Big Four Firm Reports 12% Reduction in Events Spending

At a Glance

A Big Four accounting firm with over 230,000 employees and a robust internal events culture needed a solution for streamlining its event management processes and reporting. Planned stepped in to integrate modern event planning tools and comprehensive reporting dashboards into the company’s existing system.

A year later, the firm is reporting 12% reduction in annual event spending along with a 50% reduction in planning and reporting time.

Challenge

Prior to partnering with Planned, this Big Four firm was managing events internally via a team of twenty professional event planners. Forced to cut resources down to eight people during the pandemic, efficiency was essential. They approached Planned to improve the team's capacity and automate their custom reporting processes without disrupting their procurement system.

Solution

The firm chose Planned as its go-to solution for the sourcing and management of events under $150,000 – their internal limit for small and medium events. After quick training, event planners across the organization started using Planned to:

• source original venues, caterers, and other event suppliers across the country

• obtain rates and availabilities without having to reach out individually to each potential partner

• sign and pay suppliers through Planned, without having to individually onboard each partner into the system, skipping the 4 to 6 week administrative process.

As well, the firm collaborated with its credit card provider and Planned to facilitate payments and spending control. This resulted in the development of an all-new product: a rechargeable pre-approved token card directly linked with individual events created on the Planned platform.

In parallel, Planned worked with the procurement team to create a highly-customized report. Not only did this allow for a granular breakdown of costs and tracking of savings, it also automatically matched transactions into the firm’s AmEx accounting system.

Results

By working with Planned, the firm achieved time and cost savings while keeping change management efforts to a minimum. They freed up time for their centralized event planning team and enabled more people in the organization – managers, EAs, and business development teams – to organize memorable events.

In just one year, the firm:

• Generated more than $500,000 in direct cost savings with events created through Planned. These savings were achieved by enforcing company-level discounts from preferred suppliers and a higher compliance rate with the firm’s procurement policies.

• Doubled the event planning capacity while keeping hiring costs under control.

• Booked more than 500 unique venues and event spaces while skipping weeks of supplier onboarding time, leading to higher event satisfaction.