Organisers of incentives and purchasing departments: We can work it out (but itâ

In the case of travel incentives, the divergence of interests among planners and the purchasing team is nothing new. A recent study* conducted by The Incentive Research Foundation, confirms this perception: 6 out of 10 organisers of incentives believe the impact of the purchasing department is negative for the event planning process. And 52% of professionals believe that the purchasing department focuses on the cost of an activity and not on the value of the trip to the company.

Not everything is lost in this relationship: the same professional consulted gave positive strokes, identifying some potential advantages in working with purchasing departments, such as getting from them new perspectives or new ideas to improve the effectiveness of the programme.

For this to work, the list of remaining tasks include: improving communication and collaboration between equipment purchases and planners incentives. One of the keys is, perhaps, address the needs and potential problems from the proposed activity and demonstrate that an incentive can produce more for less. *The Involvement of Procurement or Purchasing in the Incentive Travel Business