Introduction to Corporate Events: The What, The Why and The Types
Imagine running your business without HR or marketing, or running a cafe without serving coffee. Not possible, right? You’d agree that some business functions are inevitable parts of a successful business.
So, what are some of these things that are extremely crucial in your business operations and growth? You’d probably start listing everything right from office space to hard-working team members, to different business functions like sales, IT, and different business tools like Slack, Jira, and Zoom. Wait, what about corporate events?
More often than not, corporate events are not considered in the core operations of a business. In fact, they’re often last on the priority list. That’s where businesses lose out on a major growth opportunity. Corporate events go beyond business functions and verticals and have a major impact on your team as well as your business’ marketing standing.
So, without further ado, let’s quickly go over what corporate events are.
What are corporate events?
The umbrella of corporate events is as vast as the Amazon Rainforest! Jokes aside, every product launch, every team-building seminar, and every appreciation ceremony held at a business falls under the bracket of corporate events.
A quick and dirty version would be that any event organized and hosted by a business is a corporate event. This event could be hosted for the internal team, board members, external stakeholders, customers, prospects, and even other corporates in the industry.
Corporate events become the foundation of several business ties, both internal and external. An event with fun team-building activities boosts employee morale and understanding while one with your customers strengthens your bond with them and makes them feel valued.
Don’t take our word for it. We also have solid proof of why corporate events are crucial.
Source: Event Academy
Why do corporate events matter?
Here are five reasons why we are big advocates of corporate events:
Employee Retention
The best way to please your employee – give them a hike. However, you can’t possibly do that every now and then, right? A better way is to make them feel valued at your company. A note of appreciation goes a long way in making them feel that their efforts are being recognized. Better still, give them that validation in front of their peers, and they’ll stick with you for a long time. That’s where corporate events become your best ally. They’re the best platform to let your employees know that they did a good job and that their contributions make a difference.
Team Building
More often than not, your team is busy meeting deadlines and wrapping up tasks. There’s little or no time left for them to check in with a colleague about their well-being, have a random long conversation or even share a laugh as a group. We’re not talking about one-on-one chit chats, we’re dealing with discussions they have as a group. Rare, right? These lead to silos. With corporate events, your team gets time and space to act, think and share beyond work. They also engage in activities that can help them work well together.
Networking and Building Relationships
Often good business sense boils down to having the right conversation, with the right person, at the right time. For that, you need to build bonds with people in your industry, beyond your company. Corporate events like meetups, product launches, talks, conferences provide the perfect setup to network with prospective stakeholders, customers, and talent alike.
Source: The Balance Small Business
Innovation and Growth
If you look at the world confined in your office space and just limit your interactions to the people you know, you’d probably end up in a ‘frog in the well’ kind of situation. You’d never be able to explore and grow beyond the well. Hence, interacting with professionals opens you to more opportunities, ideas, and experiences, seeding thoughts for innovation and growth.
Celebrating Successes
Whether it’s a new award your brand receives or a new patent your company gets or a new sales record your sales team sets, there are many reasons to celebrate. Corporate events are the best way to celebrate these successes. Every win, big or small, becomes great when you share it with your team. Not only that, it is a great motivation for one and all to do better.
Now that we’ve managed to thoroughly convince you how valuable corporate events are, let’s talk about some of the most common events that come under this umbrella.
10 Common Types of Corporate Events
Here’s a fun fact: most businesses have often held, indulged in some kind of corporate event without the event realizing that it’s one. The challenge is that most of us have a very different perception of corporate events – big fancy hotels with people dressed in black and blue suits talking about their next big move. Yes, that is a corporate event for sure, but that’s one of a kind. There are plenty of other fishes in the pond. Here’s what other common types of corporate events look like.
Conferences and Award Nights
These are those black and blue suit events where like-minded professionals talk about certain common topics, themes, accomplishments, etc, in a big hall. These conferences can be within the company (internal) or with external audiences.
Trade Shows / Exhibitions
If you’ve got it, you will flaunt it. Trade shows and exhibits are corporate events where companies showcase their best–could be products, inventions, projects, and more.
Source: Onsight App
Training Programs
Surprise, surprise! Didn’t count this one as a corporate event, right? Training programs that you hold for your new recruits or to get your team up to speed with new technology, frameworks, and practices, all fall under the category of corporate events. It doesn’t matter at what scale you conduct this training–as long as you’re offering training to a bunch of people, it is qualified as a corporate event.
Incentive Trips and Functions
Heard of those annual retreats that many companies hold to let the employees enjoy and blow off some steam? Those are corporate events too. Though slightly informal, these trips and functions are all organized by the company, hence they’re categorized as corporate events.
Source: Become An Event Planner
Launch Events
This is a no-brainer! If you’re launching a new product, a new brand ambassador, a new offering and decide to hold an event, you just got yourself a corporate event.
AGM / Company Meetings
Before you jump the gun and call every Zoom call or brainstorming session a corporate event, let us stop you right there. General meetings at enterprise-level companies like AGMs, annual and quarterly reviews, etc qualify as corporate events.
Charity functions
Yet another obvious addition to the list. Charity events that are held by businesses as part of their CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activities, and more are another type of corporate event. These too can be held for internal or external or both kinds of audiences.
Webinars and Meetups
One of the latest entries to the list, webinars, and meetups help professionals connect over shared skills and expertise. They’re not only great networking platforms but also are extremely learning-driven and informative.
Team Building Activities
Everything from a Hackathon to a Sports event that focuses on strengthening connections between team members falls under this category.
Business Dinners
Another unexpected entry? Whether you’re on a dinner with your client to seal the deal or with your colleague to celebrate a new account – all come under the purview of corporate events.
Source: Corporate Transportation
Summing it up
Giorgio Armani has rightly said, “To create something exceptional your mindset must be relentlessly focused on the smallest detail.”
The smallest of events can make the most impact on your growth, so you’ve got to put your best foot forward at all times. Corporate events go a long way in making your image and building your brand’s perception–don’t let them get ignored and sidelined.
