C-Suite spending remains cautious, with a focus on meetings
A new study of spending trends at Fortune 1,000 companies has listed meeting cost-cutting among the Top 10 spend management trends for the first half of 2013.
The Procurian Spend Trends Report is based on "insights gained in the first half of 2013 from the company’s 100+ clients."
The report said that mergers and acquisitions among the airlines and car-rental companies have made it harder to cut costs in those areas, pushing companies to focus their travel management programs on holding down the cost of corporate meetings.
Meetings certainly offer the biggest opportunity for saving on travel costs, Procurian global head of market insights and analysis Mark Hillman told TravelMole. More than half of Procurian’s customers—which include Kimberly-Clark, Symantec, and Whirlpool—have taken those steps, though few "are at the end of the road" yet.
Still, 2013 is a year of "continued caution in the executive suite" with "an aggressive focus" on getting the most value for every dollar spent.
"Across the board, companies are focusing on attacking all major cost areas," Hillman says.
"The opportunity in the meetings area is larger than in air and lodging and we’ve seen some really substantial savings from comprehensive meetings management practices, so don’t ignore it."
Step one for taking control of meeting spending is to have a team responsible for overseeing meetings on a corporate level. Step two is to have the team start down the path of centralizing the data, so you can see what you are spending where and negotiate discounts at a corporate level.
Procurian plans to issue a Procurian Spend Trends Report every quarter, to come out roughly 30 days after the quarter close.
By Cheryl Rosen
Cheryl
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