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Companies are expected to be more competitive while doing more with less.  Many organizations utilize staff in dual-capacity roles.  However, this can pose issues when it comes to productivity, morale, scalability, agility, and efficiency.  Outsourcing is one alternative to this dilemma.

While outsourcing is commonly used for IT, legal, facilities management, and real estate, it’s less common for services such as off-site meetings, conferences, and travel incentive programs.  The reason why may lie in these myths:

MYTH #1: Outsourced agencies offer nothing that internal staff working in a dual role capacity can’t do when it comes to planning, managing, and executing corporate meetings, conferences, and travel incentive programs.

FACT: There are several valuable advantages that outsourced meeting planning agencies provide that part-time meeting planning staff can’t match.

For example:

  1. Efficiency. Outsourced meeting planning and incentive travel agencies have the experience, knowledge, and expertise based upon years of successfully executed programs for hundreds (if not more) clients.  They have the processes, checklists, and systems in place to ensure that programs plan for the “what-ifs,” meet objectives, leave a positive impression on participants, and, when applicable, have a long-term impact on behavior.  Additionally, by hiring an outsourced meeting planner, internal staff can focus on their regular job duties without getting sidetracked by meeting planning responsibilities and obligations.
  2. Deliver Higher Quality. Market leaders don’t just spend more to attract and retain key talent, capture more market share, develop their people, and strengthen their corporate culture.  They also recognize the need to drive innovation and deliver higher-quality experiences and outcomes at every event.  Working with an outsourced meeting planner brings expertise and industry knowledge to enhance service quality, while also allowing internal teams to plan, develop, execute, and measure program content and related initiatives.  In other words, outsourcing enables meeting planners to focus on the details, so internal staff can concentrate on ensuring the content resonates with the audience and achieves the desired impact.
  3. Contracting Knowledge. Using an outsourced meeting planner means that businesses gain extra insight into contract clauses that are unique to the corporate meeting and travel incentive industry.  Little details, such as attrition, cancellation, or contingency planning, can be costly if left to chance.  Outsourced agencies do the worrying so that organizations don’t need to incur the time, effort, and anguish over the minutia within contracts.
  4. Negotiation Expertise. While in-house staff may be skilled in the art of negotiation for products and other services, it can be challenging to assess what balances the scales in terms of cost savings versus value pricing for corporate meetings, conferences, and travel incentive programs.  An outsourced meeting planner knows where, how, and when to negotiate to ensure that savings are received when and where it makes sense; and that bundled solutions are carefully negotiated to provide the most value.  This can be exceptionally valuable to organizations where internal staff are juggling dual roles, such as procurement and meeting planning activities.
  5. Vendor Accountability. Tracking, reporting, and ensuring compliance is a challenging task, especially when multiple vendors, contracts, and other factors are involved.  It can be even more difficult when transparency in reporting is mandated.  Outsourced meeting planners can help gather, compile, and report data to ensure compliance, as well as provide the information internal teams need to process further reports required for external purposes. This ultimately saves significant time, as well as streamlines reporting and its consistency, which is invaluable to in-house staff who balance the duties of a full-time job and part-time meeting planning within an organization.
  6. Capability/Capacity. Even highly skilled and trained internal teams occasionally require additional support.  Working with an outsourced meeting planner can help handle the details of planning, managing, and executing events, allowing internal teams to focus on the quality of the participant experience.  It also means that when extra, qualified, and trained manpower is needed, it’s readily available.  The real benefit is not just in the extra support, but in the agility and scalability that are tailored to an organization’s needs.
  7. Buying Power. Vetting suppliers and vendors, especially in a new city or location, can be a challenging task.  However, outsourced meeting planners have a huge advantage over most part-time, in-house event planners.  Outsourced agencies have established long-standing relationships with suppliers and vendors from around the globe.  Additionally, those relationships offer a distinct buying advantage, which translates to ideal venues, beautiful accommodations, memorable and unique experiences, and value that can’t be found elsewhere.

