By Luke Anami
The corporate world has been struggling with how to best organise services that are increasingly customised and unpredictable.
The struggle has generated events managing organisations that have now cut a niche in the market.
However, as with every business venture, events organising have not been spared the unique challenges that go with the nature of such business.
"The challenges are many ranging from logistics to contracts, and above all service delivery," Ms Elizabeth Otieno, an Events Manager at Qe Events says.
"The challenge on the frontlines of service delivery is to be able to combine knowledge and skills flexibly around changing tasks, in corporate events management."
Participants at a past women’s conference serve lunch. Organising such conferences involves planning, public relations skills, conflict management and a lot of your personal effort |
Celebrations such as Golden jubilee (50), silver jubilee (25) and many others may be very involving.
"Every client does not anticipate failure. The demand for quality service is therefore high," Ms Otieno says.
"Events managing is thus demanding as it takes most of your time. It involves a lot of traveling, planning, public relations skills, conflict management and a lot of your personal effort."
There is an increasing market demand and a need for professional management of these events. This struggle is reflected in the number of organisations that are now outsourcing this service.
Clear rules
However, even with such a demand for the service, there are no clear rules and a legislative framework that addresses the contractual nature of events management is lacking.
"Even though Kenya has embraced the idea of events organising, a few are still sceptical to the whole idea of outsourcing the service," Ms Otieno.
"The market is not open. The whole idea of corporate events staging has not been captured and embraced at a professional level by local companies," Ms Otieno says.
She says one’s track record in managing events is the key to attracting corporate clients. One gets invitation through friends or acquaintances after hosting the event elsewhere.
Business growth
This kind of arrangement could see one take longer spells of time to host another event making it difficult for women in this kind of business to sustain their business growth.
"Marketing is our biggest headache. Most of the organisations we approach want to know how we have faired on in organising past events," Ms Otieno says.
"The calibre of your previous clients is increasingly becoming the ticket to your next event, a trend that is worrying for those who are venturing into events organising for the first time," said she.
Ironically, there is a high demand for events management perhaps an indication that more companies are meeting growth expectations and hope to sustain expansion.
It could also mean that the corporate world recognise expansion and the urgent need for the service resulting in high expectations.
A handicap one will always come a cross is cancellation of an event at the last immediate. "It inconveniences one’s programme and sometimes it may come with costs," she says.
Such risks she observed need to be assessed and addressed. Policies need to be developed. In some cases, the most efficient solution must yield to the more secure solution. "For security, there is primarily a need to resource and plan for known risks, and hedge against unknown risks," she says.
