Procuring events – a guide to better practice is coming soon (16/06/2010)
Want to drive cost savings, quality, performance and control across your events programme?
The newly revised CIPS “Guide to Event Services” is designed to help professionals who buy event management services, from a one day meeting to a multi-venue product launch, to better understand the value of what they’re receiving from their agencies. The second edition of the Guide is currently being updated. To receive your copy when it’s available you can email ian.lapworth@oxfordint.co.uk and include “CIPS Guide” in the subject line.
What is the Guide to Event Services?
By its very nature, event management is different to any other category of spend. It is not a specific commodity and therefore its value should not simply be judged on a “cost per delegate” basis. There are too many differentiators, components and enablers involved.
The Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) recognised this as a problem for its members and set about working with event industry professionals to create a procurement Guide to Event Services.
What is Oxford International’s interest and involvement in the Guide?
Our Managing Director, John Walker, was involved in the advisory panel that was consulted in the creation of the Guide. The panel included representatives from the Events Industry Association (Eventia), the HBAA (venue finders), and Meeting Professionals International (MPI), along with procurement professionals from various industry sectors.
Oxford International fully supports the recommendations in the Guide, which CIPS members will be able to download directly from the CIPS website. Non-members can email us and we’ll send you a copy when it’s published – email ian.lapworth@oxfordint.co.uk and include CIPS Guide in the subject line.
How will the Guide help me?
In the past, internal meeting and event planners have been largely free to select their chosen event management agency for each event. This often resulted in a multiple suppliers delivering a multitude of services. In more recent years there has been increasing involvement from procurement professionals who are driving a greater need for accountability, cost savings and a quantifiable return on investment.
Of course event management services should be purchased with objectivity, accountability and an established procurement process. The Guide aims to help achieve this by providing definitions of suppliers and spend areas, a mapping of agency specialist services, recommendations on how to develop an event buying strategy, as well as tips on how to work best in this area in order to generate cost savings and improve productivity, quality and service levels.
The Guide aims to help procurement people and professionals who are responsible for purchasing event services to understand:
- the cost drivers
- the definitions of the multitude of suppliers and spend areas
- what the remuneration options are
- how important measurement and evaluation is at every stage of the buying process
We hope it will enable you to manage event purchasing more strategically and as a result you will benefit from a more consolidated supplier base where spend and activity is easy to track, processes and communication are consistent and performance is maximised.
If you have any questions relating to what you have read here or on in the Guide, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We would be happy to assist and advise you in any way we can.