+44 (0)20 7594 9494 | www.imperial.ac.uk/conferenceandeventsCelebrating London 2012Olympics* 200 meeting rooms and event spaces* largest venue, the Great Hall, seats up to 740* marquee available for up to 1,500* two beautiful listed townhouses* award-winning in-house catering* dedicated audio-visual team on siteTeam up with Imperial this Olympic yearFor more information please call 0871 334 1919 (Opt 2) or email conferenceandevents@leedsunited.comwww.leedsunitedvenue.com. Elland Road, Leeds, LS11 0ES.MORE THANJUST FOOTBALL.... CONFERENCE & EVENTS . EXHIBITIONS. AWARDS DINNERS. TRAINING SEMINARS. PRIVATE PARTIES. CHRISTMAS PARTIESCONFERENCE AND EVENTS

February 2012 . www.conference-news.co.uk . 69 WHITE PAPERSompanies that successfully measure the business value of their meetings report that the process has changed greatly over time. Early measures centred on accomplishing objectives, but the understanding of those objectives and the ability to measure them has improved to the point at which they now provide a good understanding of the actual business value of meetings. The challengeMany meeting professionals believe traditional ROI is the only viable way to express value but consider it to be an expensive proposition (both in terms of time and money) that's impossible to accurately estimate, so they just don't measure for business value at all. The challenge is to understand the costs and benefi ts of measuring the real value of meetings compared to simply making sure attendees and stakeholders are satisfi ed.Research fi ndingsMPI's Business Value of Meetings (BVOM) research has revealed two signifi cant fi ndings relative to this challenge: 1. Many corporate cultures embrace measures of value other than traditional ROI. They want to know if a meeting accomplished its stated objectives, because this implies a business value, even if that value is not reduced to a monetary quantity. Most corporate cultures don't see a need to determine traditional meetings ROI.2. Most organisations that successfully measure the business value of their meetings focus on only a few key elements, making the costs of measurement less than most perceive.The benefi ts of measuring BVOM MPI's BVOM research revealed Perception vs realityMeeting Professionals International (MPI) recently launched its Business Value of Meetings (BVOM) toolbox based on research fi ndings. We offer an edited extract from one of the White Papers produced: dealing with the issue of low perception of return on investment (ROI)The costs of implementing a business value of meeting measurement strategy are controllable, and the benefi ts are immediate and long termC