The 2nd annual Grass Roots Meetings Management Forum took place on Friday 26th June in the City of London with an audience of over 140 delegates and 15 speakers from a range of industries.

Dennis Turner, Chief Economist, HSBC, started the day off in rousing form with an informative and entertaining talk on the state of the economy and his opinion on the future state of the market.

He was followed by Andrew Latta, Head of Corporate Events, Aviva who outlined the challenges of moving to a more reactive environment, focusing on events taking place in three, rather than 18 months' time while maintaining focus on strategic objectives. He noted that industry concerns around not wanting to be perceived as spending money on meetings or events are fading but that a return to the old ways, of meetings without clear objectives, would not be seen.

Insight into the point of view of venue operators was provided by Alastair Stewart, Managing Director, etc. venues (which owns Dexter House, the location for the forum) who reminded the audience that venues are a perishable product and hence priced according to market conditions. He stated that the ‘desperation discounting' seen at other venues is tailing off but predicted a continuing trend for shorter events with shorter lead times. He added that these will be increasingly held non-residentially in city centres, thereby reducing overnight stay costs and enabling greater use of public transport

Andrew Gilkerson, European Meeting and Congress Category Lead, Procurement, Pfizer shared the company's vision and methodology for its strategic meetings management programme. The strategy considers not only cost driven opportunities through consolidation – reducing its agency supplier base - but also addresses process efficiency to drive value and ensure regulatory compliance. The healthcare organisation's aim is to create an environment where savings can be achieved on all event-related costs. This project is currently being run in Europe and outcomes and benefits will be shared with other regions.

The audience welcomed the opportunity to grill a panel of experts on issues from how corporates, agencies and suppliers can best work together to mutual benefit to how to optimise and better manage internal meeting space and the need for better use of technology by the hotel industry. This was followed by a live demonstration of virtual conferencing in action. Whilst the majority of the audience reported they are considering or are already using virtual conferencing, a further poll revealed they did not see it replacing the majority of meetings.

Other speakers included Panos Tzivanidis, Head of Events, Swift, Tony Reilly, Head of Events, Dell and Robbi Roberts, Sales Director, GE Healthcare who each shared their differing approaches to measuring ROO and ROI.

Nick Bender, Global Head of Events, Grass Roots commented: "We were delighted at the turnout for the event and at the very positive feedback we received from delegates on the day. I am tremendously grateful to our speakers for sharing their plans and challenges and entering into discussion so openly. At the end of the day we asked who had learnt something new during the forum and there was a universal show of hands which is a great indication of the value of the event."

In post-event feedback, 96% of respondents rated the content as excellent or good and 100% said that based on the MMF they would attend another Grass Roots Forum.

To view speaker presentations and video footage from the forum please visit http://www.mmf.grassrootseventcom.uk.com