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Whether your corporation is big, small, or somewhere in the middle, you should already know about the importance of driving efficiency across every possible area of it. Modern-day businesses have to be efficient, agile and reactive to changes around their market. Each function represents a vital cog in the engine, and if something isn’t running at the correct speed or cost, it should be addressed as quickly as possible.
Efficiency needs to be applied to all facets of the workplace, and that definitely extends to their events; something that businesses are actively increasing the production of.
A single corporation will organise hundreds or even thousands of events over the course of a year. In lieu of a specialist event planner, their management is often entrusted with an employee in the marketing or PR department, whose role encompasses a lot more than scheduling internal meetings and training programmes.
Looking at the average corporation, they could be adhering to a monthly schedule that packs in the following options:
- Trade shows
- Conferences
- Award ceremonies
- Internal events
- Private meetings
- Employee training events
There are countless event ideas out there and our corporations appear to be covering most of the bases.
Regardless of the constraints and challenges they’re dealing with, every organiser should want to deliver a quality experience. But how can that be done when there are so many other jobs to take care of? The answer lies within event management software and some of its more important features.
One platform to rule them all
Corporations do not have the time to waste on inefficient processes, like the management of multiple technologies. Their ideal platform should be able to take bookings and payments, amend attendee records and everything in between.
Sometimes, it’s difficult to imagine that a single technology can fulfill many of the tasks that you assume have to be conducted in separate tools. If you’re running events for a corporation and using different solutions for registration, marketing, communications and admin (e.g. payments, record changes) it’s time to look for a new supplier.
Modern platforms are able to take care of the entire event management process, giving you more time to spend in the areas that actually need attention. You could be wasting hours and small fortunes on technologies that add little value to your work, which is why your chosen platform should be able to wear a few different hats.
Easy management of information
Two big challenges for corporate event organisers are storing and accessing huge banks of information. Think about the amount of data generated by a large-scale conference or an internal training event. If someone needs to edit a file or check on the number of expected attendees, is that information easy to gather?
Centralisation is the key to greater efficiency within data management. Spreadsheets and emails will not suffice. You need a platform that stores everything in a safe place, ready for it to be accessed when necessary.
Event duplication
We’re able to visualise the contents of a corporate event calendar because they tend to follow the same patterns.
Conferences are an example of something which is held once a year and takes a similar format. If it’s successful, it will be held the next year, and the year after, until it’s time to focus on something new.
Design elements fall into this same category. Once you’ve created a page for an internal training event that runs every month, do you really need to change anything aside from the text?
Due to the repetitive nature of certain events, there is a requirement for technology that can store public-facing information (e.g. FAQs, website copy, details of the venue) within certain templates. That way, it only takes a small amount of work to get everything ready for the next time around.
Self-serve functions
A good technology will reduce the time it takes you to create, organise and close an event. One of the ways of doing this is by removing certain tasks from your schedule and passing them over to the attendees.
And no, we’re not talking about having guests on the registration desk or manning the support emails. Many events will require the organiser to conduct tasks that can actually be done by the attendees themselves. Things like printing passes and booking meetings can be delegated back to the guest, handing them a lot more control over their experience.
It’s the same for communicating with attendees. By setting up triggers to authorise the sending of basic messages via automation (e.g. a “thanks for attending” email), you can save hours in your email client. Modern-day technology is effective at cutting out the middleman and that’s how it boosts efficiency.
If your corporation is looking for a new platform to run its events, here are some questions you may want to ask your provider:
- How many of my tasks can be handled by a single piece of technology?
- Does the platform have automation capabilities and what are they used for?
- What features allow for the easy creation and duplication of events?
- Does the technology feature self-serve capabilities?