Member Support and Development
The Member Support and Development division aims to provide excellent business leadership support and service to our members and other stakeholders. The units in this division are Professional Support, Professional Development, Library and Information Services, Tertiary Liaison, Stakeholder Liaison, Marketing and Registry Services.
Registry Services comprises three groups: Registry Helpdesk, Annual Billing and Business Support. The Registry Helpdesk Team acts as a contact centre. The team processes transactions and payments for event registrations, publications orders, various membership applications and changes and special business initiatives, as well as updating member details in the database. The Annual Billing subscription team manages the annual update and return, billing collection and strike off/cancellation process for the Institute’s members. The Business Support team develops and conducts ongoing staff training programmes, and provides database reports and analysis.
This divisional report outlines:
Progress on last year's goals
- Marketing sought to deliver internal and external improvements, and particularly to improve the relationship with business partners, the services and products we offer members, and the targeting of our youth message.
We have achieved improvements in all these areas, with initiatives that include a new business partner programme, a new merchandise website, a revamp of the youth website, targeted promotions and strategic partnerships and sponsorships. - The Marketing team has implemented segmented marketing support, with a specific focus on Chartered Accountants, but also further promoting the Associate Chartered Accountant designation.
- The investigation of an Institute careers portal is leading to a significant implementation project in 2008/2009.
- Library and Information Services planned to increase the usage of the collection and subscriptions to the Library Bulletin, and to develop new hot topic subject guides.
These plans have met with success. Collection usage is up 17%, enquiries are up 27% and the subscriber list is up 33%. The unit developed 8 new "Hot Topic" subject guides. - The Registry Services team aimed to improve the annual billing process, and to implement on-line event registration.
Returns were emailed to members for the first time, with hard-copy returns to those who requested them. The information provided was also improved. Third-party problems with web access to the annual return caused difficulties for members, and meant a huge increase in workload, which delayed implementation of the online event registration system. - The National Professional Development (NPD) team looked to increase revenue through higher attendance at PD events, and to review and reduce expenses by 10%.
A reduction in reliance on print marketing and more competitive contracting models allowed the team to reduce expenses in a range of areas. However higher attendance and revenue targets proved ambitious as attendance was affected by factors such as the change to IFRS deadlines. - NPD also planned to implement an e-learning strategy and provide courses that would achieve personal development for members.
While the e-learning strategy did not proceed as initially envisaged, e-learning is now progressing through more discrete use of online approaches. Plans to develop courses focusing on personal development resulted in courses on career development, effective teamwork and practice management.
- The Tertiary Liaison goal was to strengthen and enhance the Institute’s profile with tertiaries and students.
A greater focus on the academic stakeholders led to us organising and hosting academic sub-disciplinary forums and the heads of departments conference. We also strengthened and extended our involvement in student commerce associations, renegotiating existing sponsorship contracts and adding two new contracts. - Employer Liaison sought to increase the level of contact with employers, business groups and key influencers – including recruitment companies and our own committees – and especially to develop initiatives that deliver value to these stakeholders.
- The goals have been achieved, with strengthened relationships as a result.
Other highlights
- Late in 2007/2008, NPD introduced hot topics courses to deliver an increased number of hours of professional development.
- The information on which decisions are based has improved through member research, including member NPD surveys, Library surveys and two International Innovation Network surveys.
- At the usual biannual visits to every approved tertiary educational institution we delivered lecture presentations, one-to-one clinics and guest speaker evenings. We also attended accounting and finance expos/fairs, and some general careers expos.
Coming year
- The FlyHigher student website has been refreshed and relaunched in September
- The migration of the library management system to an upgraded system was not begun until late in the 2007/2008 year; completion is expected by October 2008. Vendor equipment failure has delayed the digitisation of membership registers, and this will also happen in the 2008/2009 year.
- A project scoping student membership will continue in the 2008/2009 year.
- Marketing will focus on extending awareness of the INZONE bus; Enterprise Trust; FlyHigher; the Chartered Accountant designation; the new business partner programme; event management; the Small Business Expo. Significant new initiatives include the careers portal and the SALT internet-based compliance training programme.
- The priorities for NPD this year are to gather more accurate information about the needs, behaviours and perceptions of members and use that information to provide greater choice and quality of products, and also to improve the overall quality of service associated with attendance at an NPD event.
- Strengthening the mentor support programmes and continued leadership demonstrated in key influencer forums remain a key focus for Stakeholder Liaison. We will also continue and improve the annual HR forum.
