ROI has been the battle cry of the incentive and meeting community for over a decade. We were all believers – it is critical to prove the ROI of the meetings, events and incentives. 

It’s not that we doubted their value. We all knew that incentives and meetings created results. It’s intuitive. Therefore, we sent out surveys to gauge levels of satisfaction. When we did, we sometimes proudly claimed to have demonstrated ROI.

Then came a sputtering economy and unexpected scrutiny of incentives and meetings from stakeholders, stockholders, the media and even elected officials. Corporate leadership was not prepared for the onslaught. As a result, we lost the battle. Unable to justify both strategy and spend, program after program was cancelled, postponed, or scaled back. Meetings were boondoggles – and incentives were worse.  Read More...