Outsourcing events to an event management agency is a great idea. Your people are busy doing other things to keep the wheels turning. But getting the most out of your event management agency involves a series of key actions to ensure that the whole affair is kept on track. This post will cover what those are.
Whether your event is a team-building excursion, a manager’s meeting, Holiday party or conference, it’s still a project, with definable goals and firm deliverables. Treat it as a project. Don’t just hope for the best. Set the event up to win. Create a critical path document which includes all the constituent parts of the project, from travel to accommodation to delivery of meeting materials, catering and all the rest of it. To each of these line items should be added a delivery date and a responsible party at the event management agency. Your agency will know who’s doing what, but the document establishes accountability for deliverables. It keeps you in the loop and communicating with your agency effectively and efficiently. With your critical path, a budget should be prepared which outlines projected costs for all items. Kinks in the budget can be discussed directly with the agency. Budgets can tweaked and adjusted to reflect existing realities like spikes in transportation costs and contingencies.
Getting the most out of your event management agency means looking at them not as an independent body, but as extension of your in-house team. It’s easy to throw the job at them and walk away (because you have enough to do), but liaising with them on an ongoing basis ensures timely project implementation. Expect from your agency exactly what you’d expect from your employees. Added capacity, whether outsourced or in-house, is subject to regulation from the company which has retained the human resources involved. You need them to keep you in the loop and to report regularly, including the provision of action items completed, stalled or upcoming on the critical path.
The more lead time you have prior to an event to get together with your agency, the better. It’s important that the relationship be developed through collaborative engagement, right from inception. A quality event management agency is going to be ready to walk you through concepts and designs to make your event even better than it is. They’re in the business and they have knowledge and expertise to share. So, collaboration is key to getting the most out of your event management agency. So is time. Time is precious and it’s on your side, when you act early to establish the details and flavor of your event.
At Incentive Travel Group, we’ve been working with companies like yours to create outstanding events and travel incentives. We motivate and inspire your employees with exceptional programming, planning and implementation. Contact us to find out how we can support your event.
