is May 31, 2012
“The University of Vermont has found the ACCED-I benchmarking data to be extremely valuable. When budgets were tight and hiring freezes were in place, we were able to use the benchmarking study to help justify hiring an additional conference coordinator and marketing coordinator in order to maintain and/or increase revenue. Although completing the study can take a good deal of time, I highly recommend doing so as it provides extremely helpful data to support both building and improving your Conference and Events operations.”
- Shane Cutler, director of conference and event services, University of Vermont, 2009 - 2010 participant
How Do You Compare?
Read the Executive Summary of the ACCED-I 2009 - 2010 Benchmarking Study
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Deadline for participation in the 2011-2012 study is May 31, 2012 Please DOWNLOAD and PRINT a copy of the Survey Questionnaire (pdf) so that you can review the questions, compile the data, and prepare prior to going online to complete the survey. You MUST complete the survey online. |
One of the most important reasons professional associations exist is to facilitate the exchange of information among their members. Information concerning operational details can be especially valuable, and the purpose of the current ACCED-I Benchmarking Project is to facilitate the gathering and exchange of data for decision making.
Benchmarking can be significant to ACCED-I members on two levels. First, it’s important for members to have a system for identifying and tracking key pieces of information about their own operations so they can compare their own results from year to year (“internal benchmarking”). At a minimum, information to be tracked should enable the member to assess progress on established goals and objectives. Second, “external benchmarking” is important because it allows members to compare their operations to those of their peers and thereby answer critical questions regarding operations, the allocation of resources, and outcomes.
Some of the questions in the surveys are included more for internal decision making than for external benchmarking. For example, one question asks you to rate the levels of service provided to your operation by various campus service providers. While it may not be of much value for you to compare your campus to other campuses on this question, it could be valuable to analyze the answers to this question for your own campus. The data will allow you, over time, to look at trends for the various service providers (i.e. is an individual provider providing consistently good, or bad, service from year to year or is that provider gradually getting better or worse?) Having this type of information available can be of significant value as you plan intervention strategies.
While the surveys undoubtedly ask for information not currently tracked by some members, they hopefully will serve as a stimulus for members to examine information they are currently tracking and information they could/should be tracking in the future.
The Project consists of two separate surveys. The first one does not contain information which most members consider to be "confidential," and members who complete it will have full access to all responses of all participants. The results will only be available to survey participants. The second survey contains confidential information such as rates and salaries, and the responses from the second survey will only be shared in aggregate views to protect confidentiality. Participants must complete the first survey prior to moving on to the second survey, and survey results will only be shared with survey participants.
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