745986 BRUZT Healthcare brochure updates 2022

Procurement for Meetings and Events Trends Summary Review

2017 - 2022

What is the Healthcare Procurement Peer 2 Peer Group?

The Radisson Hotel Group, Healthcare Procurement Peer 2 Peer group provides a platform for procurement professionals from leading healthcare and life science companies to discuss in a confidential, non-competitive environment the trends and hot topics that are impacting on the procurement, creation and optimisation of meetings and events for the sector.

In this document we have summarised the key takeaways from a series of meetings since 2017.

Detailed meeting notes are available from the Radisson Hotel Group team.

Target audience

Trends for Healthcare Sector Meetings and Events

Focus on Optimal SMM Programmes

Synopsis

A pre-event survey of the group highlighted that:

• Cost control, meeting activity visibility and compliance adherence were still key priorities for the strategic roll out of meeting programmes

• A consistent meetings model was not employed by the group.

• Some had top down programmes driven centrally, others, bottom up with national or regional drivers, some bundled components together such as venue procurement and logistics management others separated these.

• Senior endorsement for some enabled more complex programmes, others, without this endorsement, had to be modest in the types of models that were practical to deploy.

• Meetings technology for some failed to address the needs of, for example, transfers of value reporting.

• One company confirmed they were to build their own technology platform to ensure to ensure their data collection needs were met.

• Clean meeting data was seen by all as critical.

• Purchasing of congress room blocks was highlighted as a specific challenge with increased rates and inflexibility cited as frustrations, particularly via room consolidators.

• The increase in quality and options for on-line meetings, was seen as a market positive, with costs falling and technology solutions increasing.

• Spain, not a market known for its use of on-line technology, was quoted as the highest adopter of on line meeting formats for one company.

Key Statistics

A pre-meeting survey demonstrated that Compliance was the number 1 factor when considering a successful SMMP roll out.

Question: what is important to the group?

Implement compliance policies

Control spend

Implementing a global rather than solely national or regional SMMP solution

Identify meeting activity

Control internal SMMP leakage

Focus the use of approved / preferred venue programmes

Utilisation of software to deliver SMM programmes

Ensure that booking channels are with approved agencies only

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Critical Important Useful n/a

Key Outcomes

1. The group recognised the need for this, evidence-based peer group conversation to continue, as a critical way of challenging existing SMM programmes or shaping solutions or other meeting focused initiatives in development.

2. Beyond SMM was key for future discussions. How could an SMM programme continue to demonstrate business value? Once a programme was in place, what opportunities were there “Beyond SMM” to grow, adapt and gain the endorsement required to demonstrate continuing value. This conversation was considered key to the evolution of SMM programmes and future discussions.

Statistic Takeaway

• Compliance is seen as the most important consideration for a SMM programme.

• Preferred venue programmes are seen as a key part of any SMM programme beyond the top three traditional drivers; identifying meeting activity, controlling spend and implementing compliance policies.

• Ensuring bookings are channelled through key agencies is seen as the least important of the SMM drivers provided in this survey.

Effective Web Meetings Webinar

The webinar, supported by a pre-webinar survey, demonstrated there are still further steps to go before web meetings, targeted at HCPs, are a turn-key part of the marketing mix for healthcare companies.

• Internal brand and clinical team confidence were seen as a key barrier in deploying web meeting solutions due to concerns over the capability of HCPs IT systems to access technology and a preference for face to face ROI.

• It was recognised that HCPs, specifically due to the effective use of their time, felt web meetings were a useful tool to gather relevant content.

• There are a wide range of technologies, widely used for internal meetings, that satisfied the needs of web meetings and specific meeting types such as; investigator meetings, advisory boards, product launch and training meetings.

Key Outcomes

It is clear from this webinar that web meetings will form a substantial, blended approach, to meeting and communication strategies. This change will be driven by organisations who are clear on the internal ownership of web meetings, develop clear training guidelines and recognise that a web meeting needs as much objective setting, pre-planning and due diligence (specifically on HCP technology capabilities and content creation) as face to face interactions.

