What is corporate event ? Learn how to organize corporate events |

Today, the scope of corporate events has increased due to the rapid increase in corporate activities. People working in event industry need to understand now what is corporate event and how to organize corporate events. 

For this purpose, our article will help you out to understand what is corporate events and what are the essentials to organize corporate events.

What is corporate event?

Corporate is a word came into existence in late 15^th century. This word refers to the anything associated with business principles or business outlook.

Corporate events are a type or any form of events, entertainment, hospitality or any social activities organized or funded by business entity.

Now you would be thinking that what are the uses of corporate events to business entities and how it makes profits for them?

Obviously why this thought won’t get into anyone’s mind if everyone knows that businesses are for profits or revenue and not for social activities.

(Also read: Classifications and types of events)

Basically corporate events includes activities for some specific reasons like

      -    Employee wellness

      -    Product or service promotion

      -    Social awareness

      -    Promoting education

      -    Business meetings

      -    Motivate workforce

      -    Reward / awards

      -    Mark key milestone

      -    Encourage collaborations

      -     Society welfare and many more…

The main target audiences for these corporate events could be

      -   Employees

      -    Society at large

      -    Stakeholders

      -    Customers

      -    Board members

      -    Potential clients etc.

All these people help to grow and promote businesses. Business owner alone can’t make such a progress.

Understanding what is corporate event, is crucial. All these events require well planning and organizing skills because most of the attendees are from sophisticated background. 

It is because the corporate world is so sophisticated.

Everyone there working from first line managers to the board members have to manage their own lifestyles and attitude according to the organization and business environment they work.

Corporate events can include an arrangement of events for 5 people to 5 million people at large. These are just a hypothetical numbers. 

But eventually the corporate events can take form of team dinner of 5 to 15 employees to the conference of 1000’s attendees.

Also some of these events could be one-time events. It is very necessary while organizing any corporate events to clearly define audience and target objective behind the event. 

This will help to develop more efficient plan to attain that objective.

Corporate event companies help to define such objective and suggest how to target the audience required.

There are many corporate events such as

      -  Conferences

      -   Seminars

      -   Exhibitions

      -   Trade fair

      -   Award shows

      -   Product launch

      -   Holiday programs

      -   Business tours

      -   Charity programmes

      -   Employee welfare programs

      -   Corporate social services

      -   Promoting and marketing products

      -   Incentive programs etc.

All these events have their own target audiences.

(Also read: What is wedding events and roles of wedding planners)

Now let’s examine how to organize corporate events.

Essentials to organize corporate events

In order to organize a successful corporate event, the event organizers need to ensure a few factors during their planning stage. These corporate event-specific factors will help to plan your events better and effective. For seamless corporate event management, follow these essentials:

1. Define your Audience or attendees of event.

Every event is organized for specific purpose and that specific purpose is for selected target audience. Since corporate events can be of various types, the audience depends on the type of event being hosted.

It is important to know your audience as it will help you to work on the outcome you are aiming to fulfill from your event.

For instance, in the case of team outings, it will be a good idea to organize these outings - inter-team and intra-team. This will help the employees to get to know each other.

If your purpose is to organize a training program then divide the employees as per their training needs and as per management levels. Define your audience based on the job roles of employees as this will help you with your larger goal of organizing the events in the first place.

2. Goal Setting or event objective.

Goal setting is most important and hence crucial part of any event management. Defining your audience and setting a goal is co-dependent. If you know your goal, you can easily define your audience and vice versa.

However, it is important to set a goal as it will give a direction to your event. Prepare key notes of your purpose or make some alternative objectives and then work on the selected one which matches your event purpose.

It will not help to organize an event like conference just for the sake of it. But, if you know what you are trying to achieve from your conference, you will benefit more.

3. Metrics for Performance Improvement / setting standards

One of the important tools to calculate whether your event was successful with your objective or not, is to set up some standards or metrics. This metrics will guide you where your event has taken a boost to upgrade your purpose or vice versa.

Take some measures while setting up those metrics like

- It should match your goals,

- It should not be overrated or underrated,

- Necessary arrangements have been done in regard of that metrics,

- Proper tools have been used to measure those metrics,

- Made a clear goal or objectives.

These can be applied to most of the corporate events but it is mostly valid in case of recurring events. You need to set metrics before the event takes place to evaluate the performance of your event.

