Launch Night - Finances
Introduction
As part of Contemporary Fashion Business as a group we are planning a launch night as a promotion and celebration of all the work we have done particularly for final major project and the build up to this. In order to bring this night to life we are divided into two separate groups a creative team and a management team. We had to reflect over our strengths and weaknesses that we have found over the last three years and decide based on this which group we would be better suited too. The roles that we choose also require us to think past graduation to see if there is a job role which would link to what job we want to go into after graduating as this would help give us an insight to if we want a more business minded job or creative.
The creative team
The creative team roles include; venue install, creation of the save the date, promotion, PR and social media. Venue install will measure up the venue once we have one and find the best way to display everyones work within the space while staying on brand to the course. Save the dates will need to be sent out so we will need to have these created which are something eye catching, memorable and again on brand to the new branding we are creating moving forwards. PR will handle the creation of the letters which will be sent out with the save the dates explaining the launch night and what we are hoping to create.
The management team
The business management team roles include; venue, sponsorships, industry and personal contacts, finance, catering and transport. This team requires a less creative approach, the venue choice will be made surrounding the best place to launch the course as well as sticking to the financial budget. This budget is managed by a finance member of the team which will manage where the money from the budget is spent as well as additional money that could come in from sponsors. Industry and personal contacts includes sending out the save the dates and keeping a spreadsheet of the contacts that respond and what the response is. Transport will help us to get a van to move all of our work and anything else we need as instillation to the venue. Catering will then source the food and drink for the evening.
Am I creative or business?
In order to answer this question I have had to think about skills I have perviously developed and how these skills will aid with a particular job role.
Some of these skills include;
Organisation, Problem solving, Customer service, Team work, Budgeting, Data and spreadsheets, Email communicating, Research and planning, Photoshop and in-design, Critical thinking, Time management.
I am business
Looking over just these few skills which I have found to have developed the most I have found that I am more business minded than creative. Although over my time in university I have developed skills such as photoshop and in design I find it hard to create and imagine really creative designs. University has allowed me to develop some of these business minded skills as well as develop those I already had. Time management was a massive skill I’ve learnt over my time at university as deadlines come around faster than I could have imagined so it is important to allow enough time to have any reports and assignments printed in professional books as this changes the dates of when everything must actually be completed for to allow for any complications that may arise. As well as university I also work in retail part time which has enabled me to develop some of the skills which I have listed such as customer service and problem solving as it is important in a job role like that you know how to deal with each type of customer that comes into store. This job role also requires money handling skills as not only do we handle money through transactions by customers we also have to aid with banking at the end of a shift where we check the money in each till fits with the finance report printed from that day’s transactions. Even through my work I have progressed over university it is clear that the creative team would not fit my skills. Therefore I decided to join the business management team.
What is my job role?
Once this is established it is important to them choose a job role within this team. Looking over this information and the job roles that were established for the group the role I feel that I would be best suited to is financing. In order to start this job role I have created a spreadsheet which has the budget that we have as a starting number into Microsoft excel which is something I have been familiar with throughout my entire education. We also have a contingency on top of this budget which allows is to start with for my knowledge only in case of any emergencies of going over budget for venue, instillation, catering etc. This number is then added in a column with any money that we get in through sponsorship so that I can keep track of the amount of money that is coming into the budget for launch night. I have then separated the outgoings such as the venue and instillation funding which will be deducted from the total financing that we have incoming through budget, contingency and sponsorship.
Financing venue
This spreadsheet will be constantly updated throughout the process as well as meetings with the university financial admin in order to keep track of incomings and pay for any outgoings. The venue we have found is for the Walls at Chester Racecourse. This was ÂŁ500 including food and drink. This venue was found by Alicia who was in charge of finding a venue which would be a good location in order to launch us as a brand into industry.
Financing sponsorships
As we have also found sponsorship through Lucy I have also added this on to the spreadsheet. Sponsorship was a big part of financing as the costing for the venue was the same as our budget (without contingency) it is important that I can add these extra finances on in order for us to create something amazing from the space that we have found. As once this has been done save the dates can be sent out both personal and industry as without a venue we could not confirm a date. This planning experience so far has been something I have enjoyed as I have always had a passion for maths and financing so I have found a way through this module to begin to include this within the work that I am developing.
Jane Louise Berry