Pilgrim Industries, a 2,000-employee firm with 400 managers, holds 40 of off-site meetings per year. Outside consultants develop and conduct the meetings, and, on average, 20 managers attend each meeting. The typical meeting lasts two full days. Last year, total program-development costs consumed $350,000. The average attendee's salary (plus benefits) was $70,000. To deliver each two-day meeting for 20 people, sleeping accommodations, food, telephone, and a cocktail reception cost $10,000. In addition, transportation, business services, a meeting room, and audiovisual equipment rental totaled another $11,000. Determine the total per-day, per-person cost of one off-site meeting.
Pilgrim's CEO has heard about the remarkable quality of telepresence web-based conferencing systems, and she has asked you to prepare a per-person, per-day cost comparison of an off-site meeting versus a web-based conference for a two-day meeting. You calculated the per-person, per-day cost of an off-site meeting in exercise 4. What costs must you consider with respect to a web-based system? Would you want any other information before recommending one alternative over the other?