How do you manage cost in events management. Most particularly, how do you manage cost in events management in the Philippines?
I say this because in a bidding process clients sometimes wanted the lowest price but demand the highest quality. After you win a bid and determine the scope of work, the client in the actual event demands more things outside the scope of work.
Cost management is a big issue in events management one that can spell the difference between the event manager’s organization’s life and death.
My eyes are glued to Tanaka San our lecturer here in Japan as he expound and hammered the need for value creation as the ultimate goal of projects and programmes. After his explanation he asked us to think for ourselves if what we are doing have values created.
He said that all projects and programs must have value creation otherwise it is useless and it is not a project or a program.
When I was left for myself it got me thinking what are the values created by event management? I arrived on the following conclusion, event management in the Philippines create the values like Knowledge Values because of the partnership and new products and ideas presented to clients and visitors alike on an event.
Two other values that it gives are Value for Shareholders and Value for Society. Events benefit the shareholders like the event organizer, local government, venues, exhibitors, participants, and country because of the events inherent power to gather and provide a platform for exchange of ideas and networks al l shareholders either gain knowledge and income out of events.
However, observing the landscape in our country there are events that don’t provide values or no discerning values created.
If this is the case we must first determine our discerning values before we create or realize an event. This will help us avoid the common mistake of creating events for the sake of creating and profit.
Here in Japan they created Project and Program Management or P2M. It’s an expertise sought after by all parts of the world.
In the Philippines, we do not have the technology to compete but what we have is our excellent service – a service that is evolving.
There is a question that I like to pose. The question is can event management and tradeshow organizing be an expertise that our country can be known. It is a service area where we can paint rosy pictures.
Maybe one day, sooner than later this can be a core competence of our country.
Why do I push for it? Not only because I am part of the industry but we have the products, services and people to make it on top! The event managers of the Philippines can be the best.
I overheard in one boardroom, the management team in a heated discussion if the company should tap an event organizer.
This is a very long discussion but for starter we at EXLINKEVENTS have two interesting cases in our experience. The first, an organization has not held a convention for the past five years. Nobody in their group knows how to execute an event. Enter us in the picture and they have a successful event last year, well attended and have solidified their organization’s membership.
The second one, they have barely two and a half months to execute their event and yet nothing has been started yet. For practical thinkers it is a no brainer, you must cancel the event. But they tapped our services and what have you but one of the best event if not the best event the organization has ever had, this as feed backed by their officers and members.
I am not saying we are heroes and all powerful. What I am pointing out is that
these two cases gives one conclusion: event managers and event management in the Philippines is a necessity and a profession that must be handled by professionals.
What looks like easy is not. It may appear simple but the ramifications of the requirements in executing an event can place you in a labyrinth of no way out.
Therefore, as I recommend let us outsource this critical task to the experts because it is on its own a big and critical matter; and there are experts on event management who sleeps and breaths in running an event and making things happen.
P.S.
EXLINK Onsite – a division of EX-LINK Management and Marketing Services Corporation is one such group that eats managing an event for breakfast so why not give us a call and leverage the group’s expertise.
All surveys that we conducted indicated that exhibitor’s top priority is to generate sales. Event Managers and Tradeshow organizers must heed to this call of the clients. However, errors lie in this notion that clients want. They wanted to generate sales inside the venue of the event; exhibitors wanted more than or five times more sales in the actual event. There is nothing wrong with that except some exhibit sales happen after the expo or event.
Like the sales process, there are times that after you engage the clients onsite, you still have to make a follow-up to close the deal. In most of the cases this happen, a client closes the deal after the event, after the exhibitor or company showed that he/she is not only after a sales but a partnership.
This is what makes expo or events powerful, it provides a venue to engage clients and it eliminates cold calling and other cold approaches. After the event, the stage is set for a smooth and easy process of generating sales.
