Association expertise

The role of an association is to provide professional education, scientific exchange, standards setting, industry promotion and representation for its members. While this role often causes resources to be stretched to breaking point, the services of an association management company (AMC) can help lighten the financial burden considerably. AMCs assist associations in areas including meeting planning, lobbying, marketing and product development. They do this by acting as the association's headquarters and staff. Although relatively unknown in Asia, AMCs are well established in the US and Europe. Helping hand AMCs are especially useful for international associations that wish to expand their operations because it means they do not have to hire personnel, buy equipment or lease office space. The AMC's offices become the association's offices and can manage all of the backoffice needs while still maintaining the association's identity as an autonomous organisation with its leaders still in full control of day-to-day affairs. The main benefit for an association lies in economies of scale. Associations only pay for what they need in the way of administration, facilities and computer services so that they have the maximum resources available for member services. The cost of these services and resources are spread over several associations and the unique services required by an association can also be deployed to another to bring about greater value-add to all association clients. Foreign help AMCs have their own associations in the US. One of these is the International Association of Association Management Companies (IAAMC), which was founded in 1964. Its 180 AMC members work with more than 2,000 associations and have an annual budget exceeding US$1 billion. These organisations serve three million members and AMCs employ more than 3,100 association management professionals. USbased AMC the Kellen Company claims to be the second-largest AMC worldwide. It works with more than 100 associations and 40,000 professionals globally. In Asia, there are many small companies that function as representatives for international associations and not-for-profit organisations. These tend to be small set-ups, often with few staff and limited resources. Local operators One recently formed AMC is MCI Singapore, the new joint venture between MCI and Pacific World Singapore. It currently serves three US-headquartered clients in Singapore, the Project Management Institute (PMI), the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering and the Healthcare Information Management Society. "As far as we know, MCI Singapore is the first in the region that is able to provide a full range of services including leadership and strategic advice," says general manager David Goh. Some of the association services provided by MCI include:
Strategic planning
Membership development
Meeting management expertise
Multicultural and multilingual staff
Time and resource leveraging — providing staffing models, sharing of best practices and experience, thereby releasing associations to focus on strategy and policy
Modular services in-house — as organisations grow in revenue, MCI can manage projects such as the creation of communication material, workshops and event management, and the integration of technological solutions to serve members.
Corporate relations and fundraising management
Marketing and communications
Corporate finance
The latest IT facilities to manage membership databases and system administration
Certification
Apermanent base with flexible staffing
Industry and government relations
Fundraising
Performance consulting Initial barriers Associations can also tap into the expertise of regional operations and market intelligence that AMCs have to offer. However, there are some initial barriers that Asian AMCs need to overcome. "Foreign AMCs are not unlike foreign companies expanding their operations into Asia Pacific," says Goh. "They have to consider customising their business strategy to suit the region and to also understand the complexities of a multicultural business environment." In the short term, many local associations in the region will undoubtedly continue to operate as before, having developed their own infrastructure and using their own network. However, with the emergence of new AMCs such as MCI Singapore, associations will now have the additional option of considering an outsourcing model. Local attraction For international associations that are establishing their presence in Asia Pacific and who have worked with AMCs in their home region, setting up local office with an AMC's help would probably be the next step to take. Major cities such as Hong Kong and Singapore are ideal bases thanks to their excellent infrastructure, political stability and multilingual capability. They also straddle the two big growth markets — India and China. As the client base matures, AMCs can offer creative production and events to engage the audiences and provide an experiential environment for their clients and their target audience. VERDICT CLIENT FOCUS One of MCI Singapore's clients is the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE), a global not-for-profit association of pharmaceutical manufacturing professionals with 23,000 members in 80 countries. With a six-year background of MCI managing ISPE's European office, the global growth of ISPE and the pharmaceutical industry called for building closer relations with the affiliates (local communities of ISPE members) in the Asia-Pacific region. ISPE enlisted the help of MCI to develop an Asia-Pacific Affiliate Council and growth strategies for ISPE, its activities and regional membership. The challenge in having a common vision for the region stemmed from the region's diversity and the difference in development levels for each affiliate, language and cultural background. MCI created an Asia-Pacific Affiliate Council comprising the chair and vice-chair of all Asia-Pacific affiliates. It facilitated the first and second meeting of the Council, mapped out various activities, success factors and challenges of each affiliate, and commonalities to be addressed on a regional level. MCI continues to share its best practices among the affiliates worldwide so that success factors and challenges for each group can be studied carefully and a common solution for progress can then be implemented.