These changes will support how companies decide on the value of web meetings to internal teams and match the increasingly technology driven expectations of HCP.

Key Statistics

Question: Considering your organisations use of web meetings for HCPs, how would you rate your adoption of this approach?

Excellent: we have a consistent, effective solution across the company

Good: we have an effective solution, but not consistently used

Fair: we have isolated best practise but no consistency

• Compliance was seen as a positive / negative to the use of web meetings; positive as it avoided complex meeting compliance elements and negative as certain interactions face difficulties in gaining compliance approval such as live web casting.

• Content is still too often an after-thought for web meetings, even though it is a key component of success - adapting content from other channels or planning bespoke content for web meetings is key.

• Training was seen as a critical pathway to change behaviours and ensure that web meetings were deployed correctly with the right amount of preparation and planning.

Poor: we have been slow to adopt and little consistency of approach

20% 20% 20%

0 20 40 60 80 100

Statistic Takeaway

Meeting stakeholders are not confident about the capability of technology and HCP’s to deliver effective virtual meetings.

0% 40% 11 10

Return on Investment for Healthcare Sector Meetings and Events

– Part 1

Synopsis

These discussions can be framed with 1 particular statistic from the pre-meeting survey; 86% of those who were surveyed felt their organisation had a fair or poor approach to effective ROI.

• The group felt that an ROI approach, solely or in the majority focused on a sales return, was likely to be “reaching for the stars”. This did not mean that an effective solution could not be reached, simply there were a number of contributing factors that needed to be considered to create a solution that worked within the needs and culture of a specific

organisation. Realistic solutions were likely to be built around Return on Objectives (ROO) rather than ROI in its traditional form.

• This is balanced by a clear view from the group that the current level of spend on meetings and events is unsustainable without robust ROI metrics to prove their value.

• In the absence of clear and proven methodologies, within the public domain, or at a company level our meeting concentrated on the investigation of the factors that might lead to a robust ROI metric for meetings and events, not an analysis of a best practise model.

Key Outcomes

It was agreed that this topic needed further investigation looking at more detailed practical solutions in the creation of an effective ROI model based on the critical factors outlined next.

Key Statistics

Statistic Takeaway

There is extensive data collection and analysis into a wide range of meeting Parameters, by the companies represented, but ROO is not currently one of them as there appears not to be little appetite from meeting stakeholders.

Return on Investment for Healthcare Sector Meetings and Events

Synopsis

The scope of the Return on Investment topic explains the need for this 2nd session; to explore in a deep way how ROI was seen by participants and what best practise was being deployed.

We started with a summary from a participant who had recently undertaken the Philips ROI methodology who felt that though the principals were sound the deployment across a whole suite of meeting types was likely too complex.

Certain meeting types; e.g. simple meetings or product training sessions with HCPs were more suitable candidates to be analysed from an ROI perspective.

Key Outcomes

• It was clear from the group that measurement aligned to a formal performance model for meetings varies from company to company.

• All felt improvements could be made to current approaches.

• Some companies see internal meetings and those across types; such as investigator meetings or internal sales training as suitable to measure.

• More complex, multi stakeholder and multi country meetings made consistent measurement difficult.

• Available tools did not always match an increasingly sophisticated approach to measurement beyond using survey tools which were not always fit for purpose.

It was agreed that for reasons of culture in the healthcare sector, the lack of

tools and appetite for change, ROI was not an achievable goal. Therefore ROO, (return on objectives) or ROE, (return on education) were considered more viable performance measures.

• It was agreed there is a low level of structured measurement of meeting activities currently taking place.

• The Philips ROI model was useful and did put into focus many of the key decisions and process that need to be considered in delivering an ROI solution.

• Consistent measurement was seen as more achievable for internal events such as sales training.

• One participant confirmed they were measuring across meeting types to create key learnings.

Key Statistics

Return on Objectives

Focus

Individual, Cluster or all Meeting and Event Types

Simple Meetings Models for the Healthcare Sector

Synopsis

It was clear from these discussions that the label, small meetings, is misleading and it was the complexity of the tasks, as opposed to the “size or financial investment”, which was a principal issue for organisations.

