Event Management Budget
A budget is a fundamental tool for an event director to predict with reasonable accuracy whether the event will result in a profit, a loss or will break-even. A budget can also be used as a pricing tool.
There are two basic approaches or philosophies when it comes to budgeting. One approach is telling you on mathematical models, and the other on people.
The first school of thought believes that financial models, if properly constructed, can be used to predict the future. The focus is on variables, inputs and outputs, drivers and the like. Investments of time and money are devoted to perfecting these models, which are typically held in some type of financial spreadsheet application.
The other school of thought holds that it’s not about models, it’s about people. No matter how sophisticated models can get, the best information comes from the people in the business. The focus is therefore in engaging the managers in the business more fully in the budget process, and building accountability for the results. The companies that adhere to this approach have their managers develop their own budgets. While many companies would say that they do both, in reality the investment of time and money falls squarely in one approach or the other.
Read more about this topic: Budget
Famous quotes containing the words event, management and/or budget:
“Even a minor event in the life of a child is an event of that child’s world and thus a world event.”
—Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962)
“People have described me as a “management bishop” but I say to my critics, “Jesus was a management expert too.””
—George Carey (b. 1935)
“The United States is the only great nation whose government is operated without a budget. The fact is to be the more striking when it is considered that budgets and budget procedures are the outgrowth of democratic doctrines and have an important part in developing the modern constitutional rights.... The constitutional purpose of a budget is to make government responsive to public opinion and responsible for its acts.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)