Change of Address  
With effect from 1 March 2011, the PMC Certification Board has relocated to its new office at 2 Bukit Merah Central, #18-03 SPRING Singapore Building, Singapore 159835. We can also be contacted at 6272 3238.

PMC a requirement for BrandPact & IPM  
From 1 April 2011, all lead consultants providing consultancy services to companies applying for grants under BrandPact or Intellectual Property Management Programme (IPM) are required to be PMC certified. By 1 April 2012, all consultants in the project team will need to be certified.

More than 25 consultants have already enrolled into the PMC Certification Scheme since February 2011 and a special training run was held in March 2011 to help these consultants keep in line with the new requirements.

PMC Abridged Programme for Retiring MINDEF Officers  
A pilot batch of 7 MINDEF officers attended a special PMC abridged programme from 23-24 March at the Defence Technology Tower. The course was specially developed to formally introduce the officers to the field of management consultancy and equip them with some of the basic tools of the trade for a career as a management consultant. The PMC-CB is delighted to be working with MINDEF's Career Transition Resource Centre (CTRC) in providing the officers with the guidance and support needed to embark on their second career path and look forward to extending this opportunity to more officers in time to come.

PMC Re-certification  
Re-certification is required every two years upon initial certification. All PMCs need to meet the required 80 Continuing Professional Education (CPE) hours in order to remain PMC certified. This ensures that the skills and abilities of PMCs stay relevant in the face of a changing business and economic environment.

As a reminder, the third batch of PMCs certified on 1 May 2009 should submit their CPE hours at the PMC website by 30 April 2011. Payment of the re-certification fee should also be paid immediately upon receipt of the invoice.

PMC Stars
This section of the PMC Newsletter is dedicated to showcasing the achievements and contributions of our PMCs in the field of management consultancy. For this edition, our PMC Star is Lawrence Yeo of AsiaBIZ Strategy Pte Ltd.

PROJECT BACKGROUND
Lawrence's client is a manufacturer of truck axles and suspensions. The client commissioned this project in 2008 to develop its Thailand market expansion strategy. Client wanted to obtain factual market data from both primary and secondary research sources to gain a better understanding of the Thailand market in 3 areas: market size, competitor intelligence and brand perception. The situation that prompted the client to undertake the project was that the client's 2008 business performance in Thailand had not been able to perform at optimum level. Exact causative factors of stagnation remained unknown. The project sought to identify such causes as well as industry trends, pricing, brand perception and other areas.

CONSULTING ACTIVITY
The consulting intervention had a duration of 6 weeks. Lawrence's Thai market analyst, Tony, gathered primary and secondary information through field work while his Singapore market analyst, Eddy, concurrently provided research support and built the data modelling. As project manager, Lawrence supervised both analysts and subsequently developed the market expansion strategy.

Lawrence and his team performed the following tasks in analysing how best to expand the client's Thailand business.

• Market analysis (market demand and size, industry trends, scenario analysis, distribution analysis, import market)
• Segment analysis for Trailer Axles and Trailer Suspensions (both Air Suspension and Mechanical Suspension product sub segments)
• Competitor Intelligence (company profiles, SWOT analysis)
• Branding
• Comparative Brand Perception of Trailer Builder B2B Customers (prices, service quality, delivery, technical specifications, credit terms, product quality, stock)
• Brand Feedback on client
• Strategic Recommendations for Market Expansion

SUCCESS FACTORS AND CHALLENGES
One major challenge was inadequate industry data and information. Lawrence's client did not want to cloud his team's neutral, unbiased analysis and so also provided very little information. Lawrence's team addressed this by conducting both fresh primary research and cross checked many secondary sources of research. When there was even no governmental source of information, Lawrence created his own data estimates with robust data modelling, clearly justifying each data with his assumptions and calculations.

The tangible benefits to the client included increased revenues due to improved client servicing. A second benefit was that his work, through gathering of client's end user feedback, also enabled his client to obtain major discoveries of several key inefficiencies and weaknesses of its Thailand business unit not highlighted previously to HQ. Thirdly, the discovery of the influx of imported cheaper and fake China axles, which have affected the quality of trailers produced in Thailand and had adversely affected his client's reputation, led to his client developing a new service policy scheme.

A key success factor was Lawrence's 14 years of experience in strategic analysis and field work. This had helped him to make key observations and share his insights. A second success factor was his honesty and openness. He openly informed his client on his profit margin from serving them on this project, immediately assuring them of his fair value in pricing his services. He also honestly identified what went wrong and right in certain areas of their business. Lawrence believes that his client pays him to help them grow their business, not to be popular or afraid to lose their account. Thus, he does not withhold important information and does not pad his 'no-holds barred' reporting with politically acceptable and nice sounding items.

The main lesson learnt from this intervention from a client perspective is to thoroughly know the local ground conditions and not believe at face value progress reports from managers who are not based on the ground full-time. From a consultant's perspective, one major lesson is to gather end user feedback to compare client's performance with its top direct competitors to check for minimum satisfaction levels.

THE CLIENT/CONSULTANT RELATIONSHIP
Lawrence's client and consultant relationship worked well. He was flexible to accommodate client requests which were outside the project scope of work. His client knew what areas to focus on, which resulted in paying exactly for what they needed. He ensured that the client fully understood both the project objectives, process of execution and solution by constant communication and repeating previously-stated project objectives. His weekly progress reports also helped to keep his client regularly updated on the project tasks, obstacles encountered, significant findings discovered in the field and jointly-discussed workable solutions.

His repeat client has since re-engaged Lawrence in 2010. His new tasks include the gathering of more customer profile data and feedback. This will help the client to create a new set of marketing collaterals. Another task is to help roll out this new scheme by educating Thai end user clients on key benefits.

A key highlight of the client experience was his consultancy receiving a client's Letter of Commendation for the project. Lawrence and his team were delighted that his client was satisfied with their service!