The Meetings, Events and Communications division of Grass Roots has launched a much-needed industry solution that tracks all third-party event spend.

For some time now, Grass Roots has been successful at tracking all venue-related spend for clients and have been in the market with such a tool for over 20 years. Through the launch of this new tool Grass Roots is again leading the way with spend tracking consolidation; with the focus being on all other third-party event spend, from AV to planners and from production to delegate management and everything in between. The key benefits for clients are around gaining visibility of their full meetings and events spend, being able to benchmark price and performance, improve negotiation and drive compliance.

Des McLaughlin, MD Venue Procurement, Grass Roots comments: "Over the past five years we have achieved average savings for clients of more than 30% on their venue spend and with the introduction of a full third-party event spend tracker this can only lead to greater cost and time savings and improve efficiency and leverage. Corporates are keen to get their arms around the full breadth of their event spend and our solution will provide them with intelligent tracking across the full gambit of their suppliers, providing useful approval mechanisms and meaningful management information. Whether they want to compare quotes, look at bids versus spend or just spend by supplier we can help them."

Des goes on to explain: "Approved suppliers will be trained on the approach and supporting software, bookers will use the system to generate quote requests and book through the technology, so activity can be tagged and drive the level of visibility and compliance required to effectively monitor and manage spend. The approach will not stifle the ability to select a supplier, based on their creativity or other factors typically in play when looking for production support, but will enable successful tracking of spend across all aspects of event-related activity."