Reunions package
This package include family reunion, friend reunion and colleagues reunion party. The reunion party organizer will provide a comprehensive service to their client such as send invitation card to their classmate and colleagues, select a place (Appendix 6) and design a unique environment for the place, set up entertainment and arrange the catering. Furthermore, we also prepare the free transportation and accommodation to the participant.
Corporate Event package
This package include company seminar, training, trade show, meeting and annual dinner (Appendix 7). Furthermore, we also provide the service for the nonprofit organization event such as charity event. Our event planner will offer a one stop service to all company such as transportation service, arrange food and beverage, select of location, hotel booking and audio system setup. We also will keep track of the event and make sure it runs smoothly. If the unpredicted situations arise we will solve it as fast as possible.
2.3Market Scope/ Market Segmentation
For the market scope, we segment our client into various types of categories such corporate and social market, demographic group which is divide in to income and age group. This is because different individual as well as corporate have different perception and desire.
Corporate Market
Those big and small profit and non-profit organizations are categories into the corporate market. Moreover, non-profit organization normally will organize an event for fundraising. Whereas those profit organization normally will organize a company event. For example company training, meeting, exhibition and annual dinner. This is a good market for us because there are many company event will be held each year.
Social Market
There are many social event like birthday party, anniversary event, graduation parties and reunions parties. Nowadays those parties are getting famous and will be continuing growing rapidly in the next future years. This is because the trend is changed; people currently are prefer to celebrate their special day with a unique and memorable party.
Age
It is truth that different client will have different value to company, we have acknowledge that not every group of client are potential and profitable to our business. Therefore, the market has been segment into few groups based on the population age. They are baby boomers, generation X and generation Y.
Generation Y, which is the group of people age from 20-35, they are most active and energetic among three age groups of people. They are usually looking for high energetic, excitement party which can bring them to the climax. Generation Y will always held a party especially when there is Halloween and Christmas. They are potential group of client for our business as they might desire to open party frequently.
The generation X, which is the group of people age from 35-50, they are less energetic compare to generation Y as they are elder. Therefore, their needs is different from the younger generation, the purpose of having a party by generation X might because it is important anniversaries, children’s birthday, reunion with old friends and so on. The people in this group are normally has bigger purchasing power as they have been worked for long period of time.
Baby boomers, which is the group of people age from 50-65, they are the eldest group among our age segments. They might only need part planner to organize some of the important events for them such as birthday or anniversaries.
Income Level
Held a party can be luxury to certain people, it depends on their income level. Since the party planning is not essential services, people can also plan and held the party by their own, therefore we are more interested on the group of people who have bigger spending power. We have divided the market into three groups: low income level, medium income level and high income level.
The group of people with low income level indicates that they have less or even no disposable income can spend. Therefore, they tend to spend only on their necessarily needs but seldom on unnecessary things such as party planning.
The medium income level group will have more disposable income compare to low income group. They have bigger spending power and spend money on some of the unnecessarily needs. They tend to look for party planner when there is significant event.
The high income level group earns most among three groups of people, they have most disposable income to spend. High income level people are mostly educated and live in urban. They are more willing to spend on the events or parties and they do not organize it by own. Party planners are always the person they are looking for help. High income group tend to organize an event in order to celebrate the anniversary or birthday. Therefore, this is the most attractive segment that will generate more profit to our business and they prefer party planner to plan for them.
2.4 Basis for Differentiation
The outstanding selling point of our service provided is that we do offer a party package called “The Unknown Party”. It indicates that our clients will not know how the party is going to be until they step into the venue by our company’s special transport. Even though the process and theme of party is running secretly, but we do plan it according to clients’ preferences as client is our priority. Our party planner will jot down the preferences of client clearly and start to plan for it. The purpose of “The Unknown Party” is to create the anticipation and excitement of client towards the “unknown” party regardless they plan for themselves or their friends. Moreover, we also provide one stop service for this party package, from organize to after party cleaning service as well as special transport to pick up client to the venue. We are the only party planning service provider in Malaysia.
We have a special guarantee for clients in term of pricing. They could get 20% discount if they feel the party is not well organize but must be reasonable. We are professional party planner and we plan the event according to our clients’ requirements, this is the reason why we dare to offer a special guarantee. Deposit is not requires but clients have to sign an agreement with us, they must pay back to the cost once they cancel the event without notice the party planner. Our party planner will show their enthusiast to clients and treat them more than just clients but friend.
