The Last Unmanaged Spend Category: Events - Always Friday Roundtable

​The Last Unmanaged Spend Category: Bringing Procurement Logic to Corporate Events

Corporate events are a €97B market in Europe. Yet for most companies, it’s the last major spend category with zero procurement infrastructure: no preferred vendors, no data, no process.

At this table we’ll discuss:

• ​Why events escaped procurement. 10,000+ fragmented agencies, no standardization, and a “creative” label that kept CFOs and CPOs out of the room.

• ​The real cost of unmanaged event spend. Hidden markups, duplicated vendors across business units, zero benchmarking. What companies actually lose without visibility.

• ​What an AI-native procurement layer looks like. How structured briefs, vendor marketplaces, and dedicated event specialists can turn events into a managed category, without killing quality or speed.

• ​Build vs. buy vs. outsource. How leading enterprises are rethinking who owns event spend: procurement, HR, marketing, or a platform.