Reduced Costs
Outsourcing event management and back-office operations can significantly reduce labor costs for organizations. There is no need to hire, train and manage full-time staff to handle these functions in-house. With outsourcing, companies only pay for the specific work being done rather than carrying the overhead of salaries, benefits, office space and other costs associated with full-time employees.
Outsourced event management professionals are typically paid on a project basis rather than salaried positions. This allows organizations to scale up or down as needed based on their event calendar and workload volumes. During slower periods, costs are reduced automatically without any layoffs or reduced hours required.
The overhead costs of office space, equipment, software and management time are eliminated by partnering with an external event management agency. These costs no longer become a fixed expense, allowing for a more variable and scalable cost structure.
Outsourcing removes the demands of HR management, compliance, taxes, insurance and other complexities required with a private in-house team. Organizations can devote more time to core business activities rather than these administrative burdens.
Overall, outsourcing event management and back-office operations reduces costs substantially compared to hiring in-house staff to perform the same tasks. Organizations gain access to experienced event professionals without incurring major increases in fixed overhead and labor expenses.
Access to Experts
Outsourcing event management provides access to experienced professionals with expertise in organizing successful events. Companies don't need to develop specialized event management skills in-house from the ground up. Instead, they can leverage experienced outsourcing partners who already have these capabilities.
Outsourcing providers employ dedicated staff who focus exclusively on event management. These experts are highly skilled in key areas like logistics coordination, vendor management, marketing and promotion, on-site execution, and post-event analysis. They typically have experience across diverse event types and industries.
Outsourcing partners also offer access to niche expertise that most companies lack internally. This includes skills like social media marketing for events, customer service for attendees, and data analytics. Building an internal team with all these specialized skills would take significant time and investment. With outsourcing, companies can tap into these capabilities right away.
Overall, outsourcing delivers instant access to seasoned event management professionals. Companies don't need to reinvent the wheel or play catch up. They can leverage outside experts to deliver successful events right out of the gate.
Improved Efficiency
Outsourcing event management and back-office operations leads to improved efficiency in several ways. Dedicated event management teams handle all the day-to-day event tasks efficiently, allowing the client company to focus on high-level strategy.
Outsourced teams are experts at event coordination, with streamlined processes to deliver fast response times to customer queries, registration issues, and other needs. They are skilled at troubleshooting any problems quickly.
There is also smooth coordination enabled across departments like ticketing, customer service, logistics, marketing, and more. Outsourced teams act as an integrated extension of the client's staff. Their specialized experience facilitates efficient workflows between teams, fast turnaround times, and consistent service.
Overall, outsourcing event management eliminates wasted effort so that every process and interaction happens efficiently. This results in lower costs and better experiences for both the client and their customers.
Better Customer Service
Outsourcing your event management back-office operations allows you to provide better customer service and support to attendees. A dedicated team of customer service representatives from the outsourcing provider can focus solely on servicing the needs of your event attendees.
Event attendees can reach out directly to the outsourcing provider's support staff before, during, and after the event for any issues such as:
- Ticket purchases, exchanges, or refunds
- Event information and schedule questions
- Travel and accommodation inquiries
- Technical support for virtual event platforms
- Complaints, feedback, or concerns
Having a team dedicated to servicing the event means issues can be resolved more quickly. Attendees don't have to wait for event organizers to handle their request. The outsourcing provider is equipped to address common inquiries and provide prompt solutions.
Additionally, outsourcing creates consistency in the customer service experience. Since the outsourcing provider specializes in event management services, they can deliver standardized and high-quality support across all events. This ensures attendees have a dependable and satisfactory service experience regardless of the event.
By partnering with a dedicated customer service team, event organizers can improve customer satisfaction and create a smooth, stress-free event journey for attendees. Outsourcing back-office operations is key to delivering the high-quality service that attendees expect.
More Strategic Focus
Outsourcing event management operations frees up internal resources and allows your team to focus their efforts on more strategic initiatives and overall event goals. Rather than getting bogged down in day-to-day operational tasks like customer service inquiries or ticket processing, your employees can dedicate time to higher-level event planning and strategy.
With an experienced event management partner handling back-office logistics and support, your internal team gains more capacity to focus on:
- Developing the overall event concept, programming, and content
- Building strategic partnerships and sponsorships
- Marketing, promotion, and public relations
- Onsite event management and execution
- Long-term event strategy and planning for future events
By leveraging outside expertise for transactional tasks, you empower your staff to play a more visionary, strategic role. Their time and energy goes into the high-level thinking and relationship-building that's essential for event success and growth rather than getting distracted by tactical details. Outsourcing these functions allows them to operate at the top of their competency, while benefiting from specialized skills in other areas.
Access to Technology
Outsourcing event management provides access to the latest software and technology for running events smoothly and efficiently. Event management companies invest significantly in specialized tools and systems that deliver value across all aspects of event planning and execution.
