1. Analyze the strategic importance of financial planning at an early stage.
For any event, there is always a certain amount of money set aside to put it on. For the most part, no event can be planned without taking this amount of money inaccount. A budget is created and everyone has to work very hard to keep to this budget because if the budget is overspent, there will be no money to make up for what is lost. Starting the financial planning at the earliest stage possible is necessary so that no one overspends on the event early on. The more you can prevent this, the more the event will run smoothly. The earlier you start, the more a group can prevent overspending. For an event, like a Ball State football game, we have a very limited amout of many we can spend at a game because it is a state funded institution. Most of the money has to come from ticket and concession sales.
2. Identify the key practices exercised in its financial management by identifying any cost controls.
When planning a football game, one thing we have to think about is staff at the football game. Security is taken care of by student workers. Student workers are only paid minimum wage, which keeps the cost of security down. Also, throughout the game, as attendance varies, we allow workers to go home to keep the costs down. Also, to keep concessions sales up, we do not allow food or drink to come into the stadium so that people can purchase food at consessions. To keep attendance up at the games, students are let in free. The money we lose to letting students in free comes from season ticket sales we make.
3. Identify and analyze the key areas of financial risk, how successful the event was in this risk management and suggest ways in which the event could have been more successful.
One of the financial risks would be lowering the costs of tickets to increase attendance at these football games. When the football team is doing well, these are fine, but when the team is not doing well, they struggle to sell tickets for each game. I believe the event can be more successful if they tried to include special programs with the football game to keep people coming for more than the football game, but maybe the experience of the football game.
Questions from case study (page 159):
1. What are the key attributes, skills, and attitudes that the Australian Open would desire of (a) a ball person and (b) a courtesy car driver? How would you assess these attributes?
A. A ball person needs to be professional at all times. They also need to understand customer awareness and the policies and procedures for an effective and safe environment. To determine this, I would look for professional charcterisitics like completeness of the application, demearnor during the interview, and the types of responses to application and interview questions. B. Courtesy car drivers need to also be professional, but understand that their main importance is to provde transportation to the guests and celebrities safely and punctually. The way I would determine this would be time the application was turned in (before due date, on time, late), punctuality to the interview, and seeing how punctual they were at their previous jobs. I would also look for how safe of a driver they were according to the driver's record.
2. The Australian Open, in the past, 'employed' a large number of volunteers. Why have these volunteer positions become paid positions for the 14-day event?
These paid positions have really become rewards for doing such a good job. For the courtesy driver, they are rewarded for doing their job correctly and privately. This organization gets so many applications each year that it gives them the privelidge to choose the best of the best and pay them for being such.
3. List and explain the ways in which the Australian Open and companies such as Deleware North can improve the recruitment, selection and training of the staff the employ for the event. What ways are there to reward and motivate the staff other than those mentioned in the case study?
Ways they can possibly improve their recruitment is to stretch the range from where they recruit. Send out press releases to other cities. They can also post to other on-line sites to make it more accessible. Broadening the range could bring in better, fresh, and more diverse talent. Other ways they can motivate the staff is to possibly pay for their stay while working there. I think a really good thing to do would be to offer some of them (the best) a chance to come back and work for them again, either at the same event or a different event that the catering company may work for. More possible job opportunities usually means better work ethic.
4. The Australian Open is an extremely successful major event in Australia. What are the threats to the success of this event, referring particularly to the management of the human resources?
If the hiring process is underestimated and they let anyone come to work for the Australian Open, they are not only jeopordizing the success and functionalitlty of their event, they are sacrificing the legendary experience of that event. If the wrong type of people work at this event, it may ruin the experience of people attending the event, which means less and less people will attend each year.
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