Learning Organizations Survey

After doing the online “learning organization survey”, I gained the following results

Learning organization scores summary

a.      Leadership that reinforces learning

I scored 70% and is close to the second quartile

b.      Learning process composite

I scored 56% and is close to the bottom quartile

c.       Learning environment composite

I scored 58% and is close to the bottom quartile

The results on first part are quite below the average of the benchmark. As an event planning company, the leader needs to support the staff in different department to organize the event, giving comment and opinion, pointing out the mistake, as a leader – manager in our company, he has to listen the opinion from the staff.    

Concrete Learning Processes and Practices

a.      Experimentation

Scored 46%, is in the bottom quartile range

b.      Information Collection

Scored 46%, is in the bottom quartile range

c.       Analysis

Scored 54%, is in the top quartile range

d.      Education and Training

Scored 67%, is in the bottom quartile range

e.      Information Transfer

Scored 68%, is in the second quartile range

In our company, we are not very often to experiment the new way to organize an event, we only following the experience and require from client, that is the reason that the experimentation, information collection and analysis have lower score. Education and training here, we believe that participate in organizing an event is the best way for education and training, because there are a lot of things, the staff can not learn from listening.

  

Supportive Learning Environment

a.      Psychological safety

Scored 60%, is in the bottom quartile range

b.      Appreciation of differences

Scored 50%, is in the bottom quartile range

c.       Openness to new ideas

Scored 57%, is in the bottom quartile range

d.      Time for reflection

Scored 66%, is in the top quartile range

Before the event, we organize in our own office. During the event, since an event locate in hotel or somewhere else, very often, we will set a production office as a place for staff to make sure everything in control. Because the production office is not our own place, even the hotel will provide something to us, we still feel inconvenient.

city-cluster

The author mentioned the city-cluster is Dianzhong, the capital of Yunnan province, there are more city-cluster beside Dianzhong, Qujing, Yuxi and Chusiong. Applying the porter’s diamond model for the purpose of knowing the competitive advantage among such city.

Factors Endowment: Dianhong and the others city-cluster in Yunnan province have a very closed position to the countries of South Asia, like Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia, because of that, Dianhong is an ideal place to gateway of China to South Asia  

Related and supporting industry : the industries which can support the gateway - logistics industry, there are air, raid and road.

Demand conditions: the location of city-cluster is likely to attract the business surround the South Asia, encourage trade and let business easier to find more business opportunely.

Fire Strategy and rivalry: signing the free trade agree which can improve import and export between China and South Asian Countries, the country can benefit from reducing the entry barrier of export and export among different type of products.

City-Clusters in China

The author mentioned the city-cluster is Dianzhong, the capital of Yunnan province, there are more city-cluster beside Dianzhong, Qujing, Yuxi and Chusiong. Applying the porter’s diamond model for the purpose of knowing the competitive advantage among such city.

Factors Endowment: Dianhong and the others city-cluster in Yunnan province have a very closed position to the countries of South Asia, like Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia, because of that, Dianhong is an ideal place to gateway of China to South Asia  

Related and supporting industry : the industries which can support the gateway - logistics industry, there are air, raid and road.

Demand conditions: the location of city-cluster is likely to attract the business surround the South Asia, encourage trade and let business easier to find more business opportunely.

Fire Strategy and rivalry: signing the free trade agree which can improve import and export between China and South Asian Countries, the country can benefit from reducing the entry barrier of export and export among different type of products.

Change and Trend among Pearl-River Delta area

Paul Romer’s idea of “Charter Cities” may be able to be applied in the recent development of Hengqin Island, where located the left hand side of Tapia, several years ago, Before the Lotus Bridge has been built, all of the logistics companies in Macau transfer the cargo to China, it was need to go through China Gate and form a lot of pressure to China Gate and there was no efficiency, the waiting time was very long,  in order to improve logistics, Macau government have built a bridge as known as “Lotus Bridge”, where connected among Tapia and Hengqin and hope to transfer the logistics to Hengqin from China gate.

Besides of that, Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is one of extra important infrastructure, which can improve economy of the city among the Pearl-River Delta area, my living city Macau has its advantage of having the people who can speak Portuguese and speak Chinese, those people can assist Macau become an intersection of the trade between Europe and China. The European and Chinese company can find more business opportunely through joining the business matching event like IMF.

Hong Kong has its advantage of having a deep water harbor and huge airport, and the cargo-handling capacity of both facilities are very big, which is useful for improve the efficiency of logistics.

A few years ago, Central government decide that develop Hengqin Island and agreed that Macau government can join together to develop Hengpin island, this island where will be governed by Macau government and apply the Law of Macau. In order words, this area applied new rules which may be completely different and before, it is likely some industry which is illegal in Chinese law, but in Macau law that is legal, for example, gambling and sex industry.

