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People call them the gentle giants of the African bush. Some people find them so fascinating that they spend their working lives on researching the elephant. Some people find them adorable and some people are quite frightened of them. The fact remains they are huge animals, the biggest animal on land. However, some people say this is not true, because a Hippo and a Rhino is bigger than a baby elephant. Some people will argue that an elephant seems bigger when one is sitting on its back than when viewing it from the ground. It was this debate on the elephant and the issue of what "big" is that made me think of the statement: "Industrial theatre is expensive".
Some companies say Industrial theatre is expensive after using it for their advertising campaign. While another company would argue that when they used industrial theatre during their transformation process it was a very effective method.
The point is, whether an elephant is big or small whether industrial theatre is expensive or not, it is all relative. The arguments will continue on the cost of industrial theatre until we compare apples with apples (or should that be - elephants with elephants.)
The cost of industrial theatre can be determined if it is done in a framework of a cost comparison. It is imperative to take the following dimensions into consideration when comparing industrial theatre cost:
| Utilisation of the industrial theatre - | Will the industrial theatre be used for training,
education, marketing or communication |
| Design of the industrial theatre - | What is the target population?
What is the cast size?
What does the production include, e.g.
composed music, dance, script, lights,
sound, staging, costumes, etc? |
| Unit cost of the industrial theatre - | What is the cost per person attending the industrial theatre? |
Once you have made your comparisons between different types of industrial theatre and you have determined your unit cost then it is possible to compare the cost of industrial theatre against that of a training course, (if it is going to be used for training.) One can do similar comparisons for communication, education and marketing.
Unfortunately, the above mentioned dimensions are not the only ones you need to look at to determine whether it is expensive or not. There is also the issue of affordability, 1% of my salary bill might be 10% of your salary bill. Then there is, according to us, the most important issue:
Most companies seem to only look at what their input costs will be e.g. design costs, delivery costs, training materials, etc. and they ignore what the cost implications will or will not be on the output side e.g. business efficiency, margins, product/service quality. It is thus imperative to compare the cost of your problem to the cost of your solution. Another way of looking at it is what will the cost to your company be if you do nothing about the problem vs when you do, do something about it. Just make sure you do the right thing when addressing the problem.
We often get stuck on how big and strong an elephant is and seem to forget how passionate, intelligent and graceful they are. The same is happening with industrial theatre, we seem to focus so much on the cost, that we forget how much value the results might add to the company.
By addressing the above mentioned issues will you be in a position to say: "How big is this elephant, or, how expensive is this industrial theatre really?"
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