Wellcome Trust – Cost benefit analysis of the Events team

ASSIGNMENT

Established in 1936 and as one of the world’s leading Charitable foundations, the Wellcome Trust appointed Generation for Growth to undertake an independent audit and market appraisal on the effectiveness of the existing team structure, process and procedures at 215 Euston Road, London.

The assignment’s key objectives were to provide Wellcome with an indicative overview of both the Conference & Events and Internal Meetings team, concluding with a series of recommendations for a more efficient and effective team.

During this 18 day assignment, our consultants investigated and reviewed the following:-

• Consulted with Wellcome’s key Stakeholders including the Events team to gain a better understanding of their working practices and event requirements, including an understanding of the team’s workload and productivity.
• Reviewed the current on-line technology platforms used for booking the 76 meeting rooms as well as the 21 departmental rooms to determine adequacy of its functionality and effectiveness.
• Conducted qualitative research with a number of London venues, leading Event Management Agencies and London financial institutions to benchmark against Wellcome’s current events’ model.

Output and Results

Our report to Wellcome included a number of recommendations:-

• Develop and introduce a ‘Meetings and Events’ policy which clearly defined service levels to assist the Events teams and Stakeholder’s to understand the processes and timescales required for organising a meeting at 215 Euston Road or externally, UK and Global.
• Improved operating procedures – Introduced a more streamlined service based on our assessment of ‘four levels of tiered services’ for both internal and external events, i.e. meetings some of which required hospitality services – i.e beverage tray, lunch, snacks, pastries, etc.
• Event delivery – Improve existing C&E processes and procedures from the initial enquiry to event execution which led to a more streamlined approach using standardised templates.
• A restructured Conference & Events Team – with the appointment of a Head of Events including revising job titles and updated job descriptions, in keeping with the new staff structure and roles. This included providing additional support on an ad-hoc basis, during peak periods of the calendar year.