Evaluating the representation of a company in a conference or an exhibition with the help of KPIs

Organizations hold and participate in conferences and exhibitions of various kinds which vary on both scale and scope. Arranging a conference or developing the strategy of representing the company at such an occasion requires a great deal of planning and application. One of the ways in which companies can better orient their strategies related to conferences and exhibitions includes the use of key performance indicators.

KPIs effectively serve as a method of ensuring that goals of representing the company are achieved and it empowers the management in measuring and comparing the moves with 'standard' values. Measures related to areas like Financial, Planning, Information management and Brand building can be framed. Financial aspect can be measured by percentage decrease in cost per attendee, lodging, total cost ratio, amount spent on publicity and the like. Planning can be evaluated by coverage of contingency measures, percent extension possible in budget and number of means to disperse information used. Information Management and Scheduling Perspective can be assessed via the number of ways to communicate, ways to register and number of information management sessions held. Lastly, one can follow the Brand Building attempts by assigning values to number of known personalities hired, time spent in publicity and press release.

The most visible challenge relates to the restrictions imposed by costs and time. The effect of these limiting factors can be decreased by tracking parameters relating to these aspects. For instance, time can be saved by doing close and accurate planning, leaving less chances of 'short-cuts' to be adopted. Similarly, one can minimize expenditure by distributing the available funds among important heads. This is to say that BSC imparts a formatted approach, which in turn helps a lot in the issue being discussed. However, at the same time, room for creativity and innovation has to be kept. Moreover, uncertainty of future should be minimized by keeping alternate solutions as ready as the planned ones. Also, one should try to be as accurate in proceedings as possible to achieve the desired result and give 'hit and trial' methods a backseat.

KPIs facilitate the assigning values to factors that matter the most. In the context of conferences, that are frequently held in organizations, a tool that can be used to evaluate the progress is definitely an advantage. BSC, i.e. a collection of relevant and actionable parameters called KPIs comes in handy because of its ability to summarize in a quantitative manner the valuable aspects.

The task of 'Performance Management and Measurement' is continuously moving up the priority ladder of organizations and has become inherent to its every task. Furthering the goals of an organization through participation in exhibitions and seminars hardly is an exception. KPIs give a multi-dimensional approach to achieving this aim and their application definitely will give a heads up to organization in their endeavor.