Business Development in the Event Management Industry

Business development involves identifying new business opportunities, marketing opportunities, partnership opportunities, new markets, after sales follow up as well as generation of orders, sales and leads. The key to successful business development in event-industry is to stay abreast with the latest news in the industry and to keep a close eye on what your competitors are doing in terms of business development and marketing strategy.

In this industry, event-managers generally get business through outsourced work. This work can be an outsourced social-event, corporate-event, charitable-event etc. For e.g. if I run an organization and I wish to organize a product launch to promote my product, then I will prefer to outsource my work to an event-management-company as they are better experienced and equipped with logistics required to organize an event in the most effective and efficient manner. If event-management-activities become an integral part of a company, then it may open up an event-management-department to cut down the production and marketing cost.

Over the last two decades, the event-management-industry has grown exponentially and turned into a 500 billion dollar industry. To voice the concerns of the event-planners and help them in producing outstanding results for their clients, many event-management-associations like ISES (International Special Events Society), IFEA (International Festival and Events Association) etc are there. These associations can also be used to get businesses. Social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Orkut etc can also be used for business development. Since not all events are of same size, it is possible to manage only those events which you can afford to manage both in terms of budget and manpower. Event-management is all about networking. More contacts you have, higher is your probability of getting clients.

Time Management - A Vital Business Development Strategy

Proper time management is absolutely vital for a company's success and is a critical part of effective business development. Many companies rightly stress on its importance in order to make its employees more efficient and productive.

Today's article will focus on why time management is so important for businesses development and how profound of an effect it can have on the company's overall performance. Consulting services are available to teach employees about how to make the best use of their time in order to maximize their efficiency. Therefore, companies struggling with time management would find this article of great use.

· Ability to Meet Deadlines

There is hardly a project today that is not deadline oriented. Clients want to see results and therefore divide their projects into multiple segments setting deadlines for each segment completion. These deadlines are extremely important for companies that provide service to the clients to adhere to. Failing to do so could result in hefty penalties. Time management ensures that the project gets finished ahead of time.

· Improving Performance at Work

Time management makes a good employee even better. It improves performance and gives a boost to their confidence. Typical day to day work tasks comprise of many things and sufficient amount of time should be given to each task if one is to keep things moving along at a smooth pace. Educating employees about how to manage time properly ensures that the company is working at optimal levels.

· Prioritizing Work load

A very common business development strategy is to prioritize and undertake tasks based on its size, relevance and importance. Tougher and more important tasks should be tacked first and the easier, lower priority ones should follow afterwards.

No two tasks will require the same amount of time. Depending on its nature and the amount of work involved, certain tasks should be given and may require more time than others. Proper business development through time management will teach employees how to do so just that.

· Money Saving and Revenue Increasing Feature

Time management is highly productive and lucrative business development practice. Not only does it shields a company from paying hefty penalties by completing projects on time, it also increases revenues by creating a good impression of the company in the market and portraying them as an establishment devoted to their clients.

The above mentioned tips are just a few benefits of managing time effectively. All companies should strive to implement this business development skill at all levels including managerial and executive. Today's competitive market is moving at an extremely fast pace and it is ever so important to maximize work output every day. Companies having difficulty meeting deadlines should seriously consider hiring consultants to rectify this problem. They will provide sound advice as to how to proceed forward.

Business Process Management and Six Sigma: Why Neither Can Stand Alone

What is Business Process Management (BPM)?

BPM is a comprehensive methodology that helps design and maintains all aspects of an organization with the sole purpose of meeting and/or exceeding their customer's wants and needs both effectively and efficiently. BPM attempts to continuously improve the business processes either in incremental steps or with radical changes. One way or the other, such ambitious endeavors requires equipping BPM practitioners with powerful computerized tools and an overarching infrastructure to enable a wide range of problem solving solutions. BPM tools can be classified in four groups:

(a) Strategy - utilizing tools like environmental influence and goal models, problem and opportunities models;
(b) Analysis - using tools like business interaction models, organization and communication models, and process simulation;
(c) Design - workflow and process models, use case and event models; (d) Implementation / Execution - creating sequence and operation models, business classes and system models.

BPM is a combination of these tools (and some more) helping the business to document, understand, measure and improve their business processes. BPM help to create well documented and streamlined processes, which are essential to ensure consistency, traceability and focus towards shared strategy and performance goals.

What is Lean Six Sigma (SS)?

Six Sigma (or its newer offspring Lean Six Sigma, LSS) is also a comprehensive and highly disciplined methodology that helps us focus on developing and delivering near-perfect products and services, by analyzing the underlying business processes and preventing and / or removing defects before reaching the customer. LSS also is a wide range tool set that is used under organized the following "problem- solving" cuasi sequential steps:

(a) Define -some of the deliverables in this step are project charters, CTQs, house of quality, Kano models;
(b) Measure - statistical descriptive and graphical tools, process and value stream mapping, capability analysis, data gathering tools;
(c) Analyze -statistical analysis tools, brainstorming, Pugh matrices, House of Quality (QFD),FMEA, Muda;
(d) Improve - Pugh matrices, mistake proofing, 5S, design of experiments; (e) Control - Process Control plans and Statistical Process Control (SPC).

