A study on events management outsourcing in Kenya
Date
2009
Authors
Kamau, Pauline
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Strathmore University
Abstract
Outsourcing has been growing steadily in Kenya following a conscious effort by the Government
of Kenya (GoK) to create an enabling environment for the industry as part of its long-term
strategic goal. Despite this growth however, most Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs)
still prefer to organize and manage their events in-house by assigning the task to a staff member
who may not have events management expertise. This ends up being very daunting and
stressful as planning a good event is time consuming.
It is with this background in mind, that the study attempted to establish the business prospects
in events management outsourcing among NGOs in Kenya. In doing this, it was important to
bear in mind that when prospecting for business, events management will be an outsourced
function. Consequently, apart from purely dwelling on the intricacies of events management, a
methodical approach to discover what will drive organizations to outsource this function was
crucial. This is because the decision to outsource any service is a major strategic one for most
organizations and it involves weighing the potential cost savings against the consequences of a
loss in control over the product or service.
There were two underlying principles guiding the study i.e. the analysis of events management
and critical success factors (csf) in outsourcing of events management. They guided the
formulation of several hypotheses based on the research questions. These were to characterize
how events are currently organized by NGOs in terms of the frequency of events, size, type and
additional items and services required. Furthermore, it sought to find out what will drive
organizations to outsource the events management function.
From the empirical study, there are great prospects for events management services to NGOs in
Kenya especially for organizing conferences/workshops/seminars. Additionally, NGOs give
preference to what they consider their drivers of outsourcing. The other two areas used to
measure i.e. benefits expected and the service provider's capacity have the same influence on the
decision to outsource.
Finally, it is important to appreciate that most NGOs subscribe to their donors' ideals and
therefore have no hand in major decision making regarding their mode of operation. As a first
step, it is imperative to target the donor organizations to buy the idea of outsourcing their
events. Once the donors are persuaded to go the outsourcing way a major barrier to entry is
eliminated which will then open up a world of opportunities for a prospective entrepreneur.
Description
Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree of Master of Business Administration
Keywords
Event management, outsourcing, business, Kenya