Breaking down these tasks showed that meeting booking was still a considerable challenge. The process is time intensive and created compliance risks to venue selection.

The growth of live booking tools was seen as positive but the technology was not yet mature and, though an end to end process was promised, the lack of global inventory of venues and limited live access to venue booking tools meant any global solution was still seen as some time away.

The complexities in consolidating spend and managing specific parts of the process, such as HCP expense payments, were also key challenges to create a total solution for “simple” meetings.

Key Statistics

Key Outcomes

• No need for a definition of “small meetings” as this does not directly address the challenge, which is more aligned to complexity and if a meeting is internally, or self-service managed.

• ROI is an issue and increasingly important to the organisation.

• CVENT though a key tool is still far away from providing an end to end solution to meeting booking.

• Live availability is the next big thing.

• This forum is important to share with industry colleagues.

• ROI is not a magic formula.

• Looking forward to integrated live meeting booking solutions.

Healthcare Procurement for Meeting Trends 2020

Synopsis

This webinar, supported by a survey of those that could not attend, reflected the seismic shifts currently underway to the volume and supply chain infrastructure for in-person and virtual meetings, since the arrival of the COVID19 pandemic. Using interactive software, the group was polled on key trends and gained consensus on the priorities for the Procurement function identifying topics for future group interactions.

• 78% of organisations held, mostly for internal participants, between 1-5% of in-person meetings during the COVID19 lockdown period.

• Half the organisations “flipped” 50% of their meeting activity to virtual. Dominated by internal meetings at 75% of pre-COVID lockdown volumes with a more even picture for external meetings with 50% flipping 16%-25% and 24%, 76% of meetings to virtual formats.

• Planning for an increasingly virtual model of procurement, digital transformation and assessing spend in the light of the COVCID19 pandemic were seen as priorities for the corporate procurement function in the future.

Key Statistics

Question: What are your current M&E procurement priorities?

Note: During the live webinar and in the online (post webinar) survey participants “liked” the 3 priorities which most closely aligned to their priorities. The options for the post webinar survey were created with input from participants to the live webinar.

• Virtual Meetings Strategy

• Glbar Virtual Meetings Provider

• Agency teams capacity / Role of the agency in Virtual Meeting

• Mindset shift for travel and meetings towards more virtual interaction

• Developing virtual meeting skills

off all likes / priorities focused on virtual meetings

Statistic Takeaway

The rapid increase in the volume and importance to organisations of virtual meetings has resulted in a shift in focus, from in-person meetings solutions, with the maturity already applied to that format, to strategies for virtual solutions. There will be advantages in the pace of deployment for those that have virtual strategies embedded within multi-channel marketing approaches or simply significant historic experience with virtual formats. Though not covered in detail in the session, challenges will likely be formed around; technology capability, cost, organisational implementation and supplier selection. As in-person meetings return, organisations will also need to have metrics and processes to judge participant and organisational risk when considering face to face interactions.

• How to ensure the safety of our travellersand attendees

• Improve process efficiencies and demand management

• Governance and compliance for virtual meetings

• Small, simple meetings technology - stakeholder self service

• Achieve ROI/ROO/ROE measurement across the organisation

• Policy to return to meetings

• Increase spend visibility

• Risk Mitigation

• Demand Projections for new financial year

• Increase leverage on company’s scale

• Reduce number of suppliers

Question: Post / Living with COVID19 Meeting Volume 67% of organisations believe they will have more f2f than virtual meetings after COVID19

22% of organisations believe they will have more virtual than f2f meetings after COVID19

Statistic Takeaway

Using a benchmark from the 2018 effective webinars survey, referenced within this document, we can see that what was true then is not true now, with a significant demand for virtual meetings accelerating digital initiatives. Aligned to the overall survey data, from the 2020 webinar, it supports the view of a virtual meetings strategy being a principle priority.

Question in 2018: Considering your organisations use of web meetings for HCPs, how would you rate your adoption of this approach?

