Process improvements:

• A stronger meeting and event policy

  (See box.) “Previously, the policy was mandated, but we did not market it well, and compliance wasn't monitored,” Scholar notes.

• Better cost avoidance

  For example, the contract management team now is charged with using extant penalty dollars first. These dollars are advertised internally so that all meeting sponsors can see where a program might “use up” cancellation penalties incurred by the firm. Other new ways to avoid costs: booking air earlier, capping food-and-beverage spend to ensure it is in line with the industry average of 30 percent of total meeting costs, selecting preferred suppliers for audiovisual equipment, and considering virtual meetings when possible.

• Better service

  For example, Scholar explains, “Customers said they didn't like having the planner come in after the sourcing was done and then having to review the whole meeting again. This was an ‘aha’ moment. We now assign a sourcer and a planner to a meeting at the same time whenever possible, and we conduct a kickoff call with the planner, sourcer, and meeting requester. This also helps the customer understand who does what in the process.”

Technology improvements:

• Better record-keeping, or as Scholar explains it, “better document retention.” For example, she notes, MES now keeps all of its RFPs and contracts in one system.

• Increased automation. For example, the team had been sending RFPs to national sales offices by e-mail and receiving responses from individual hotels by e-mail. To compare bids, the contract management team had to print out each response and create a spreadsheet. “That could take hours, or maybe a day,” she says. The department is beta-testing an e-RFP technology that consolidates all responses and creates a comparison document.

• Improved tracking. The department gets reports from PwC's meeting-card supplier that uncover unmanaged spend.

Organizational improvements:

• More staff

  Short on resources even before the Six Sigma project, MES increased its head count by 10 in order to handle the greater volume of meetings and events coming in as policy compliance increased.

• Division of tasks

  The contract management team strictly manages sourcing and contracts; the planning team handles meeting logistics; the operations team tracks who is assigned to what meeting, handles invoices and data analysis, and provides reports on spend; a group travel manager works with the firm's travel management company for group travel bookings; and the virtual meetings team manages webconferences and webcasts.

Tell Your Story

The lessons learned extended beyond the meeting department. “The benefit of Six Sigma is that it gave Debi and her team a comprehensive road map that not only they bought into but also the firm bought into,” says Murray. “It wasn't just Debi going through the process. The Leadership Review Team, including representatives from each of the firm's three lines of service plus key internal leaders, was engaged every step of the way.”

Having so many stakeholders on board was crucial when it came to communicating the Six Sigma outcomes firmwide. “By the time the project was complete, after 14 months, our team had all bought into it,” Scholar says. “But to the rest of the firm, it was completely new. There were stricter rules, a new way to register meetings. We knew it would take time for adoption.”

One tip for helping that process along, she says, is to identify internal leaders who can get the message to their audiences. “Change management is the hardest thing,” she notes. “We had a full-time change manager on our team, and that person changed three times!”

The key is to tell your story. “But you have to make sure it's tailored to the right audience,” she says. “We put together a communications plan and primarily used e-mail, which isn't always the best. We held webcasts and conducted conference calls. It's tough. Even today when I call a ‘rogue’ spender and ask how we can help them plan their meeting, some have never heard of us. It is a constant challenge.”

Working in her favor, she notes, was that “we had a great managing director [Murray] and CFO [Jean Hobby] who kept it in front of people. Our leadership walks the talk. When they say that they want to improve processes, they support the efforts required to make it happen. But it probably took a whole year to get the word out, and we're still educating our audience.”

A Policy with Teeth

PwC's revised meeting policy reflects the hard work of Six Sigma as well as the best practices of the National Business Travel Association's Groups & Meetings Committee (www.nbta.org), which has produced 10 white papers on strategic meetings management. PricewaterhouseCooper's Debi Scholar, CMP, CMM, CTE, is co-chair of that committee.

These are the beefed-up elements of PwC's policy:

1. Any event requiring a contract must be registered with Meeting & Event Services.

2. All contracts must be signed by either a corporate partner or MES, following Procurement Authorized Signing rules.

3. Meeting sponsors must have an approved budget and be willing to give it to the MES team.

4. Internal meeting space must be sought first.

5. Locations selected must minimize travel and overnight accommodations when most attendees are from the same location.

6. If a meeting objective can be accomplished through audio, video, or webcast, those options should be considered first.

7. Meetings or events that cost more than $5,000 must be paid for through MES using meeting cards.

8. MES will use a formal RFP procurement process for meetings and events that cost more than $50,000.

9. Third parties are not allowed to sign contracts on behalf of PwC.

10. Meetings that cost more than $50,000 should be booked 12 to 18 months in advance.

11. Points, comp tickets, gifts, fam trips, free services, etc. are not allowed.

12. Off-site activities may require additional insurance. Requests for waivers or additional insurance must go through Operational Risk Management.