The study, "The Evolving Global Meeting Management Strategy," examines theeffects of regulatory pressures on the meeting planners' roles andresponsibilities in the life sciences industries -- pharmaceutical,biotechnology, and medical devices. It identifies global trends in meetingplanning and provides key resourcing and outsourcing benchmarks.

A report summary is available for immediate download here:http://www.cuttingedgeinfo.com/pharmameetingmanagement/PH111_Download.asp#body

"Compliance-related issues are having a significant impact on meetingplanning teams," said Elio Evangelista, the report's lead author. "Theregulatory environment has expanded its reach, and companies are looking todo everything within their power to ensure that they are complying with thenecessary policies."

The 138-page report examines meeting planning management organizationalstructures and reporting lines, resource levels, meeting venues andformats. It also identifies challenges unique to company type -- andexamines ways to address them, such as technological tools. The reportenables companies to elevate the strategic importance of meeting planningteams to win physicians' attendance and organize high-caliber meetings.

Developed from surveys and interviews with executives at 21 top lifesciences companies, the report shows meeting planning teams how tocoordinate global compliance, streamline processes, balance external andinternal priorities, make the most out of limited resources, and drivephysician attendance and participation.

The report contains 250-plus metrics, including the following:

--  The impact of regulations on meeting planning efforts--  Percentage of domestic versus international meetings--  Number of internal and external meetings planned in 2007 and 2008--  Meeting spending in 2007 versus 2008--  Average spending per meeting, year-to-year--  Average spending levels by department age--  Meeting planning funding contributions--  Percentage of meeting budgets that are outsourced