MYTH #2:  Using an outsourced meeting planning agency will cost more than utilizing an in-house employee working in a dual role capacity.

FACT: Initially, it may seem more cost-effective to utilize internal staff to provide meeting, conference, and travel incentive planning.  However, in the long run, cost optimization is often not fully leveraged, especially when the employee(s) are working a full-time role in addition to meeting planning activities.

In various studies, outsourcing to a meeting planning, event, and travel incentive agency was found to:

  • Generate an overall savings of 14-24% annually. (1)
  • Provide a staff savings of 12-45%, depending on job/role/function. (2)

However, if the above alone isn’t compelling enough to consider outsourcing to a meeting planning, event, and travel incentive agency, more recent studies suggest that cost optimization isn’t the primary reason for outsourcing.  Top-performing organizations are utilizing outsourcing today to gain a competitive advantage, as it enables greater agility, efficiency, and effectiveness. (3)

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MYTH #3: Using an outsourced meeting planning, event, and travel incentive company means giving up some control, which is why using part-time, in-house resources is essential.

FACT: Control can often be the root cause that prevents success with event activities, but not in the way that one may think.  For some organizations, utilizing employees in a dual role capacity (e.g., working a full-time role plus performing meeting planning activities) can pose problems with control.  The lack of established policies, procedures, or processes can leave the company vulnerable. In other cases, the control issue poses issues with scalability due to the limited capability and/or capacity of staff.

Working with an outsourced meeting planning partner doesn’t mean giving up control.  Rather, businesses working with an experienced agency actually gain more control because of the agency’s knowledge, experience, and expertise, and can leverage this to the organization’s advantage.  As a result, organizations can rely on the meeting planning agency’s insights to make their jobs easier.  For example:

  • Managing High Expectations of Participants. With years of experience, meeting planning agencies often have a deeper understanding of what expectations participants have and how to effectively create a corporate meeting, conference, retreat, or travel incentive special.  This knowledge is applied to every aspect, from initial budget discussions about the event to planning, managing, and executing it.
  • Overcoming Challenges. While everyone wishes for a flawless corporate event, there are likely to be some challenges along with way.  Sometimes these can be budget constraints.  In other cases, it can be destination or travel requirements that present challenges.  These are just a few examples of how challenges can manifest.  One of the advantages of working with an outsourced meeting planning expert is that they are skilled professionals with industry expertise to provide creative options, solutions, and alternatives to address the vast majority of obstacles or challenges that may arise throughout the process, as well as during the event itself.
  • Sourcing Venues. It’s no secret that finding the right venue is one of the most time-consuming tasks in event planning.  Working with an outsourced meeting planning agency takes the guesswork out of finding the best venues and saves time and expense on sourcing the perfect venue.
  • Creating Memorable Events. Satisfying a group, whether large or small, is a task.  Keeping up with what’s new, unique, exciting, and will captivate participants is no small feat.  However, working with an outsourced meeting planning agency can help organizations gain insights into participants.  Then, using industry expertise acquired through years of hands-on experience, and earning relationships with vendor partners, as well as staying up-to-date with the latest developments, the outsourced agency can help match the right activities with the right vendors for memorable and unique experiences for all participants.

Today’s organizations must continually do more with less and do it better than their competitors.  However, utilizing internal staff in a dual capacity for meeting planning activities can be challenging.  The value that outsourcing services such as meeting planning and travel incentives to an agency can provide is clear. Follow market leaders for a competitive advantage: enhance efficiency, effectiveness, and agility by leveraging meeting planning, conferences, and travel incentive program outsourcing.

For more information on how Gavel International can assist your organization through outsourced meeting planning, event, and travel incentive programs, please contact us.

SOURCES:

1 http://blog.cbinet.com/blog/bid/350112/Proving-the-ROI-of-Strategic-Global-Meetings

2 https://www.bain.com/insights/outsourcing-aims-higher/

3 https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/process-and-operations/us-cons-global-outsourcing-survey.pdf

This article was last updated on July 17, 2025

Eloisa Mendez
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