I found the Aberdeen Research article on Travel and Entertainment (T&E) Expense Visibility very intriguing to say the least. On one hand, businesses today are searching for new frontiers where they can drive out costs in their operations. When the recession hit a few years ago, businesses immediately focused on driving efficiencies in their value chains which permeated its way into how they sold to their clients/customers, how they manufactured their products / offerings (with many outsourcing their manufacturing operations), and how they managed inventory to not tie up so much cash in inventory on-hand while also increasing fill rates.
 
As businesses now recover from the downturn, you are seeing them invest wisely (and cautiously) into areas that will create growth, but at the same time they have not lost that lust to manage costs. As a result they are looking into unchartered waters for cost containment and Travel and Entertainment Expenses are on the short list.
 
It makes complete sense that visibility would be one of the top challenges in the T&E domain. I would go a step further however and state that I think businesses really want to understand where their T&E dollars are going and more importantly, are they getting a real return in the dollars they spend. 

This highly informative article, written by researchers at the W. P. Carey School of Business, gives insight into the changing attitude and environment surrounding cloud adoption, as well as what incredible changes it will bring to organizations: "rapid business-process calibration, increased use of analytics, as well as possible issues around the tax implications of cloud-based IT spending."

Bramasol had the opportunity to participate in the Stadium and Arena one2one Summit held in Lake Las Vegas at the Revella this past week. The three day summit provided stadium and venue executives the opportunity to hear from key thought leaders on current industry challenges and from service providers on new market offerings.

Kevin Cope, President & CEO of Acumen Learning kicked off day 1 of the summit with a keynote address detailing how stadium and venue executives could build a smarter, faster, and more valuable organization.  He provided many case studies and organizational best practices on how best to manage and deal with the five most fundamental elements in a business: cash, profit, assets, growth, and people.  His Socratic presentation style leant many opportunities for the audience to engage and learn from his many case studies.

Pat Christenson, President of Las Vegas Events, and Brian Mirakian, Director of Populous Activate headlined day 2 of the summit.  Pat spent most of his keynote time discussing the transformation that has taken place in Las Vegas and how the city is building (or renovating) a number of venues across the city to satisfy the growth demands being placed on it.  Brian truly wooed the audience with a forward thinking presentation on how emerging technology is positively effecting stadium design and the fan experience.  Being a technology guy myself, I was extremely impressed with Brian’s presentation and how technology is being used to build a smarter, more engaging facility for fans.  The foundation of Brian’s vision is based on bringing brands to life by identifying strategic opportunities for engaging fans at all levels.  From the time fans steps onto the property until they depart, they will have an experience that is executed at every single footstep across a number of media formats.

Lou Marciani, Director of the National Center of Spectator Sports Safety and Security and Sandy Keehn of GEO (Guest Experience) Advisors concluded the event with great keynote messages.  I personally know Lou from his current days at Southern Miss and was impressed with his continued knowledge of how to best deal with the ongoing security threats and risks to fans. Lou brought forth deep expertise in this area leveraging both domestic and international situations.  Sandy probably impressed me most with her message around customer service.  Many, many businesses (included those in the stadium and venue management) invest millions of dollars in their brands; however, those brands are constantly being tested and torn down through poor customer service.  Sandy discussed the extreme importance of how organizations support and even advance their brand through amazing customer service, and she demonstrated how organizations should link their service strategy to their brand.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t touch upon Bramasol’s engagement in the summit.  John Froelich and I had the opportunity to conduct two boardroom presentations to key stadium and venue executives where we discussed Bramasol’s (and SAP’s) strategy for engaging the sports and venue management industry.  We showcased our offerings that were focused on three major areas: maximizing performance and revenue, increasing fan experience and loyalty, and maintaining event security.

The Sports and Venue Management industry are facing serious challenges in terms of maximizing performance and revenues.  Organizations: