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

Real hard problem - gun violence

In the United States, a country which allows civilians have the right to own these deadly weapons - firearms for the purpose of self-defense, the American citizen is able to buy firearm in gun-shore because of “second Amendment to the United States constitution” adopted on December 15, 1791, it had a part text that mentioned – “ A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed “ However, these policy leads to other social problems in the United States. Such as gun violence, In America, recently, bullying in school campus, the one who get bullied may create “personal enmity” to anyone around him, bring gun to school campus and have men killed, Cho Seung-Hui, who was a gunman that involved the incident of Virginia tech massacre, he killed 32 people and wounded 17 people. Before massacre, he recorded a video, he mentioned that he has no choice and someone force him into the corner.

Gun violence also has another cause which American teenage play the violence video game, such as |Grand Thief Auto, the features of the game related to violence, bad language, fear, sexual content, drugs and discrimination, teenage play too much this type of video game may form “anti-socialism” 

There are many people are arguing that handgun should be banned or not, some people claim that if the handguns have been banned, they maintain that it may reduce the gun violence in public and even in school. because handgun is easier for concealing than rifles and shotguns, I suggest that United States constitution should make further second amendment to firearm policy.

Competitive Advantage analysis

Competitive advantage analysis

Competitive advantage analysis of Luminou event company

Primary Activity

Service: Event planning, consulting

Operation: making event propose, organize and plan event, to evaluate the budget of event, during the event, to manage the event process   

Inbound Logistic : equipment like computer and print, stationery

Marketing: promotion of the company’s event planning and consulting service.

The major focus among primary activity will be the service, as an event planning company, the main purpose of helping people to organize and plan an event is to promote something and public relation, since event planning involve different area, very often, event company recruits the staff with different professions and experience, such as art, stage design and management, marketing, finance and accounting.

Supporting Activities

Firm infrastructure: organization structure and company

Human recourse management: employee recruiting, hiring, development and compensation

Technology: event planning may involve some design work, it may need some much faster PC and software to assist the design work, and makes it more efficient  

Procurement: PC, printer and stationery

In my case, Luminous has a very ordered organization structure, managing director as CEO of the company, and then has several director in charge the department of creative service, production and business development. For the human recourse management which is extraordinary for an event company, because the operation in primary activity support by that. For example, there is need to have the finance and accounting people to calculate the overall budget for an event, because in an event propose, the client is pay much closed attendant to the budget part even the ideas are very creative. Besides, in order to retain staff, compensation is also essential. For the technology, faster computer and useful software would bring efficiency to staff, since the event planning sometime involve planning complex procedure, some design work like designing a poster, flyer that will be used in event and given to visitor, and designing signage that used to give a direction to visitor in event. For procurement, there is no doubt that PC, printer and stationery are essential.     

Social Consumer attitudes and opinions Media views Law changes affecting social factors Brand, company, technology image Consumer buying patterns Major events and influences Buying access and trends Ethnic/religious factors Advertising and publicity Ethical issues Demographics (age, gender, race, family size,) Lifestyle changes Population shifts Education Trends Fads Diversity Immigration/emigration Health Living standards Housing trends Fashion & role models Attitudes to work Attitudes to people doing certain types of work Leisure activities Occupations Earning capacity Staff attitudes Management style Organisational culture Changes to education system Others include: _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________	Venetian and Sand Cotai central make Macau become ideal place to hold event, even better than Hong Kong	High	6-12 months	Negative	Increasing	Important
Technological Competing technology development Research funding Associated/dependent technologies Replacement technology/solutions Maturity of technology Manufacturing maturity and capacity Information and communications Consumer buying mechanisms/technology Technology legislation Innovation potential Technology access, licensing, patents Intellectual property issues Global communications Inventions Innovations New discoveries Research Energy uses/sources/fuels Communications Rate of obsolescence Health (pharmaceutical, equipment, etc.) Manufacturing advances Information technology Internet Transportation Bio-tech Genetics Waste removal/recycling Email M-learning E-learning Collaboration tools Software changes RSI Others include: _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________	it needs computer and event planning program to organize the event, during the event, it may need the communication tools between crowds	Low		Positive	Increasing	Unknown
Legal Current legislation home market Future legislation European/international legislation Regulatory bodies and processes Environmental regulations Employment law Consumer protection Industry-specific regulations competitive regulations Others include: _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________	Minimum payment to part-time crowds	low	6-12 months	Negative	Increasing	Unknown
Environmental/ Ecological Environmental issues International National Local Environmental regulations Customer values Market values Stakeholder/ investor values Staff attitudes Management style Organisational culture Staff morale Staff engagement Global factors EU based factors Others include: _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________	Event contract competition between different event companies	high	1-6 months	Negative	Increasing	Critical

Luminous is a event company that use creative idea to help business to create exhibition, road show and Gala dinner, the company established in 2005, it is important to know the competitive advantage between the event planning industry and the market, to know clients from different diversity of industry, Airline, automobile, government department, international company and Chinese company. Also, it is important to know the external factors which may affect the company and the entire event planning industries to plan and plot strategies.

Political Factor has less effect to the industries. However, the intervention of government policy to the economy, no matter in home or oversea, there is possibility of affecting government department, international company and Chinese company to hold such event in Macau or Hong Kong. Government promotion in other countries, let the company in other countries know that Macau or Hong Kong is ideal places for holding event. However, facilities is one of considerable factor that international company or Chinese whether hold event in such cities, such as Hong Kong convention and exhibition center, this building owned by Hong Kong government, without this exhibition center, it is believe that Hong Kong would not be the ideal place for holding an huge event. Macau has different situation, as I known, Venetian Macau is the biggest casino project in Macau, with huge space can form different size of exhibition hall, it is believe that without releasing the gaming operating concession in 2002, Sands in Las Vegas would consider investing huge amount to Macau

Economic factors has extraordinary effect to event planning industry, the factors  including economic growth, interest rates, exchange rates and inflation rate , those factors have great impacts on affecting company to make decision and also for the international economy, as I mentioned before the sources of customers for event industry are international company and Chinese company, if oversea market is being in unhealthy status, it may directly affect the income and may affect international companies budgeting on holding event. Exchange rates and inflation rate may affect the cost of goods in supply, exporting goods and importing good in economy.

The social changes in trend also bring great impact to event planning industry, it is though that Venetian and Sand Cotai central make Macau become ideal place to hold event in Asia, the hotel, entertainment and exhibition located in one single building, which bring convenient to event planner and visitors. Nowadays, Macau has an institute which can offer event management to students, and teenage study in the institutes in Australia and some of European country for the purpose of studying tourism and event management, and those students can be “elites” and contribute their profession into event management industry, especially in event industry, it really need the elites with creative ideas.

Some laws that implement to the event planning industry may affect the decision making, such as Minimum wage to part-time crowds, Macau has not have the law of minimum wage yet, but it may has in future, it may increase the event budget and pressure to the crowd in the company.

For the event planning market, each event planning company also have event contract competition between different size of event companies. Therefore, creativity, experience and capable to minimize the budget is competitive advantage for such event planning company like Luminous the ways to success, can enable luminous to the contract