This will also vary based on the type of event you are organizing. For instance, let us consider the case of orientation for new employees or the training development of employees or welfare program of old employees etc.

Important metrics will include engagement of employees if all the questions of new joiners were answered, particulars of facilities management, etc. Defining these metrics will help you to plan better every time!

(Also read: 15 + types of event vendors)

4. Planning and Scheduling your activities and elements

Scheduling helps to prevent wastage of time and also helps to maintain the time management. Once you have known your audience, have a goal and know your key metrics to be evaluated, the next step is to plan and schedule.

Schedule your each and every activity or elements involved into your event duration to maintain the consistency of audience’s attention and proper maintenance of objectives.

Plan your resources and schedule based on the needs of the event.

This will help you to be fully prepared well in advance. The best way to plan an event is to assign job roles to the members of the organizing team.

It means to apply the management principle of authority and responsibilities to the members. For instance, form sub-teams that cater to security, food, decoration, venue, and facilities etc.

5. Set a Budget

Budget is a foremost important for any events. Over budget or under budget can definitely ruin the main objective of any events whether it’s a corporate or social or private events.

You don’t want to overspend on your event and then repent later. Therefore, set a budget for your event and stick to it strictly. Make arrangements accordingly. This is essentially a part of planning your event.

6. Set a Timeline and deadlines

The time you need to plan and organize any events, depends on which scale you want to organize those events. Whatever the size of your event, it always helps to set a timeline.

This will help you to stick to your plan. In the case of bigger events, you might need more time to plan and organize everything. For instance, a conference inviting people from outside the organization will require sending invitations on time or you will lose your attendees.

It will also require you to have an event schedule with a list of speakers before the event. You can expect more participation if you share this plan with potential attendees on time.

This will also help potential attendees to make their arrangements accordingly.

7. Marketing and Promotion

When you’ve taken care of all the arrangements of your event and when all your confirmations are in place, you need to start marketing your event. Where you promote and market your event will depend on your target audience.

For instance, trade shows will be promoted within the industry. However, team outings will be promoted at the company level. Irrespective of the size of your event, you can use platforms to promote and market your events..

8. Follow-Up and later feedback

Follow up may give you many leads about the attendee’s behavior, result of promotions and marketing, satisfactions of event purpose to your attendees etc. 

During this entire process, you need to consistently follow up with different stakeholders. Follow up with the organizing committee. Follow up with the outside vendors such as decoration and food. 

Also, follow up with the attendees to make sure they are attending the event. This gives you enough room to prepare if anything doesn’t go as planned.

Feedbacks help to rectify your mistakes in future events. It helps to build confidence about the work and show you will plan in near future. 

You can analyze and evaluate the feedbacks and can develop your plan accordingly. Good feedback will boost your event success and a bad feedback will boost your ideas to improve in upcoming events.

 (Also read: Pros and cons of event planners)

The above article helped you to understand what is corporate event, how to organize corporate events and what are the essentials of corporate events.

Hope this article have guided you well, if you want to add something into this article you can drop your thoughts into comment box :)

Happy reading !!!

Some FAQs

Q - What means corporate event?

Corporate events are such activities which include fundraising, promotion, marketing, awareness, welfare, social development, rewards and many more. 

All these activities are carried out for specific target audience and with specific event purpose.

Q - What are the different types of corporate events?

There are several types of corporate events like:

     -   Conferences

     -   Seminars

     -   Exhibitions

     -   Trade fair

     -   Award shows

     -   Product launch

     -   Holiday programs

     -   Business tours

     -   Charity programmes

And many more…….

You can refer above articles for detailed corporate events types.

 

Q - What are the 3 types of events?

Basically main 3 types of events are Private, corporate and social events.

You can refer mentioned article to get more details about - types and classifications of events.

Q - What are the different types of events?

Events are broadly categorized into 4 types such as private, social, corporate and fundraising or sponsored.

You can refer our another article in detail about types and classifications of events.

Q - How do you manage corporate events?

Managing corporate events are crucial. It requires great management skills to plan, schedule, organize and for successfully execute the events.

In above article we have mentioned some essential points in detail about how to manage corporate events.

Some of the points are

1. Define your Audience or attendees of event.

2. Goal Setting or event objective.

3. Metrics for Performance Improvement / setting standards

4. Planning and Scheduling your activities and elements

5. Set a Budget

6. Set a Timeline and deadlines

7. Marketing and Promotion

8. Follow-Up

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