For local Macau residents, they can more in to the apartment and work in such inland, they have more choice for choosing their ideal life.

Value Disciplines + Growth Phases

Currently, I am working in an event company as a part time worker which is “luminous”, it receive contracts from other companies, helping them create exhibition, event for business to business , event for new product launch like the newest A5 of Audi, event planning and hotel grand opening, such as “City of dream and Sands Cotai central”.

The clients of my company are from a diverse range of industry sectors, hotel, Airline, automobile. As a experiential and professional event company, our company can contribute creative advertising ideas to clients, help them to plan exhibition in reasonable price and outstanding way.

As an out-sourcing company and event planning involve complex sections, my company has 40 people with different nationality and profession, art, marketing, stage management, event management and planning, finance and accounting, most of them have been worked in different countries, and there is a worker has been a minuteman in America, he owns the knowledge of weapon and communication, those people bring expertise experience into our company, which can contribute creative ideas that build relationship between business, clients and consumers.

We form several team to deal with the different tasks in event planning, number of teams and people in a team depends on type and size of event and exhibition, normally 3 to 4 teams in a event. Before the decision have been made, we discuss and make decision through voting, and then tell the result to my boss and he is the one that make the final decision, such as the budget of the event and the location, because he is the one that talk with the clients.

This implies that the company is now reached the Greiner’s growth model phase 5 – collaboration, the team action for decision making and problem solving,

Adaptive Problem - manage the crowd during event

My company is an event company that help people or business to organize event and exhibition, when we organize an very huge exhibition that need a lot of helpers, in case there are insufficient crowds to operate the exhibition, we will hire a lot of part-time helpers, for many event organizer in the world, hiring good helpers is not a easy task, even we are able to hire enough and good helper, crowds management is a difficult task for event manager, there are several reasons, firstly, while a lot people gather together raise the odds of a dangerous occurrence happening. Second, big gatherings of crowds can be easy to make the action slower and more complicated. Third, big gatherings of crowds can make the communication slower and more complicated, sometime, the information may be transformed incorrectly.

There are some ways to manage the crowds during the exhibition, event manage is appropriated to have clear expectation of crowd size and plot competent crowd management.

Providing adequate explanation of procedures and training to crowd is also essential The stakeholder here involve the event manager, event organizer and the crowds, in event management, crowd management is very important and it has to be managed well, otherwise, confusion appear during the event, the event cannot make expected impression.

Five Forces Analysis

A useful tool for analyzing event industry’s attractiveness is the five forces model. This model recognizes the influence of five industry force:

Rivalry among companies competing in the event planning industry, the competition is very strong, the numbers of competitors is big, even competitors are not similar in size, but similar in capability, those industry can grow at a fast pace, the numbers of event planning companies are four, some hotel company like Venetian has its own congress and hotel department, which can deal with its own depend for event planning.

Bargaining power of buyers is very big, the industry customers like international company and Chinese company can switching the contract to competitor unless the budget is lower, have more creative and attractive ideas and experience. But the substitute products are relatively low. The numbers of customers in the event industry are very large.

Bargaining power of suppliers to the industry is very big as well, such as the place for holding event like exhibition, if there is an huge exhibition, it is believe that the facility like exhibition hell, the supplier - facility owner has extreme big bargaining power, if there is no choice like Macau only has Venetian is able to provide such huge space for huge exhibition. On the opposite, if the exhibition is not so big, the event plan may have a lot of choices on choose places or shift the exhibition to Hong Kong, here, the bargaining power of supplier is relatively low. If an event has the section of road show, it is needed to find some female models through model companies, the bargaining power of them is relatively low, since the event company like us can visit another model company to look for the model

Threat of new entrants to the industry is big, because capital requirement to enter the industry are low, open an each event company is not a difficult task, in Asia market, very often, most of the companies are extremely “brand-loyal”, they will look for same event planning company to help them to plan an event, there is possibility of making it easier for new company “new entrants” to the industry to draw them away from existing businesses

Threat of substitute products or services is relatively low, the type of event including conferences, exhibition, business to business event, launch event, ceremonies, public event, gala dinners, celebrations, receptions, roadshows and product launches. The purpose of company that holding the events like exhibition, launch event, product launches and roadshows are to introduce or promote something to the consumer or public, the substitute product or services which can replace such event service are advertisement, by making TV advertisement, poster and flyer. However, some public relation activities like opening ceremony, public event, gala dinners, celebration and reception, it is likely that there are no substitute services which can replace holding such events