A. Brief outline of BritCham Events Department
BritCham Events Department is managed by a coordinator whose main responsibilities are as follow:
a. Responsibility for the preparation, execution and follow up of all regular and ad hoc events, including but not limited to:
a. Suggesting date and venue of events
b. Obtaining the best deals with venues
c. Liaise with venues to ensure that confirmed bookings are in place for all functions
d. Liaise with Sector Group Chairman to maintain a current schedule of all sector group meetings are submitted in time for publication in the next available newsletter
e. Receptionist at all BritCham functions, this will include prior coordination of RSVP’s and cancellations, timely distribution of function notices, preparation and distribution of receipts/name tags, preparation of guest lists, distribution of all BritCham information sheets, and membership application forms, collection, reporting and acquittal of function fees
f. Ensure the timely distribution of function and event notices
b. Responsibility for promotion of BritCham functions and events, including Breakfasts, Lunches, Business Networking, New Member Functions, Golf Tournament, annual Xmas Party, Sector Group Meetings, Toastmasters and Networkers.
c. Relationship development and liaison with BritCham members to ensure they are properly serviced.
d. Liaison with function, event and tournament venues to ensure relationships are maintained and to facilitate mutually beneficial contracts for BritCham’s activities.
e. Development and promotion of BritCham’s range of member discounts and benefits, including negotiation with the service providers and management of member suggestions and complaints.
f. Other duties as required.
BritCham Events Department is organizing all BritCham events and activities, locally and nationally, as it is mentioned previously, including designing all means of events promotion such as e-notices, flyers and brochures. BritCham Events Department Coordinator is directly working with Marketing Department and under the supervision of BritCham Business Manager. Furthermore, events department will build good relations with media to cover all BritCham events besides is often confidant and counsellor to the Business Manager and the Executive Director in giving the best deal options of the events organizations.
In BritCham Events Department we could additionally learn about understanding the organization’s activities thoroughly; having a basic knowledge of events organizations, sponsorship procedures; demonstrating a presence and being able to back it up with solid communication skills; being sensitive and intuitive to what the Business Manager and the Executive Director are thinking and feeling towards some events; being able to read signals on the scope and provide early warning to the Business Manager; being able to mediate and achieve deals with partners; knowing how to overcome bureaucratic thinking in the organization; being detail-oriented; being flexible and creative; and, finally, maintaining a sense of humour and balance no matter how pressured a situation.
Events Department of British Chamber of Commerce in Indonesia is supervised by a Business Manager and working together with the Marketing Department in which the intern got involved in the communication within the organization, its members and partners deeper since it’s most visible function that may be centralized or distributed across organization’s members or partners.
In addition, BritCham’s events coordinator deals most of the time with members, clients, other foreign chambers and sponsors when organizing events. Not only dealing with those parties, events department also builds good relations with media people in order to get good coverage and exposure of our events.
Furthermore, to promote BritCham’s events, notices, brochures and flyers are very essential to achieve the target of guest number and income – profit – of certain events. The success of all BritCham’s events depends on the efforts of the events coordinator in organizing those events, looking for sponsors and approaching potential guests to participate in all those events.
B. Concise Jobs and Assignments Descriptions
There are three major assigments that I had been doing during my two-month internship: design, events and projects assigend by BritCham Business Manager. Those three main tasks are applied in the following specific events and projects:
1. Workshop on Urban and Environmental Management Policies and Good Practices in Indonesia it’s a workshop organized by Urban and Regional Development Institute (URDI) discussed the concern urban and environmental management policies and good practices of some institutions in Indonesian cities.
a. The objectives to analyse the opportunities and barriers in the policies application on the three sub-sector and the policy supports for the urban environment management practice in Indonesia.
b. The target audience is environment practitioners – environmentalists – and those who are interested in urban environmental issues in Indonesia representing government and private institutions.
c. The barrier of the workshop is the time punctuality and/or allocation of each session of the workshop and the coordination of the participants.
d. Suggestion: this event has close relevancy to BritCham CTIT Project, it’s suggested that later in December CTIT Conference in Jogja, the project office can contact URDI people for cooperation or partnership.
2. Breakfast Briefing is a monthly event that shares first-hand information on the business environment and the government regulation, which invite knowledgeable speakers in their fields to benefit members of the sector groups.
a. The objectives are to address subjects of current interest to the business community, and provide members with news and updates presented by the experts who provide a first-hand experience and information.
b. The target audience is business community in Jakarta as well as public in general with particular subjects of interest that are specifically arranged to provide the right information for them.
c. The barriers are sometimes potential speakers have a tight schedule to deliver the speech in the in the event, so we have to contact other available speaker to participate; guests’ confirmation to come is sometime difficult.
d. Suggestion: there should be 2 persons in charge; one is assigned for the receptionist desk and another one is to take pictures and listen to the presentation to write the press release and article for Update newsletter.