3.0 Strategic Resources
3.1 Core Competencies
It is very important to identify Beyond Party core competencies where it represents our company main strength or strategic advantages of a business. It is the combination of pooled knowledge and technical capacities that allow a business to be competitive in the marketplace. On the company stabilize its own field as an event company, we will expand into new end markets as well as provide a significant benefit to customers.
Beyond Party is an event planning company with few core competencies which allow the company to differentiate itself in the market with strong competition. Beyond Party advocate the idea of full line event service that will let our clients to enjoy extra value from our expert team. Indeed our company does provide service to normal event such as annual dinner, exhibition, social function, road show and so on as our main target market. Apart from providing traditional event services, the biggest selling point of Beyond Party is offering unconventional event service and this is the main competitive advantage that differentiates Beyond Party with others to maintain its market share. We are going to provide our client exclusive service from planning until event finish.
Beyond Part existing to provide to whom who are aim to have a meaningful and innovative event in the field of business to business or business to customer, we are always the right choice for them to ask for. Beyond Party's professional event planner will design and prepare the most suitable event themes according to the client's desires and needs. For example, the client wishes to hold an annual dinner at the side of swimming pool and expect to have exciting and fun time during dinner. Our professional event planner will base on the swimming pool to design a theme title such as "Hawaii Night" that will make everyone enjoy the party and have an impressive memory in their mind. We will decorate the venue into sea view by giving “Hula Dance” so that they can imagine they are dinner at the sea side. Our client do not need to worry about how the event will carry out or busy serving the guest during the event as these anxiety will spoil the party mood of a person. All of these things will do by our professional event planner. Therefore, the only job scope for our clients and their guest is to relax and enjoy throughout the party.
To ensure every event that is handling by us goes well and successful, we will focus only on this project and not going to receive any other project. We might sub certain event part for outsiders who are expert in that category to enhance our service quality for client. For instance, the sea view of the venue will be design by our designer but those physical installations will be done by outsiders who are experience on it. We do have several types of performer standby to prevent any unexpected kind of incident happen and the event can still going on. Moreover, emcee is the crucial point to control every moment during event. Besides, one of the roles of an emcee of the event is to manage the event and make the event more fluently and successfully. The emcee will generate and maintain the excitement among the guest so the moment doesn't fall short of expectations and the crowd has a good time. The Emcee also needs to carry games session and lucky draw session with the guest.
For sound and light, we have professional to in charge for it where client does not need to seek from outsider. Our staffs who handle sound and light are all professional and experience to handle large event. Client will never need to worry about the cost from us is expensive because if compare to outsider, we are always the cheapest as we promise to give a full line service to our client.
3.2 Strategy Asset
To let Beyond Party business to grow and expand, identify the strategy assets of our company and maintain it so that we are not losing any assets because it is going to make sure how far a company can go. Our major strategic assets are the main management team form by 5 founders who play the most important role to keep the company going. They are the person who devise strategy and to achieve the visions and goals. These people are going to make many important decisions on many crucial situations which will indirectly cause the company failure or successful. Besides, their responsibility to dedicate time and effort to fully supports the company. Planning an event flow might takes a lot of time to make sure there are zero mistake happen when the event going on. Then, company financial resources are mainly support from them where they need to bear any loss from any unsuccessful event. Nevertheless, maintaining company culture and keep a positive work place is founder responsibility to do it.
Secondly, the outstanding factor that may drive our company to success is our priceless know-how and experiences to plan every creative and innovative event. Every personnel in the company are having task to fulfil with their special knowledge and skillful ability. For example, we have graphic designer to decorate the ambiance and provide extraordinary visual scene to impress every guest in the event. Our production team is professional from record to edit the video that is going to present during the event or record event scene to provide client a copy if necessary. Other than that, experiences of every individual in the company are very important for them to handle any emergency situation. During the event, client might request to do any changes from the original plan due to any unexpected issue happen, therefore, our team leader need to make the right decision to fulfil client’s needs and wants. It requires one’s responsiveness and cognitive ability to handle any unexpected incident.
