The Value of Project Outsourcing
Posted on June 29, 2009
I was recently interviewed for an article on outsourcing projects to association management companies (AMCs). The author seemed a bit unsure of this concept, figuring AMCs only provided full service management. In fact, doing project work for “stand alone” organizations – facilitating strategic planning sessions, managing meeting or conferences, designing Web sites, providing membership support services – is developing into a growing segment of our business.
Think about it – if an association has a project or program they want to get off the ground without having to hire somebody to take it on because it’s too small, too large or beyond the organization’s staffing capacity, what better source for expert services than an AMC? Our motto is, “Only what you need, only when you need it” and we are able to deliver expert results, on time, within the constraints of overly stressed budgets.
As an example, we have a local association client partner, fairly large in size ($3+ million budget) that needed a faculty coordinator to handle the 150 plus speakers at their annual conference and expo. AH had previously provided some publication work for their magazine to help them through a period where they had some staff turnover. Although they had outsourced this faculty coordinator service to another company before, they were dissatisfied with their service and turned to AH. We provided a meeting manager to serve as their faculty coordinator and they were extremely pleased with our work.
By taking the speaker management functions off of their collective plate, our meeting manager was able to give the organization’s meetings staff more time to focus on other planning tasks. Now, they don’t have to worry about the minutia of follow-up phone calls and emails to confirm speakers, or about tracking who has sent in their slides yet. Their staff has expressed countless times how much of a help our meeting’s staff has been in their planning process, and the fact that they’ve signed up for two more years is a real testament to how pleased they are with the service AH provides.
Similarly, a different national association located in the area recognized a need for strategic planning since they did not have a strategic plan in place and saw AH as a great fit to fulfill that need. I performed their first strategic planning retreat in the fall of 2007 and they’ve asked me back to perform an update to their plan later this year. They now have a strategic direction and the board is actively engaged in implementing the plan. It has helped them worry less about tactics and create a vision for the organization.
In these challenging economic times, outsourcing projects to AMCs makes smart sense.
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