Most organizations hold more meetings than they realize — team offsites, leadership sessions, client events. These “unmanaged meetings” usually don't pass through formal systems and are planned directly by employees, often leaving gaps that create unseen costs and fragmented data. Managed meetings, on the other hand, follow defined processes and are booked through designated platforms, giving leaders visibility and control.
According to the 2025 GBTA Perfect Trip Report, over half (53%) of companies say their small meetings are organized outside of a managed program. The domino effect: leaders lose visibility into spend, compliance, and collaboration — and the true cost of bringing people together remains hidden. Even well-intentioned meetings, when planned informally, can quietly drain budgets, duplicate travel, or pull teams out of sync. Without clear oversight, organizations risk spending more to achieve less alignment.
Unmanaged meetings are small, ad-hoc gatherings that are planned directly by employees that don’t go through formal travel or meetings channels. In turn, this causes blind spots across the company and leaders lose the ability to see — and steer — where resources are going.
These blind spots don’t just impact budgets. They limit a company’s ability to make data-driven decisions about how, where, and why teams come together.
Dennis Vilovic, TROOP CEO and Co-Founder, explains, “What organizations can’t see, they can’t manage. Unmanaged meetings might seem minor, but they represent a significant portion of travel spend — and often are the least visible. Bringing them into view gives leaders the insight and confidence to manage budgets strategically.”
The good news: unmanaged meetings don’t have to stay invisible. With the right tools, alignment, and processes, organizations can flip the narrative into opportunities for smarter planning and stronger control.
Visibility shouldn’t add extra administrative work or complexity. When travel, expense, and meeting data live in silos, it’s impossible to see the full picture. The most effective technology allows you to bring meetings into managed systems seamlessly — with intuitive tools that automate the process, creating visibility across the board. When data capture is built into the workflow, transparency naturally happens.
AI and analytics can surface unmanaged meeting activity — revealing spend patterns, outliers, and opportunities to consolidate travel. These insights give Finance a clearer view of costs, help HR uphold compliance, and enable Chiefs of Staff to see where resources are used most effectively. With better data and visibility, leaders can forecast accurately, negotiate strategically, and uncover savings that might otherwise go unseen.
TROOP aggregates travel, location, and cost insights to surface the best options for every meeting — giving planners visibility into their own meetings while providing leaders a broader view into all meetings happening within their organization.
Once visibility improves, the next step is aligning departments around what the data reveals.
Visibility only delivers value when departments act on it together. Bringing unmanaged meetings into focus delivers tangible, cross-department benefits.
Encourage all departments to jointly review meeting activity and trends quarterly. Treat unmanaged meetings as a shared responsibility — not a single department’s problem.
Create a clear, accessible process that helps meeting planners succeed, starting with simple guidelines for how different types of meetings should be planned and tracked. For example, smaller meetings can follow an easy, self-serve process with light-touch tracking for visibility.
Make those guidelines easy to find and understand by anticipating common questions: Who do I contact? What tools should I use? What are my guardrails? Clear communication and accessible resources help people feel supported while ensuring consistency. When planners see what’s in it for them — faster approvals, clearer budgets, less manual work — they’re more likely to engage.
When teams understand that the process saves time and removes friction, adoption follows naturally. With TROOP, this level of transparency and visibility into small meetings is centralized in a single platform, helping meeting planners every step of the way.
Unmanaged meetings aren’t going away. But with the right visibility, organizations can turn what was once hidden into a powerful source of insight — and build a more connected, cost-efficient, and responsible approach to how their teams come together.