As a consultant who works with companies, organizations, and providers on tactical development, Tom McDonald, Ph.D., has seen first-hand the gap between executive’s expectation for company results and planning teams concentrate on meeting performance and logistics. 



Companies now expect their events and meetings to deliver business outcomes, said McDonald, who's president of Del Mar, Calif.-based Tom McDonald & Associates. Planning teams now possess the tools and resources to make this occur. 

People who do not embrace this crucial shift will see their futures in jeopardy. While SMMP has developed as a model, changes at several firms haven't kept pace. 

Many coordinators continue to challenge to make the change in thinking from logistics to strategy. 

That disparity widens the more decentralized the assembly planning surroundings. Too rarely do coordinators economically convey meeting quality, spend, and value based results to management. In addition absent are significant metrics to determine and measure success. 

For meeting professionals, company acumen is a mixture of two things: first, developing in-depth knowledge of how their business works, and second, how events and assemblies play an important role in attaining management and stakeholder objectives and goals. While this necessitates substantial assignments and cooperation with senior managers, the payoff is worth the time invested. 


First, it's moving beyond meeting schedules, budgets, problem solving, and logistics and comprehension senior administration big picture vision for events and assemblies. 

Building Business Acumen Questionnaire:


Where does the management team put their focus daily? 
At any time you talk with senior supervisors about the planning of meetings, do your discussions include a number of the above elements? 
Is the cooperation with supervisors overly engrossed on logistical and operational issues? 
To put it differently, are you talking to supervisors where they live? 
Are you offering thoughts and strategies that drive real business solutions? 
Business executives now see gatherings as vital to their company's success?
What public want?
What does public think about the product or company?
Who are my competitors, how do I relate to them?
When I make a decision, how will it impact profit?
How do I connect other products with the business?