Event Planning Process in Business - Assignment Example

? Business Process: Event planning process Business Process Organization: Joyful Occasions A few years back before I enrolled for my degree, I had an opportunity to work in different companies including a hospital, Military Police education center, a modelling company and eventually a Janitorial business. I have also had many opportunities that gave me a chance to work with catering companies that specialized in retirement parties, wedding, and birthday parties. It is from this experience that I realized how much I enjoyed event planning. As part of my future goals, I plan to start my own event planning company that will involve planning and catering for various event including weddings and corporate meetings. With my goal of starting and running an event planning business, I have decided to pick an organization in the same business category of event planning and design. The organization I will be reviewing is known as Joyful Occasions. It is an event planning and design firm located in Columbus, GA 31901. The company is a “multi-faceted, full-service event planning company that offers services throughout Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina” (Eventective, 2013). The company’s primary market area includes planning, styling and catering for weddings, birthdays, corporate events, business lunches and office parties, military retirement parties, hail and farewells among other events (Joyful Occasions, 2013). I currently do not have a direct link to the company and their services; however, I have vast interest in their line of business as I have mentioned. Being a medium sized business that serves a wide region Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina, information about the company can easily be outsourced from their website www.joyful-occasions.com and their customer care hotline or inquiry email address, which are readily available on their website. I will utilize these essential tools in gathering information about the organization. Business Process A business process refers to related activities that generate or produce a particular product or service, with the main aim being to satisfy the customer. In running a business, there are three key business processes that ensure continuous productivity of an organization whether profit or non-profit making. These processes include management, operational, and supporting processes (Harmon, 2007). Under these three categories of business processes, many other processes can be established depending on the service or product at hand. When an organization is significantly large, it becomes necessary to adapt new strategies to manage these processes. It is for this reason that adopting Business Process Management (BPM) becomes necessary. As stated by Jeston and Nelis, (2008) “achieving an organization’s objectives requires improvement, management, and control of essential business processes. Event Planning Event planning is an operational level business process aimed at creating the core business or primary service offered by event planning and catering organizations. In relation to Joyful Occasions, the main objective in event planning is to turn peoples’ dreams into reality. This is achievable by ensuring that they do not feel the stressful and tiring experience of organizing and managing their events. They therefore, get to enjoy their special occasions or work experiences while exhibiting their unique personality and style (Joyful Occasions, 2013). Event planning is a process that can be broken down into several steps from the beginning of the process to the end. These stages include Pre-planning At this stage, information is gathered about the event including the purpose, size of the event, audience, client requirements and realistic expectation of the event. Planning This is the most important stage as it paints the real picture of what is required for the event and what is going to happen at the event. At this stages, budget is created, formal documentation are prepared, locate the venue and establish a contract with vendors. Arrangements This is stage is sometimes simultaneous with the planning stage. For this stage, necessary arrangements are carried out including recruiting and delegating responsibilities, meeting with venue facilitators and managing event logistics. The event After carrying out the planning process and making the necessary arrangement, it is necessary to stay alert on the day of the event to ensure everything goes according to plan. This will involve coordinating amongst the various staff members such as caterers, sound team, and entertainers to ensure smooth flow of events. In case drastic plans are to be made such as increasing the amount of food, the event planners need to ensure, it does not interrupt of interfere with the running of the event program. After the event Cleaning, and accounting for all the equipment used at the event are still part of the event planning process. The event planning process ends when the organizers finally account for everything and provide the client with the invoices or receipts depending on the payment agreement. In the event planning process there is a large group of people involved. Depending on the size of the organization, the organization should have some or all of the following professionals; event manager in charge of the whole process. An event coordinator to preside over the event and ensure everything is going according to plan. An information manager, tasked with gathering all the information required at the arrangement stage such as venue, available entertainers, and legal requirements when holding the event. A logistics manager is tasked with ensuring all the required equipment is present at the chosen location. Finally, a security manager to ensure the security and calm is maintained (Sharma, 2010). Benefits of BPM to Joyful Occasions Event planning is a long and complicated process that requires a lot of time and resources. This being the central process in event planning and design business such as that for joyful occasions, use of BPM will provide an improved and efficient way for the organization to achieve its objectives (Jeston & Nelis, 2008). It will also improve the organization’s performance in terms of handling larger events, reaching more clients, and physical expansion. It will also simplify the management process within the company and improve coordination between various departments in delivering high quality services. In utilizing BPM, Joyful Occasions, has a higher chance of encountering three main challenges. The first challenge is lack of sufficient knowledge on BPM use and implementation. It is highly likely that the majority of employees at Joyful Occasions are not aware of the strategic adoption and implementation of BPM. The second challenge is miscommunication of tool capabilities. Just like many other organization, high chances are the business may not be fully aware of the full functionality of the tools they purchase for the BPM (Bandara, Indulska, Chong, & Sadiq, 2007). Conclusion Business processes are essential part of running a business successfully. Just like the event planning business, several other business can utilize Business Process Management tools that effectively utilize their potential in achieving the business objectives through improvement, control, and management of essential business process. A good example that can be easily related to other organizations being the main process of event planning, in the event planning and catering business. References Bandara, W., Indulska, M., Chong, S., & Sadiq, S. (2007). Major Issues in Business Process Management: An Expert Perspective. The 15th European Conference on Information Systems (pp. 1240-1251). St Gallen, Switzerland: QUT. Eventective. (2013). Joyful Occasions. Retrieved from Eventective: http://www.eventective.com/provider/Website.aspx?num=550804 Harmon, P. (2007). Business Process Change: A Guide for Business Managers and BPM and Six Sigma Professionals. Burlington, Massachusetts: Morgan Kaufmann. Jeston, J., & Nelis, J. (2008). Business Process Management: Practical Guidelines to Successful Implementations. New York: Routledge. Joyful Occasions. (2013). Our services and packages. Retrieved from Joyful Occasions: http://www.joyful-occasions.com/services.html Sharma, H. (2010, February 13). People Involved in Organizing an Event. Retrieved from Event Education: http://www.eventeducation.com/event-organizers.php Read More