fairs in the UK: these are the National business Association (NBTA) and the Association of corporate executives (ACTE), and the & Show (BTMS) and the market (BTM). And while each has different mission statements, partnership structures, unique selling points (USPS), calendars of activities and entry requirements, each, in many respects, can also been seen as duplicating one another from a general buyer standpoint - a factor that warrants cause for further scrutiny.
Last year, for example, the NBTA and ACTE, due to similar global initiatives producing white papers and educational sessions, investigated a possible merger, only to decide that they weren't mutually compatible in all areas after all. come the crunch, talks hinged and faltered on the former being viewed by some as buyer dominated but US-centric, with an unhealthy focus on its giant annual exhibition. The latter was seen by others as more globally regional and tactile for senior executive education or advocacy, but supplier-centric.
While the minor or even major points of difference may have been missed by most buyers in the UK, the net result is that both associations have recently established dedicated European outlets running separate if, at first glance, arguably duplicate offerings "Conferences or seminars tend to - so much so that the NBTA will next year become the Global business travel Association (GBTA).
At the same time, much is made of the distinctions between the BTMS and the BTM, the first running at earls court 2 in February 2011 and the second at ExceL in June. It is worth noting that just before buying business travel went to press, the BTM announced an exclusive partnership with ACTE while the BTMS is to partner ITM.
Yet again for buyers, the content of these - a mix of networking opportunities, show stands, conference sessions and seminars - can be similar at first glance. And while both have different tactics to lure punters through the doors, both operate hosted buyer programs.
As the holy grail for suppliers, as well as the raison d'etre for the bulk of the industry, buyers are used to being hosted, of course - the bigger their spend the more lavish the inducements. Yet with time-outlay equalling cash expenditure on the priority savings list, how do they now value these organisations or events?
"I'm under no illusion as to why I'm invited to so many fairs or forums or whatever but, frankly, most are a waste of time," says Simon brown, travel manager of Deloitte. "my time, that is, because essentially if you're a one-man band you don't have the luxury of veering too far off track on a day-today business basis.
"Much as I might like to be more involved in general networking, I'm not because, from experience, there's no real value in doing the rounds if all you achieve is getting harried by suppliers.
"There's also a lot of doubling up [of people and events] going on and, while you can pick and choose, there's rarely anything specific enough for my purposes, so my time is better spent elsewhere." brown says he relies instead on the ITM for networking and occasionally gets involved in institute events that are of specific interest to his role in the industry.
"The best thing about ITM is that it's buyer-led," adds Celia Allbut, European head of travel procurement for WPP commercial & procurement Services. "You can network with your peers, meet in small groups and discuss issues with experts in their field without being preached to or side-tracked.
It's probably the best option for buyers who want to swap ideas, learn about practices or keep track with what's going on." She says industry conferences or seminars tend to be more generic and are more questionable in terms of education and return value, although "the ITM is trying to get better at it and suit individual needs more.
"ITM also made a good move in aligning itself with NBTA Europe and vice versa," she adds. "It helps bring a huge monolith into perspective in terms of what it can do and how it may help buyers on a regional basis." In addition, a free annual subscription to ACTE has activated her interest in the association: "It shows at least that ACTE is attempting to get buyers to tune into what the association is doing and that's potentially worthwhile." As far as trade fairs are concerned, Allbut is ambivalent.
"It's important to network so I invest the time and go, knowing that I can give suppliers, say, five minutes each and move on in contrast to the minimum 30 minutes it takes if they come to the office. that said, the fairs are very similar in content and I don't think there is reason or need for two of these. From my point of view, the one at ExceL is overall probably the more productive of the two.
"As a buyer, you can feel like a hunted animal at fairs so it's best to go with two of you in order to play off the supplier attention.
The cornering is to be expected, of course, but what really drives buyers round the twist is suppliers making a sales pitch rather than addressing an issue or topic during a conference or a seminar session.
"I tell them that I can go down to a stand if I want a sales pitch. I go to sessions to learn, otherwise I would be spending the time more valuably with my family."
Geoff Allwright, travel manager UK for EADS, sees the trade fairs as a necessary evil. "I don't bust a gut to go but I do if I'm invited, perhaps to be a speaker, because they're a good touch point for contacts and to catch up with what's going on generally, even if it's not specific to my needs, "he says. "At the same time, I'm not keen on hassle and particularly don't want to be expected to stand in an aisle and sign a new contract on the back of an envelope. I'm not keen, either, on the growing number of stalls for services like chauffeur drive which are not mainstream."
Allwright says that his budgeting and attendance at events or participation in programs is commonly restricted to dovetailing with set national or regional company strategies. "For this reason I wouldn't normally travel overseas for a conference because it's not directly in my remit for the UK." In this vein, he says the jury is out on involvement with the NBTA because, to date, it has not really applied in usefulness on his patch. In contrast, EADS is involved in ACTE learning programs in Europe. "These do ?t our profile in terms of building expertise and, if I can't attend myself, I like to get our local people on the ground involved," he says.
On the other side of the coin, the institute's alignment with NBTA Europe opens up a host of new resource and research opportunities for buyers, says ITM chief executive Paul Tilstone. "NBTA is the only pan-European and, in association ITM, is looking to better serve the variety of different types, wants and needs of members." As BBT went to press ITM's board was also considering a radical membership restructure, suggesting a more tailored approach to meeting individual needs.
For TMCs, balanced on the fence and playing the field between buying, supplying, partnerships and sponsorships, involvement and outlay in associations and fairs is more a must than an option. But the overriding ROI principle is the same.
"In today's climate, more so than ever before, we need to ensure that our spend is working for us," says Mounia Laalej, marketing manager for HRG. "There are many measures by which we judge our success at an event. We no longer just look at new business as our presence or attendance also plays a key part within our integrated communications strategy.
"We also consider client, prospect, supplier and partner meetings plus media exposure, as well as participation in speaker programs or awards as part of the criteria."