Given the different origins, skill sets and backgrounds of a "typical" BPM and "typical" Lean Six Sigma practitioner, there are some deployment facts working against both methodologies:

1. Lack of knowledge of each other: Most BPM teams and BPM Software Companies know very little about Lean Six Sigma and vice versa. BPM traditionally has been used and deployed as an information technology effort. LSS has been viewed as an operational tool for manufacturing and / or back office processes, not software development.

2. BPM is almost all the time accompanied by an enterprise-wide software tool, and requires a software vendor on a periodical basis for training, new releases, technical support, etc.

3. BPM is usually deployed as a technology management direction or from higher up management levels. 4. Six Sigma and Lean have been for the most part manufacturing efforts; and most recently operations management directives. As a foot note, some of the most successful Six Sigma deployments were executive management mandates (Motorola, Allied, Bank of America, to mention a few).

5. Six Sigma tools do not have a large technology foot print, with software requirements mostly at some of the organization's desktops. Its deployment is typically driven at the beginning by consulting organizations and then passes to internal resources (a Program Office is a typical modus operandi).

6. Neither BPM nor Lean Six Sigma specialist is traditional a Change and Integration Management expert or trained specialist. This knowledge vacuum causes hiccups in the deployment and acceptance of either methodology by the stakeholders.

7. Neither BPM nor Six Sigma have an integrated data collection tool, creating always a delay in data gathering which hampers a quick deployment and execution. Both rely on a third party layer to perform data gathering and data readying for analysis.

What does BPM lack?

BPM tools are very effective in creating business interactions and communications models, mapping processes and workflows, as well as capturing key metrics and resources relevant to those processes. However, many BPM teams struggle to understand which processes are the top priority for the business and which defects are the most critical to solve for any given process. BPM lacks of quantitative ranking methods and statistical tools to prove significance. Teams sometimes use a series of "hunches" and past experiences to decide how prioritize design and implementation strategies for new or improved processes. LSS has much to offer BPM teams in this area - through tools like Failure Mode Effect Analysis (FMEA), risk prioritization index and Value Stream Mapping (VSM). So, conceptually, BPM and LSS should be a great fit.

BPM is also a thin methodology to monitor the sustainability of any process change after implementation of such changes. Once process changes have been deployed, a project is closed and the consultant systems analyst goes home, or starts a new project. Tools like statistical process control and non-existent in the BPM tool set, leaving the operational leadership with (maybe) a wealth of reports, at best real-time. LSS offers via SPC, a wealth of proven and robust tools specifically tailored to particular quantitative variables; designed to monitor stability, trending and within control operational status.

BPM tools allows for storage of key data and key metrics for the different artifacts that are created and used in a project. However, does not allow for a strong statistical analysis of the data. As a matter of fact, most of the BPM data stores are for simple figures (like an average), curtailing itself for a more accurate data analysis, like hypothesis testing or a regression model to forecast future process performance. And the few software tools equipped with discrete or Monte Carlo simulators are rarely deployed.

What does Six Sigma lack?

By definition and key to its success, LSS tackles specific defects in a specific set of operations within a specific business process. This approach is very effective in eliminating defects. However, in general LSS lacks of a wealth of enterprise-wide view of the organization strategy, objective and goals, its actors and the organization surroundings. This is an area where BPM has a very strong showing. So, conceptually, BPM and LSS should be a great fit.

Lean Six Sigma also falls short when tries to incorporate tools for computer automation and information technology designs (both vital is most of our business processes with high integration and automation). BPM lends a helpful hand with use cases, event modeling, business class models, subtype and package models. Conceptually, again BPM and LSS should be a great fit.

It becomes very apparent that Six Sigma Lean and Business Process Management (BPM) neither can stand alone. Organizations that master the integration of both will have a higher rate of financial success when designing and implementing process to take any organization for a closer level of customer satisfaction and global competition.

What both methodologies lack?

BPM or LSS do not consider Change nor Integration Management or any of its derivatives when communicating changes to their stakeholders and much less to their customers. These important aspects of buying into the changes and managing smooth transitions and changes are not considered at all in any project plan, or are left to the assumed knowledge of the project manager.

The last section of this paper will present actionable tips to both BPM and Six Sigma practitioners to counter any natural resistance to change that will typically emerge from any organization when facing changes.