3. BritCham Business Networking is monthly networking functions events that provide an excellent opportunity to meet the most active members of the Indonesian and British business community, thus expanding business networks.
a. The objective is to facilitate members and non-members of BritCham to meet monthly and expand their business networks, while relaxing after office hours in a free flow of beer and wine.
b. The target audience is the members of BritCham as well as non-members and guests who are interested in getting new networks.
c. The barriers are sometimes the venue option is not that suitable for the events, the guests sometime get in the last-minute notice of the events and potential sponsors are not interested to join the events also the coordination with the venue staff which is sometime not easy.
d. Suggestion: the events coordinator should look for sustaining sponsors for each month business networking and decide the venue one month before.
4. BritCham Networkers Meeting: is to pass Business Referrals between members of the group, which will meet every Wednesday. The group will be confined to BritCham members and only one member from each profession or business type will be allowed to become a member of each group. The price of joining the group is the commitment and dedication to finding referrals for the other group members.
a. The objective is to pass business referral between members of the group or in the business community or networks besides introducing the product of our business through a one-minute presentation and in a scheduled presentation while enjoying breakfast.
b. The target audience is the members of the business group within BritCham membership; guests may only come twice consecutively.
c. The barrier is that not all members always come and meet every Wednesday and not all of them always have business referrals to pass.
d. Suggestion: at least once a month members should invite and/or introduce their friends to present and introduce their businesses to the group.
5. BritCham Toastmasters Club Meeting; is on the basis that both a company’s and an individual’s success in business is based on how effective they are at communicating, BritCham started its own Toastmasters Club.
a. The objective is “to afford practice and training in the art of public speaking and in presiding over meetings, and to promote sociability and good fellowship among its members”.
b. The target audience is business practitioners who are interested in improving their public speaking ability and presentation techniques.
c. The barriers is sometime in a meeting only a few people confirm to come and the venue is less strategic to reach.
d. Suggestion: the events coordinator should create more promotions of the meeting to all potential guests to invite more people to come to each meeting and perhaps also set a encouraging room atmosphere.
6. Carsurin Business Gathering is partnership business gathering between BritCham and Carsurin – a mining company – that facilitated a business meeting for coal miners to expand their business networks.
a. The objective is to facilitate coal miners in Indonesia to meet, to pass business referrals and to expand business networks as well as to strengthen the affiliation of Carsurin and BritCham.
b. The target audiences are coal miners and people who are interested in coal mining business sector in Indonesia.
c. The barriers are choosing suitable venue is more challenging that expected and inviting the right target business people to come to the event.
d. Suggestion: the events coordinator should coordinate better with Carsurin people via email or phone regarding the desired venue and notice design.
7. IBC HR Group Meeting is about members of companies, who wish to receive updates of Employment Law, ILO and other HR related information; the information gathered by the IBC HR Group may be used to prepare papers for discussion with APINDO, KADIN, or the Government.
a. The objectives to share HR related information between International Business Chamber companies and to share any information they receive or ask for information, which they think maybe of interest to other HR related colleagues.
b. The target audience are people and all HR practitioners from all corporate or organizational institutions who wish to obtain HR related updates.
c. The barrier is since IBC is virtual business chamber, the events organization is not properly manageable, and so sometime the monthly meeting is cancelled due to the shortage of time allocation.
d. Suggestion: this meeting should be promoted to wider HR practitioners from other companies to participate in the monthly meeting to collect more ideas and point of views of wider human resources practices.
8. Marketing and Membership is about BritCham’s sales and marketing of the membership and also the membership database management.
a. The objectives is to target more potential members to join BritCham membership and obtain its benefits and privileges as well as to provide good membership database system and follow-up program.
b. The target audience is people – non-members – who often come to BrtiCham’s regular events who potentially join BritCham membership
c. The barrier is that sometime those people are already members of other business chamber so they prefer not to join BrtiCham membership until their memberships expire.
d. Suggestion: it is suggested that – given – two persons manage marketing and membership separately to give optimum results of the BritCham sales and marketing as well as the membership benefit programs.
9. The Fry Group Presentation is a presentation of the Fry Group in association with BritCham providing information on financial planning.
a. The objective is to provide information on how to manage financial affairs, including wealth management, taxation, retirement and estate planning. Besides to strengthen the existing partnership between BritCham and The Fry Group.
b. The target audience is expatriates – specifically British people – residing in Indonesia who are interested in managing personal financial condition.
c. The barriers is to coordinate with the Fry Group people in making the presentation notice to be sent to potential participants.
d. Suggestion: more of similar events organized to associate the benefits of the events between BritCham and the associated partner.
10. BritCham Christmas Party is annual networking functions events that provide an excellent opportunity to meet the most active members of the Indonesian and British business community as well as people from other business association while celebrating Christmas.
a. The objective to celebrate Christmas together with members of the Indonesian and British business community while expanding business networks.
b. The target audience is business people who are interested in getting networks with Indonesian and British Business community
c. The barrier is to get sponsors or potential business – corporations – who are willing to sponsor the event.
d. Suggestion: this event is organized in different venue every year to give new and different atmosphere to the guests, in case they attended the last year event and they go to this year event in the same venue; using creativity and innovation of organizing the event.
