Introduction
Business events are often informative, resourceful, and provide knowledge which can be transformed into a business idea. This paper is divided into three parts. The first part examines the nature of the event I attended, time of occurrence, location and reason for the choice of this event. Besides, goals are set for the event and expectations listed in the short and long terms. Part two and three of this paper examine the event into details from the attendee and planner perspectives in addition to a comprehensive SWOT analysis.
The Event
I have selected the Global Experience at Work event which was hosted by the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce at the Sheraton Ottawa on February 18th, 2014 from 8:15 am to 10:30 am. The Global Experience at Work event was mainly organized for the purpose of exploration of career opportunities available in the business market.
This meeting encompassed best practices and alternative approach in doing business through engagement of experts. Specifically, the seminar touched on business incubation, the role of entrepreneurship among young people, and career growth in any business. In the posting for this event, the organizers promised a one-on-one interaction opportunity with the experts and business consultants in Ottawa.
Attendee’s Perspective
In the Global experience at Work event, my main goal of attending the seminar was to acquire professional insight and research on career opportunities through interaction with the business management experts. This goal captured consultation on planning, financial services, and business models.
In the short term, my expectation was to grasp opportunities and acquire expert insight through interaction with business personalities. In the long term, I intend to transform the business insight into actual accomplishment by putting into practice the knowledge acquired.
Since this meeting attracted experts in different industries, I was lucky to be part of the event as it widened my scope and provided essential information on career opportunities, alternative business approach, and the future establishment of research based business venture.
Thus, this event was important in future career development and business establishment, as it provided a practical approach in operating business and expansion modeling. Reflectively, the event engaged my entrepreneurship senses. Among the amenities provided include entrepreneurship booklets, training vouchers, and free consultation with the astute business persons around Ottawa.
Planner’s Perspective
Developing a business event program requires creation of relevant objectives and a realistic budget. In order to successfully execute these objectives, it is important to present a comprehensive event program focusing on intended goals and techniques for thirty participants.
The event organizers had to recruit teams to handle logistics, sound, refreshment, and security. The organizers had to hire the avenue and make arrangement for a permit from the local authority. Since the event targeted 400 attendees, the logistics team had to hire enough seats and outsource the services of catering and event management companies.
The budget for the event was three thousand seven hundred dollars. The budget was designed to improve on control of communication and ticketing while streamlining costs of operations as the event progressed. The budget for the Global experience at Work event is summarized in the table below.
SWOT Analysis
It is important to review the business event’s environment through a SWOT analysis in order to establish its effectiveness and sustainability.
Strengths
The majority of targeted members of the audience are aspiring business persons with keen interest in developing sustainable entrepreneurship skills. This event has an advantage since it creates business opportunity awareness through its advertisement of the scope. Besides, the organizers of the event charged affordable fees for its services. The event organizers used strategies like business education to get the best from the experts since they had the capacity to quickly expand its audience’s network.
Weaknesses
The catchment area for the event was narrow since it targeted to serve a small geographical area of Sheraton in Ottawa. The success of the event depended on the number of attendees. Unfortunately, there were only 250 attendees against the target of 400.
Threats
The services offered in the event, to enthusiastic entrepreneurs, are very sensitive to changing client preferences. For instance, a bad report or an unfortunately incident during the event may alter perception of the attendees. This may discourage them from attending the business event in the future. Thus, the event planners must create a waterproof public relations exercise to survive public scrutiny.
Opportunities
With a typical well organized business expertise pool, the event is geared to quickly increase its impact since the beneficial interests can be distributed across the attendees. This strategy will facilitate the restructuring of effective public awareness campaigns for a similar event in the future.
Conclusion
Conclusively, this event offered a comprehensive insight of the corporate world. I attended the entrepreneurship event and got a part time job offer by a freelance fashion store as their sales ambassador.