Besides, data is also one of our strategic assets. We have done extensive client survey using online client survey tool as well as face-to-face interview before starting the business. Of course, our previous working experience has also helped us obtained some client database which is useful in finding potential client to our business.
Even though Beyond Party is new in the market, but its newness has made it become one of the strategic asset in the industry. Being new in the industry might not easily to gain confidence from the clients but our competitive advantage, creative idea for event planning will definitely leave a good image for client. We have to admit that being new in the industry is not easy to compete with the existing competitors but we will standstill to survive in the industry with our “beyond party” theme. Although we are new, we have the advantage like copy and modify the idea that is currently using by competitors.
Apart from those strategic assets that we already have, we have also identified and developed some assets to become our future strategic assets. First we will develop a highly productive and dedicated workforce who is able to juggle multiple responsibilities. Our company will make sure there is a proper amount of employees working in Beyond Party in order to avoid lack of employees that could affect our productivity. We will make sure the designers and creators are professionals and have many years of event planning experience before we recruit them. We will also provide event management training through seminar or on the job training to ensure a knowledgeable workforce. Furthermore, we will make sure our staffs will keep updating with the needs of the market and using the latest technology and trends in order to attract some new client and maintain our old client. There is also a strategy that we plan to use which is the talent management strategic to keep our talented employees stay interested in our organization and entice new people to join our event company. For instance, use job crafting to make sure that their roles fully utilize their talents and skills fully.
Another strategic asset we aim to develop is the social capital in our relationship with the suppliers and trading partners will be another strategic asset for the business. We aim to create created an interdependent and mutually beneficial relationship with our supplier to help us to create greater value. We will achieve this through our effort in building trust with suppliers using extensive interpersonal interaction as well as hold onto our promises to suppliers such as make payment on time. These established ties with suppliers can ensure we receive the best quality of services in lower cost from them. All these are essential to help us improve the capabilities in meeting client requirement of cost, quality, delivery and technology.
4.0 Partnership Network and Other Key Relationship
Suppliers are the important factor to make our company success because the quality of every event is strictly relying on the business key partners. Therefore, we should put focus and efforts on strengthening the relationship between the key partners and our company in order to maintain the best quality for our clients.
First of all, the key supplier to our business is party rental supply firms because they are the one who supply the items for props, lighting, and linens, audio and visual systems which are essential for every event organizing (Appendix 1). Some of the party rental supply firms have been short listed based on some considerations, especially the cost and quality of products and services. PartyShop is the party rental firm that we have decided to collaborate with because it has good reputation in the industry in terms of their quality and affordable products and services with high flexibility on the order size can be made. Besides, another benefit that comes from the collaboration with PartyShop is its great experiences in organizing events can provide insights and ideas to support our business.
Next, foods and beverages supplier is another key player in our business. After research, we have chosen Imperial Catering and Masterplan Catering to be our long term partner in foods and beverages supply as they are expert in providing full line catering service (Appendix 2). Good relationship with foods and beverages suppliers is extremely important because they control the quality of foods and they can provide insights on the particular food menus that best suit to different types and themes of events. Normally, caterers require details of event such as date and time, budget, number of guests, type and theme of the event to come out the quotation for us. Therefore, it is very important to maintain good and close relationship with foods and beverages suppliers and the best way to maintain the relationship with them is building an effective communication channel and trust with the suppliers because this can minimize errors and arguments happen.
In this technological advance era, website is an effective platform to communicate our business to the target clients. Thus, web designer is critical to design and maintain the website of our business. Web designer will create an appealing website based on the requirements and information that we provided. The clients will perceive our company as professional and trustworthy by having this professional looking and well-designed website.
In addition, one of the key partners is photographers and videographers because they have the important role on capturing every single precious moment of an event. This can help the clients remember the special moments in the event as a keepsake and those who couldn’t attend also can be served by the photography and videos. Besides, these pictures and videos can be used to promote our business and enhance the confidence level of clients toward our service because great pictures tell stories without words.
On the other hand, we will establish good relationship and network with the competitors – professional event planners. There are benefits by maintaining good relationship with competitors; the competitors can provide referral clients and contingency plan when emergencies happen. The competitors also can be our backup resources for big events which are out of our capability. In addition, we can outsource to the competitors during the peak season.