Excellent: we have a consistent, effective solution across the company

Good: we have an effective solution, but not consistenly used

Fair: we have isolated best practise but no consistency

Poor: we have slow to adopt and little consistency of approach

Do not know

0% 11% 22% 22%

45%

With this understandable focus on virtual meetings it is noteworthy to reflect that a significant return to in-person interactions is expected likely by region and by meeting type. Speaker, participant and internal teams’ feedback, allied to the outcomes of company and 3rd party (e.g. medical society) virtual formats, will form the basis of the metrics to be applied when selecting a future meeting format.

Key Outcomes

The COVID19 pandemic has accelerated the migration of some in-person activities to virtual formats, with 44% of organisations flipping in-person meetings to virtual formats due to the COVID19 pandemic. The consensus is that this is here to stay and a strategic approach is required to deliver on business need.

However, there is a significant expectation of a return to in-person meetings be these fully face to face or in hybrid formats. Therefore, shaping a meetings strategy that fully embeds virtual channels into legacy face-to-face formats will be key for the future.

Virtual Meetings Strategies

Synopsis

This discussion highlighted that assessing external and internal needs and measuring results were key pillars of a successful virtual meeting strategy. Understandably, companies were in different places in developing and deploying their strategies aligned to the appetite from meeting stakeholders, speakers and participants for “good,

content driven” virtual interactions that are to become a permanent feature beyond the pandemic. It was felt that there are tools and partners in the marketplace, existing and in development, to deliver on these needs, with more technology innovation and smart use of channels to share this content.

Channels included; the internal business

structure; global > country and 2. with and via 3rd parties. Channel development supported the realisation of optimal content reach and “quality” engagement, often valued with in-person meetings, that have been largely unavailable due to the COVID19 pandemic.

Key Statistics

Question: Post / living with COVID19 what % volume split do you think your organisation will have for face to face and virtual meetings, for both internal and external audiences?

Internal and external audiences

Key Outcomes

Shared perspectives

• Demand for virtual meetings (VM’s) moving into 2021 shows no sign of reducing. In most cases demand is increasing as teams engage (centrally or in a fragmented way) to find / utilise / encouraged to access best practise.

• Pace of VM’s implementation varies from company-to-company dependant on the longevity of their virtual meeting (digital strategies) programmes.

• Measuring VM’s will be key for the future.

• Content is key to select; formats, tools and overall approaches.

• HCP and internal stakeholder need assessments is a critical part of defining the shape of the strategic and tactical focuses.

• A reduction in, in-person meetings demonstrated the opportunities for virtual to support sustainability programmes.

• Hybrid meeting solutions will be a focus within virtual meeting strategies.

General Observations

• Utilisation of zoom as a platform, since early security issues, is increasing for some companies.

• Shifting from an in-person to virtual focus has highlighted which, current meeting partners, understand and deliver on relationship.

• Development of VM strategies can, in some case, be an almost classical change management situation with the techniques and approaches required in this scenario.

67% of organisations believe they will have more f2f than virtual meetings after COVID19

22% of organisations believe they will have more virtual than f2f meetings after COVID19

Statistic Takeaway

a bias towards face-to-face meetings is balanced by the fact that virtual interactions have quickly gained favour, with a significant pre-COVID rise in future volumes.

Healthcare Procurement

Hot Topics 2021

Synopsis

The focus topics of SMMP, business needs, and the future of hybrid format meetings were all discussed in depth during this webinar.

Only three of the six polls used during the webinar received a majority vote of more than 50%, with one question splitting the votes 50-50. When the three responses with a percentage vote larger than 50% were removed, the average percentage distribution of votes was decreased to 16 percent.

Key Statistics – Focus topic 2, Business Need

This fragmented picture suggests that, at least in the short and medium term, a return to meeting strategy design is the way forward for a large number of organisations as they deal with the change in meeting programmes caused by the COVID19 pandemic.