For example, outsourcers will have advanced customer relationship management (CRM) platforms to track attendees, prospects, sponsors, and exhibitors in one centralized database. This provides invaluable visibility into event participants before, during, and after events.
Outsourcers also utilize modern registration, badging, and ticketing systems that integrate seamlessly with CRM data. These systems allow for smooth, automated event registration, ticket sales, attendee check-in, and badge printing. Real-time data syncing across platforms ensures organizers have accurate attendee numbers.
Dedicated mobile event apps created by outsourcers connect attendees to schedules, maps, notifications, surveys, lead retrieval, and more. These branded apps provide a unified event experience across devices.
The range of event software, from budgeting and logistics to email marketing and reporting, means outsourcers can execute events efficiently. Their expertise in fully leveraging these tools is difficult for internal teams to match. Tapping into the technology of an experienced agency pays dividends.
Flexibility
Outsourcing event management provides flexibility to scale operations up or down as needed. There are no long-term fixed costs associated with having a team of in-house staff. The event organizer can adjust the size of the outsourced team and only pay for the services they need. This allows the flexibility to ramp up operations and staffing leading up to a large event, and scale back down once it is over.
If an event suddenly grows in size and scope, the outsourced provider can quickly allocate more staff and resources. In contrast, an in-house team would have fixed capacity limitations. Outsourcing avoids getting locked into having excess staff and overhead during quieter periods between events. The flexible model optimizes costs based on each event's unique needs.
The outsourced provider can also maintain a larger network of specialized staff and vendors. This gives flexibility to customize the team and services based on the type of event. Rather than having limitations of a small in-house team, the event organizer can tap into a global talent pool with diverse skills. This agility and scalability enables the event management to be tailored to each event's unique requirements.
Risk Management
Outsourcing event management allows organizations to transfer many of the risks associated with events to experienced outsourcing partners. Event outsourcers have extensive experience planning for and handling potential issues that may arise.
Outsourcing partners are skilled at developing contingency plans and workarounds for problems like inclement weather, low turnout, technical difficulties, speaker cancellations, and more. They often have established backup plans and resources ready to implement if needed.
Since event outsourcers manage many events, they are prepared to handle unexpected circumstances. They have processes in place to quickly solve problems without negatively impacting the event or attendees. Their experience managing risks across various events equips them to anticipate potential issues and develop preventive strategies.
Additionally, outsourcers carry insurance policies that can cover liabilities and losses related to event risks. The outsourcer assumes and manages the risks instead of the organization. This protects the organization from absorbing losses when unforeseen circumstances occur.
In summary, experienced event outsourcing partners are well equipped to manage the many risks involved in events. They have the expertise and resources to plan for contingencies, swiftly address issues, and mitigate losses from disruptions, allowing organizations to host successful events without carrying all the risk burden themselves.
Measurable Results
Using an outsourced event management provider gives you access to detailed analytics and reporting that can be invaluable for assessing the success of your events and identifying areas for improvement.
Outsourced event managers have the capabilities to track and measure event performance across a wide range of key performance indicators, from attendee demographics and engagement to social media impact and return on investment. With their expertise in data collection and analysis, they can provide comprehensive post-event reports that synthesize quantitative and qualitative insights from the event.
This data-driven approach allows you to clearly evaluate the return on investment of your events, prove their value to key stakeholders, and make optimizations for future events. Rather than relying on anecdotal feedback, you gain objective metrics that give you definitive answers on what is working well, and what can be refined. The ability to measure event success in granular detail is a key advantage of partnering with an experienced event management agency.
Outsourced event managers also bring their learnings and best practices from measuring events across multiple clients and industries. This benchmarking allows them to show how your events compare to industry norms and standards. Their analytics capabilities give you visibility that would be difficult to achieve handling event management in-house. Ultimately, the measurable results provided by outsourced partners lead to better informed, more strategic decisions about your events.
Global Capabilities
Outsourcing event management allows organizations to easily plan and execute global or multi-city events. An experienced event management company will have well-established connections with international vendors, venues, and logistics providers. This global network and supply chain is difficult for most companies to build internally.
Outsourcers can tap into their worldwide connections and partners to quickly source venues, vendors, permits, transportation, accommodations, and anything else required in different countries and regions. They have on-the-ground contacts and know the local regulatory and legal requirements for each area. This global infrastructure makes it simple to produce consistent, high-quality events anywhere in the world.
Companies can benefit from an outsourcer's knowledge of cultural preferences and business customs around the world. This helps ensure messaging, branding, programs, and experiences resonate appropriately with regional audiences. It also reduces the risk of embarrassing cultural faux pas.
With an outsourced partner, organizations can scale up and replicate their event globally much faster than trying to do everything themselves. The outsourcer handles all the localization and on-site management, allowing the client team to focus on the strategy, content, and design that works across all locations. This streamlines coordination and creates significant time and cost efficiencies in executing multi-city events consistently.
In summary, outsourcing enables superior global event execution through an established infrastructure worldwide. Companies gain access to the global connections and capabilities required to seamlessly produce events internationally.