Lastly, venue is one of the most critical factors in organizing event because it will set the tone for the whole event. We need to stay current with the trendy venues such as hotels, ballrooms, shopping complex, clubs and other places in order to provide the hippest event experience for our clients. Thus, we will try to establish good relationship with the government key partner which is Malaysia Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB). There are many benefits to stay connected with CVB because they can provide detailed and valuable information about the places, facilities and services. For example, we can get onsite supports from CVB such as site inspections, cultural performances and educational seminars on managing events. (Malaysia Visitors Bureau 2014)
There are several ways to maintain good relationship with our key partners. Firstly, we will maintain good payment history by making payments on time and if we couldn’t make the payment on time, we will make sure early inform and communication effort to the suppliers before the due date of payment. Secondly, exchange information is another important part to show we value the relationship and maintain positive partnership network. By sharing information with our partners, this could integrate the supply chain of products and services into more effective system and lead to a better business process planning for both parties. Next, one of the way to maintain good relationship with our partners is promote the partners at every opportunity and make referrals to them. In such way, the partners can feel we are making efforts to create positive reputation and value for their business, they will appreciate and most probably do the same in return. Other than that, an evaluation meeting should be organized in every end of the year to evaluate the performances of both parties and find ways to improve the collaboration. This is a great way to grow and learn from each other because a good partnership can grow the business of both parties. Lastly, we will recognize the contributions of all the partners. It is important to highlight and acknowledge the efforts and hard works of our partners in special ways such as writing thank you letter after every event to show appreciation or invite and openly honor the partners in special award event.
5.0 Customer Interface
5.1Target Market
Most of the events companies are targeting on the large organization because they are able to earn more revenues compare to target small company, this information is came from our Malaysia Central (2014)market research. However, this market is high competitive and requires specialized expert to manage. So that, Beyond Party is decided our main target segment which is the niche markets generation Y.
Our main target market is between ages 20- 35 young adult which mainly the college student and fresh graduate are currently working as a part timer. In this this category can consider they are the party lover and celebrate events every year such as birthday party, Christmas party, and many other festival days. However, those young party lovers always lack of planning, destination knowledge to open a party. Most of them are needed hire outside event planner to ease themselves and do not waste time to concentrate on site search details.
Besides, we have various type of the party theme such as “Beyond Party” and also others party theme which are suitable for the crazy young generations. We hope to target early college graduates because they fit to our expertise and most of them are lower income workers. We will help them to create their party in order to minimize their stress and their cost. These events will focus also on the high energy appeal theme and Beyond Party is depending on clients’ needs and able to generate from high revenues.
Beyond party will bring the happiness and comfortable for all clients, we would connecting with Generation Y by using Social media such as Facebook, Blog and twitter because our team is young and energetic as well as we can able to understand better about their preferences, lifestyle and needs for the party. We would bring them to reach the highest satisfaction on our party and also the advertisement will bring the clearest information to them. Besides, we are good in providing special party packages and our organization has a better opportunity to achieve the highest amount of the profit by becoming the expert party planner for everyone.
5.2 Fulfillment/ Support
Beyond party is a company that doing corporate social responsibility (CSR) and planning an events or party to meet client expectations and fulfilled their satisfaction, making their own dream events turn into reality. There are many ways for us to provide memorable social and private events for our respective clients. We are also sponsored some of the government event such as Bursa Malaysia’s annual dinner, Barisan National Event and so on.
Firstly, we will use our ability to design and set up the event nicely, our aim is to impress attractive and creative scene to our clients and surprise their guests. Besides, we also ensure that every event is well-arranged, so that every problem or disorder will not occur in that time. We also guarantee that our client’s party or event will goes smoothly and carried out punctually. To retain our client relationship with us, our management team will fulfill client’s special requirements and able to do the planning for what they are paying us. To build up a client loyalty, we are paying fully attention for what they want us to do because if there is a little mistake occurs that will make a huge difference.
We will also emphasis to client services skills such as interaction with our client because client has unpredictable power that important to grow our business. In this era science and technology, word of mouth is one of the factors that we are more concerned about because positive words will spread quickly to all the people around the world by using social media. There are many potential clients will come to us for more events and our business will expand quickly.
