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Bentleys 2017 conference tackles emerging strategic challenges.
Kreston’s Australia Network, Bentleys held its annual Partners Conference in Hong Kong between 18th-21st April at The Langham Hotel in Kowloon.
The choice of location enabled Bentleys to invite Kreston firms in South East Asia and Kreston members in attendance included Sunil Goyal from Kreston SGCO in India; Erwin Winata from Kreston in Indonesia; Frank Lin from Kreston in Taiwan and Edmund Chan from Kreston in Hong Kong. Kreston CEO Jon Lisby also attended and gave an overview of Kreston global strategy.
Billed as a ‘workshop’, the aim of the conference was to discuss how the Bentleys Network will face some of the emerging strategic challenges. Whilst tackling strategic issues has always been an aim of the Partners Conference, this year there were 5 formal workshops spread out over 3 days, with the specific aim being to discuss how the Network should progress with several key initiatives.
Discussions concluded that it is likely that Bentleys will move to a common platform to enable all offices to improve internal communications and to link to Kreston’s extranet Klick. Bentleys are also looking to introduce a Training Continuum, the aim being to link training to required competencies and which will be hosted on a learning management system. This will likely see Bentleys partnering with CAANZ to become the first mid-tier accounting firm in the region to introduce such a system.
During the conference Asialink Business and The Hong Kong Trust Company presented on the market in SE Asia and outlined some of the business challenges that clients are likely to face if they intend to do business in the region. Austrade, the Australian government organisation that assists Australian businesses develop in international markets also gave an informative overview of how they can assist both the Bentleys Network and its clients.
Mark Chapman, CEO of the Bentleys Network said: ‘We needed to have a change of emphasis and move from an information based conference where we share operational issues, to a decision-making conference where we share ideas on how to deal with some of the emerging strategic challenges. The result is that we are no longer at a cross roads, but now clearly on a path that will see the collaborative nature of the Network improve and position Bentleys as an employer of choice. We look forward to sharing details of our training continuum with the Kreston Network and being able to communicate within a common platform.
Thanks to Sponsors MYOB and Thomson Reuters who gave informative presentations on the future changes in technology, to the Hong Kong Trust Company who hosted a memorable networking function at the iconic Hong Kong Club and a special thank you to Edmund Chan who hosted an excellent evening at the prestigious Happy Valley Race Course. In summary, a very successful conference which has been instrumental in gaining support for some strategic initiatives”.