Core Reasons why companies don't want to implement BPM

In our experience these are the top reasons as of why there is no need for a formal BPM approach to process problem solving:

1. We have so much low hanging fruit that we know already what to do and where to start, we don't need a Business Process Architecture
2. Mapping out Processes slow things down, and is really over engineering our processes
3. We need savings now and don't have time to map out all of our processes
4. Why don't we just work on Process Control?
5. We don't know how to do Process Owners but we know how to improve processes, we've improved them before, and we can do it again.

If you are a Six Sigma Lean Resource and want a rapid tip to overcome BPM Resistance

- One can help frame Six Sigma DMAIC project or initiatives in the larger organization strategy context by quickly leveraging BPM's communication models, opportunity models, business interaction models, etc. as part of the analysis phase of DMAIC.

- BPM tools with the appropriate team of analysts and subject matter experts can create process maps and workflows in working sessions on average under one day of duration.

- Business Interaction Models show more strategic views than the conventional process model utilized in LSS.

- Opportunity models are a powerful tool to quickly establish and detect any missing component or gaps in the deployment of multiple DMAIV projects.

- At Metaspire, we develop current and future Business Interaction Models (BIMs) to scope the work for the current organization leading to the future BIM indicating how the various elements of the organization would interact in the future. Without these BIMs, we have seen duplication of efforts and the change one department was hoping for, quickly becomes undone by another department or conflicting priorities or initiatives.

Core Reasons why companies don't want to implement Lean SS

During our consulting activities some of the reasons as of why there is no need for a LSS implementation:
1. Didn't Six Sigma bring down Motorola and became non-competitive - too cumbersome
2. Six Sigma has little to offer and the tools and methods can be found elsewhere
3. Six Sigma stifles creativity and innovation
4. It's too expensive and too slow to implement
5. Too much specialized training and high maintenance of the six sigma group
6. Sounds to me like it would introduce too much bureaucracy
7. I don't understand why I need it in the first place

If you are a Process Improvement Resource and want a rapid tip to overcome Lean SS Resistance

- Motorola's Six Sigma methodology has now reached what internally is called Second Generation Motorola Six Sigma, with a process for governance, moving the tool from counting defects in manufacturing processes to an overall business improvement methodology, and in 2006 started Motorola Lean transformation and Software Design for Six Sigma. Thereby integrating Six Sigma tools with Business Process Management mindset.

- It is true that Six Sigma have incorporated tools that have been useful in previous quality initiatives (nothing wrong with that). However, the older methods do not magnify the impact of defects using millions of opportunities as a measure of quality, nor move from the traditional three-sigma to our six-sigma as a goal of perfection. Under Six Sigma, defect and defectives counts provide tangible, measurable results that we can use. Rather than being too costly, Six Sigma detractors are very unaware or ignorant of the cost of poor quality (COPQ) in their organizations. They have no baseline, and therefore any number is a high figure. A well-documented fact is that average companies perform at a 3 to 3.5 sigma level, with a COPQ ranging between 24% - 40% of their sales. Companies performing at a 5 sigma level lower their COPQ between 5% - 10% of their sales.

- Six Sigma consultants can bring the expertise for a quick proof of concept of LSS effectiveness within the organization. They will help to determine and prioritize any apparent low hanging fruits.

- Six Sigma is a business process improvement methodology, and unless deployed within a BPM architecture, has a hard time supporting strategic decision making. We can have a near perfection, defect free process producing Chocolate Cupcakes, and still the company will go down as the horse Chocolate Cupcakes market vanishes (God Forbid!).

- Best approaches to LSS deployment happens when the operations staff -project managers, supervisors, managers, directors are the six sigma practitioners. They continue to perform their traditional job related functions, but now they have a quantitative and statistical thinking and they decisions are supported with data facts.

- Often times, companies have a multitude of disparate measures and metrics. The Lean SS tool "House of Quality", helps companies focus on identifying customer requirements, where improvement is needed to meet or leapfrog competition, and strategies for making those improvements. As a result of this exercise core customer process measures and metrics are identified and can be re-weighted with a higher significance or introduced to the company.

- Why use Six Sigma at all? Most companies gather data and perform statistical analysis and forecasting of some sort, why not use statistically significant tools from Six Sigma to outperform your competitors? Six Sigma tools answer questions like: How do I know that I am measuring the right thing? How do I know that we are satisfying Customers and Shareholders? How can I measure and report the right processes? How do I stop defects before they occur? Six Sigma offers 10-12 tools where you can pick the right tools for the right question.

To summarize, BPM assists with organizational strategy whereas LSS assists with tactical improvement; and the most of the times forgotten Change Management component helps with the education, organizational development, integration and sustainability to operationalize changes.

Metaspire Approach Metaspire leads clients through an objective facilitation process. As a result our clients will not only have an aligned view on the low hanging fruit definitions, we also help the group align on priorities.

Do you need help with Six Sigma Lean, Business Process Management or Change Management?

We can help trim processes, control costs and improve profitability and operationalize changes.