24% Selection of approved virtual meeting platforms

Key Outcomes

Key Statistic Takeaway

20%

15%

10%

5%

Poll: Which three business criteria is most important / relevant to your organisations approach to virtual meetings 0%

25% 5% Uplift SMMP to include VM 5%

Reduce number of VM Suppliers 10% Gain Visibility on VM activity across the business 14% Roll out best practise across the business

14% Understand longer term business needs for VM

Focus topic 1 – SMMP: Virtual meeting integration with SMMP has shown to be beneficial, as evidenced by a poll finding that 78 percent of businesses have taken efforts to reap the benefits of integration. Some of the issues cited were regional approaches, as well as the capability and resources of external support for those still struggling with the effects of the pandemic on their businesses. The benefits of SMMP were seen as having a strong return on investment (ROI) from data and having senior leadership listen to the benefits of SMMP.

Focus topic 3 – Hybrid meetings: 86 percent of organisations are either preparing for or already have significant plans for hybrid meeting activities. Though the definition of a hybrid meeting can still be a point of discussion benefits were seen as contributing to sustainable meetings, providing flexible formats for participants. Ultimately cost benefit analyses will help define the success of hybrid programmes which can be seen as more time consuming over other formats.

10% Integrating /aligning IT functions

19% Understanding of VM participant (HCP’s/ Internal) needs

Focus topic 2 – Business need: In the poll dedicated to this focus topic, no single option received more than 19 percent of the vote. This suggests that organisations have a diverse set of priorities across the eight categories.

Key Takeaway

The top votes in this poll to identify business needs were a focus on selecting virtual meeting platforms and understanding the needs of virtual meeting participants. The fact that votes were dispersed over a wide range of priorities may indicate how challenging it will be to rebuild meeting programmes in light of the COVID19 epidemic.

The discussions revealed that healthcare and life science companies’ current meeting strategies vary significantly, with some at the early stages of developing new, post-Pandemic, meeting programmes and others more advanced, with significant hybrid meetings in the advanced stages of planning, having already adjusted SMMP solutions, implemented technology, and agency RFP results. As we observe the lockdown’s easing around the world, it’s safe to expect that re-tuning meeting programmes to integrate virtual and hybrid needs will take new thinking, time, and resources.

Key Statistics

Synopsis

Sustainability is now an established social as well as a business issue; it affects many aspects of our lives, from using paper cups to powering the pharmaceutical industry. With the topic gaining momentum, as evidenced by higher governmental, public and meeting participant expectations and many meetings opting to be sustainable, we discussed how advanced we were in creating sustainable meetings strategies. Meetings created and supported by healthcare and life science companies were in-scope. Our discussion process began with a pre-meeting survey.

Survey highlights:

• The topic was important to all organisations, with 25% believing they lacked a clear definition of sustainable meetings.

• 3/10 organisations felt they had made progress toward their goal of sustainable meetings. 10% achieved their target of 50%. None believed they are more than 50% to target.

• It was felt that participants’ decisions to attend a meeting were not yet significantly influenced by whether or not the meeting was sustainable.

Graphic 1 shows the by % contribution of each segment of the meeting and its carbon footprint. *Travel – not including flights or train travel to the meeting

Graphic 2 demonstrated the impact of air travel to this event, dominating the carbon footprint of this profile of meeting.

We modelled a 2-night, 3-day investigator meeting, with the aid of carbon footprint measurement specialists event:decision, for 120 short and long haul participants to a kick off training meeting. Factors that contribute to sustainable meetings.

Key Takeaway

Air travel, specifically long-haul, has a dramatic impact on CO2 emissions. In meeting terms this is the single largest category which, if reduced, can significantly contribute to organisational sustainability targets.

Key Focus

To turn theory into practise is a challenge and a collaborative effort is required from senior leadership with clear mandates, informed meeting stakeholders who should consider sustainability as they plan the format of their meeting, intermediaries who are ahead of the sustainable meetings marketplace, software companies enhancing their core solutions and supplier partners who have embraced the topic in a turnkey manner. And, of course, participants and assessing their evolving expectations to participate in sustainable meetings. These actors’ roles must be supplemented by benchmark measurements for developing strategies and reporting models.

Key Outcomes

• The group had similar issues, including an overall lack of progress in the development and implementation of sustainable meeting strategies were identified across all organisations, particularly in Europe which was considered to be more advanced than the rest of the world. An aligned calculation and KPIs within the Meetings and event strategy will support

• There is an appetite for the topic without yet, reaching the senior leadership of most organisations.