We are warm, friendly, and solutions-oriented to do our best to make the client service experience an impressive. Beyond Party’s team is well-trained to communicate and negotiate effectively with all of the people that dealing with us. Besides, we maintain our professional mindset, attitude under a critical situation to remain calm and steady. The important thing is to let client know that we are able to solve every problems and make the client having a good impression for our company. There is no problem for client make the last minute changes because we able to come up with the new plan and ideas to follow up the event. After the event is over, we will give out the feedback form or questionnaire to our clients through email. We will make sure that they are received the quality services from us and also we need to know what we should improve for our event services.
Our company is using several promotional tools to get discounted rates with some of the Premier hotels, venues, photographers, transporters and others. We will ensure that our client can get a best of choice and affordable package to save their money. In addition, we offer the free of charge consultation to all clients and teach them how to get started their party in an effective way. The client is entitled and get for the discounts as well as they are bring into our company by references. There is some branded company’s event giving us discounts for promoting our company name at the form of advertisement.
To build up an emotional relationship with our clients as generate our business at the same time. We are fully utilizing the use of social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, and so on. We have own Beyond Party Facebook page and twitter group to update our upcoming event and promotions. For example, our blogs will attached the previous event photo that been successes and make advertising. Lastly, we have our own website also which included a lot of information and detail such as the list of services, our business background, vision, mission and so on. Our website has also providing 3 main languages such as English, Malay and Mandarin for our Malaysian visitors and leads our client to languages they most preferred. Therefore, our clients could surf in our website with a comfortable way. (Appendix 8)
5.3 Pricing Structure
Event Planning Fees Based on a Flat Project Rate:
Generally, we will determine what the client’s need and what services that will be covered for that party or event. Therefore, we will charge the flat project fees for each event according to the several factors which included operating expenses, rental venue, and time of planning and so on. There are many clients prefer to know how much a project will cost according to their package without the “hidden” expenses. Besides, we able to let clients know what exactly they are getting for the event. Beyond Party is a new event company and our client might not established a trust with us. Therefore, we are using penetration pricing strategy to set a price lower than eventual market price to attract new clients. Most of the clients willing switch to the new product or services due to lower price. We will serve them as well as we can and provide them better services with reasonable prices in order to make them feel comfortable for our services.
The estimated prices of different events will be as follow:
Normal Party Package( Appendix 9 )
1. Client Provide own venue, normal party will be provided others thing such as equipment, drink and beverage, lightning and sound system, DJ, food, decoration, cleaner, and entertainment.
Party Pack A: RM 4000 ++ (80 people)
Party Pack B: RM 9000 ++ (200 people)
Party Pack C: RM 17000 ++ (400 people)
Special Beyond Package (Appendix 10)
2. We provide for the venue and everything base on clients’ preferences, clients just sit in and enjoy the party. Price sub change depends on the venue and clients’ budget.
Secret Pack: RM 30000 ++ (200 people)
Ultimate Secret Pack: RM 40000 ++ (200 people)
Event package (Appendix 11)
Client can choose to provide or not for the venue, Party provided others things such as equipment, drink and beverage, food, lightning and sound system, keynote speaker, decoration and entertainment.
Seminar: RM10000
Company dinner: RM50000
Training: RM5000
Of course, the rates may also vary based on where clients may live, types of events and what the market is willing to pay.
Appendixes
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
Appendix 4
Appendix 5
Appendix 6
Appendix 7
Appendix 8
Appendix 9
Appendix 10
Appendix 11
Appendix 12
References
Investopedia US2014, "Core Competencies", viewed 21 February 2014,<http://www .investopedia.com/terms/c/core_competencies.asp>.
2009, ‘Get to Know Your Competition’, viewed 21 February 2014, <>.
Malaysia Central 2014, ‘Event Management Company’, viewed 21 February <http://www.my cen.com.my/malaysia/event_management.html>.
Sokanu 2014, ‘Florist’, viewed 20 February 2014, <http://www.sokanu.com/ careers/florist/details/>.
Tasmanian Government 2013, ‘Maintaining good relations with your suppliers’, viewed 20 February 2014, <http://www.business.tas.gov.au/managing-clients-and-suppliers/choosing-and-managing-your-suppliers/maintaining-good-relations-with-your-suppliers>.
by
axtonchonggmailcom (student)