11. BritCham monthly newsletter – up.date is BritCham’s monthly newsletter that provide members and readers with news and updates such as on Indonesian and Britsih business condition as well as current issues. It’s also covering BritCham’s past month events and the forthcoming events.
a. The objective is to provide current information and updates on business condition – climates – to members and readers.
b. The target audiences are BritCham’s members, other business chambers and associations and general interested readers.
c. The barrier is that so far up.date newsletter is still under the supervision of BritCham’s Business Manager – it is supposedly handled by one person whose main task is to work on the design and formatting of the newsletter as well as to collect news for the articles to produce best possible results.
d. Suggestion: there should be a person who specifically works on Update newsletter from making the design and formatting of the pages to collecting the articles through interviews or events reporting to give better appearance of the newsletter. Besides making a so-called ‘trademark’ or ‘patent’ of the newsletter so that Update newsletter has set page design, layouts, formatting, etc. in order to improve to packaging of the news.
12. CTIT Project aims for creating both technology & business partnerships between S. E. Asian industries and European technology providers.
a. The objective is to improve environmental quality and energy efficiency using renewable energy sources through a co-ordinated initiative to utilise cleaner alternative energy for industry and transport.
b. The target audiences are environmentalist in Southeast Asian countries and European technology providers.
c. The barrier is that because the event is organized in regional level, the coordination amongst the organizer in the host country turns to be difficult and pricey to make long-distance coordination.
d. Suggestion: with the present assistance of a project officer of CTIT Project, BritCham should optimise her works – as an added human resource – in promoting and organizing the coming CTIT conference in December in Jogja.
13. Global B2B is about linking Southeast Asian small medium enterprises to EU partners – is an SME Business to Business Network designed to facilitate two-way market access between provincial Indonesia and the European Union.
a. The objective to create business-to-business linkages between European SMEs and Indonesian business associations, firms & tertiary institutions at provincial level to enhance and improve their access to each other’s regional markets.
b. The groups targeted by the Global B2B project include Indonesian provincial SMEs, trade associations and tertiary institutions, which will benefit from capacity building and linkages, and European SMEs, which will benefit from improved access to provincial Indonesia.
c. The barrier is that building 11 contact centres in 11 cities in Indonesia need credible focal points to represent BritCham in that centres, and recruiting these people is not that easy.
d. Suggestion: BritCham should recruit credible focal points to manage the Global B2B activities in 11 contact centres to succeed all organized events and to ensure that the activities in the contact centres run properly and in order. Besides facilitating BritCham to apply the objectives of Global B2B project in that cities.
14. Media Strategy, Value Proposition and Organizational Communication is a project assigned by the Business Manager to analyse other possibilities to target potential buyers of BritCham membership program and how to create new target groups who are willing to join BritCham membership.
a. The objective is to analyse new target groups in the market outside the existing members who are later willing to buy BritCham membership.
b. The target audience is as this is an internal project, the concept was proposed to the Business Manager and to the Executive Director of BritCham – the concept of organizational communication of BritCham.
c. The barrier. During the making of the project, I found difficulty in finding similar cases in other organization and the information provided are rather vague and because BritCham has a organization system already, it’s quite hard to identify from which aspect to start the analysis.
d. Suggestion: after going through intensive research and analysis of value proposition, I suggested that BritCham add one more core values besides: Meet the Right People, Get the Right Info and Open the Right Doors. This could be ‘Provide the Right Market’. For example: while celebrating Christmas Party, it’s the right time to provide a printing company – member – for others to print their corporate new year calendar for their customers.
15. Jakarta Highland Gathering is truly ‘a celebration of friendship’ and extraordinary story of cooperation and continuity of purposes between Britain and Indonesia during a period of change and evolution of the country’s history.
a. The objective is to consider how the event can promote companies, strengthen employee loyalty, further friendship and understanding between communities and be part of the company’s charitable giving.
b. The target audience is all the people in the world including throughout Indonesia with different cultures, introducing friendship, and understanding from the root of multicultural concept of Scottish with its ‘Highland Gathering.’
c. The barrier is that on the gathering that night, the committee did not provide proper name tags for the guests instead of using sticker tags.
d. Suggestion: for the next gathering it is suggested that the committee provides proper name tags and persons in charge of the receptionist table to welcome the guests.
Those are the activities I got involved in during the two-month internship program in British Chamber of Commerce in Indonesia (BritCham) in BritCham’s Events Department. Through each of the above activities, I have learned a lot of new things related and/or not related to my major Public Relations as well as practical aspects that can be integrated to benefit and to improve my communications skills. The principle subjects of learning are design (Desktop Publishing), events organization – as a part of PR task in organizing events, problem solving process, analytical thinking, communicational aspect, etc.
The activities involvements above are integral parts of BritCham’s Events Department and assignments of BritCham’s Business Manager. Through it all, I had the opportunities to apply the theoretical science of Public Relations in practice and I had gained new experiences and practical knowledge. That involvement is truly a bridge for me to meet my theoretical ability and the practical condition I experience in the field of works.
Those are details of the activities including events and projects that I was involved in and also given point of suggestion in each activity in order to give new ideas for the events coordinator – especially – and BritCham in organizing better events in the coming time.
Mohammad Reiza 