• Barriers include the perception that to be sustainable impacts the bottom line of a budget.

• We can expect an accelerated definition of targets for sustainable meetings by companies.

• There is no single focus for less meetings being the answer to the question of sustainable meetings. Rather, a focus on benchmarking a meeting footprint, improved meeting approvals, and sophisticated reporting to understand the impact and opportunities for carbon reduction of single and multiple meetings.

• Carbon offsetting is not seen as key to enable “staying the same” and has yet to be proven effective by some. Offsetting is a better option for some than none at all.

• The ability to report on each meeting’s sustainability score as part of overall reporting will be an essential component of future sustainable meeting solutions.

• Established meetings platforms should initiate and integrate sustainable meetings components ad solutions.

• Good practices on sustainable meeting strategies can be taken from other industries.

• Data was seen as the catalyst to power change including, meeting type benchmarking and travel formats comparisons.

• Engaging with external participants about their preferences for participating in sustainable meetings will be considered by some to create future meeting programmes.

• The group felt that the topic was indeed a priority conversation and not yet a defined and clearly implemented action.

Sustainability Initiative

Hotel Sustainability Basics is a globally recognised and coordinated set of sustainability indicators that all hotels should implement as a minimum. Developed by the industry for the industry, they represent the 12 actions that are fundamental to hotel sustainability. WTTC is calling on hotel operators, owners, associations, and investors around the world to officially support the initiative and work across their networks to implement the criteria over the next three years

Thought Leadership from the Radisson Hotel Group

The Psychology of Meetings

Simple Meetings

Agile

The pressure is on to make every meeting count. To deliver meeting experiences that are memorable, personal and impactful, encouraging repeat attendance and continued engagement.

But what truly makes our brains engage and our emotions follow? Read the whitepaper “The psychology on meetings” to discover the powerful role psychology plays in influencing your attendees’ behaviours and learn from industry experts how to leverage it to deliver truly impactful healthcare meetings and events.

In the healthcare sector we are seeing an increase in both the volume and the complexity of small meetings.

To explore this increasing trend, we organised a roundtable consultation of meeting experts to discuss “the future for small meetings in the healthcare sector”bringing together the complimentary perspectives of meeting stakeholders, 3rd party agencies, technology platforms and meeting venues.

Agile thinking has become quite the buzzword in business, hailed as a revolutionary approach fostering innovation, efficiency and effectiveness.

But how convincingly has the concept been embraced by Healthcare and Life Science companies?

How has it impacted on this sensitive sector’s people and processes - most specifically the delivery of effective meeting programmes fit for the 21st Century?

Balancing short-term and long-term needs during a crisis is tough, as new challenges emerge alongside new opportunities. Delegates’ changing expectations and reduced budgets are a difficult combination. With a greater focus on short-term actions for many organizations at present, it is no surprise that it has become more difficult to get senior buy-in for future events, too.

3 million healthcare professionals with meetings

The COVID-19 pandemic has propelled one of the most significant changes to sharing scientific information –extended reach via online meetings. In contrast to the pre-pandemic modes of conducting meetings, determining factors such as available budgets, geographical limitations, and so forth are not considered a bottleneck anymore.

Read more

To help planners remain competitive in a complex, fluid market, we have gathered industry best practice and insight across 12 countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. We have analyzed the findings of both surveys to give event planners actionable advice and help them thrive now and in the future.

Read more

With reach becoming a critical factor, it has now become possible to bring healthcare content to attendees, irrespective of restrictions. As a result, approximately 3 million healthcare professionals, within Europe, can be reached through in-person conferences and live online content distribution.

Read more

Muriel Poulenc

Director Strategic Industries, Meeting & Events

D: +33(6)27131107, muriel.poulenc@radissonhotels.com

Diana Ojong

Global Healthcare Account manager, D: +49 172 4514699, diana.ojong@radissonhotels.com

To learn more about the Radisson Hotel Groups Procurement Peer to Peer group or our Thought Leadership programme contact:

Thinking for Healthcare Sector Meetings and Events

A roadmap for recovery and beyond

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