The PM Forum is a 5,000 strong regionally-based members' association, formed in 1996, dedicated to raising the standards of professional services marketing and to enhancing the credibility of marketers working in professional service firms worldwide.

March 2009

Free PM Forum membership for redundant marketers

As its contribution to the marketing community in this tough economic climate, PM Forum is delighted to be able to make available free membership (everything except a hard copy of the magazine as all articles are available online) to marketers that are made redundant by professional firms and are actively looking for a new position. This new service is intended to help people find a new position and serves as a partial substitute for formal outplacement as we observe that few if any firms are willing to pay for this invaluable service for their redundant marketers.

If you are aware of redundant marketers that would qualify for free membership whether as former members of your team or as friends/colleagues, please invite them to get in touch with us. We’ll need confirmation of the firm that used to employ them and a formal declaration that they are actively looking for a new marketing position in the professions with any short term consultancy work being incidental to their job search. Free membership will lapse after three months unless renewed.

Send your request to pmf@pmint.co.uk

 

April 2007

Marketing panel inaugural event

The Managing Partners' Forum Marketing Panel brings together hundreds of leaders in marketing and business development worldwide. The inaugural event is taking place in Frankfurt in May. more...

March 2007

New PM Forum regional leaders

The following members have recently taken on important roles at PM Forum:

Committee Chairs:

• Neil Dymond, head of marketing services and events at law firm Beachcroft (South West).
• Laoise Flanagan, head of marketing & PR North West at accountants Deloitte (North West).
• John Hogg, director of marketing and business development at law firm Mason Hayes+ Curran (Ireland).
• Justin Model, director NY marketing & communications at management consultancy Accenture (New York).
• Terrie Perella, national marketing director at accountants Deloitte (New England).

Regional Directors:

• Robin Shuker, managing director of branding consultants BrandsinAction (London).
• Jo Summers, director of market researchers Acritas (New York).

January 2007

Launching PM Forum Europe

PM Forum Europe launched on 1 January 2007, bringing together 300+ marketers in 20 countries in Continental Europe, including Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Ukraine and Russia.

Why join our unique community?

Professional services in fields such as accounting, architecture, consulting, engineering and law don't sell themselves. Marketing such services is a highly specialised skill.

The Professional Marketing Forum (PM Forum, for short) helps professional firms raise their abilities to market themselves. Founded in 1996, we are focused on three goals: increasing the impact of marketing in professional services; advancing your skills and capabilities in the fast-evolving profession of professional services marketing; and furthering your career.

We offer educational programs, networking opportunities and a chance to learn from other firms' experience in this challenging field. We hold events in major European and North American cities. Through their involvement, marketers at all levels, partners and fee-earners can gain leading edge ideas, benchmark their efforts, and become more effective and stronger in what they do.

Learn from other sectors

PM Forum enables marketing professionals to network with and learn from their peers across a wide range of professional services sectors, including: management consulting; law; accounting; and property. As a result, PM Forum provides members with practical lessons that go far beyond those of single sector associations.

What You Get

PM Forum corporate membership provides each marketer at a firm with a number of benefits:

• Free places at hundreds of educational events throughout Europe and North America (non-members can attend one event as a guest). Each event focuses on a single issue and typically features presentations by local professional services marketers who have achieved "best practice" in the topic at hand. The events provide great opportunities to network with other professional services marketers.
• Free subscription to pm (Professional Marketing) magazine, a monthly journal featuring in-depth articles by professional services marketers and experts in the field.
• Free access to more than 2,500 key-worded articles in the pm magazine online article archives. The search engine can also be accessed through member firm intranets.
• Free entry of marketing jobs on the Forum's online Job Bank, accessed by more than 1,000 marketers every week.

For more information visit www.pmforumeurope.com

In addition to participating in regular events (designed for a range of professional services marketers: event planning, PR professionals, writers, marketing managers, website developers, etc.), senior marketers have the opportunity to join an exclusive group, organising pan-regional educational/social events.

This will be a great place for senior marketers across Europe to interact with and learn from their peers from a wide sector of professional services firms: consulting, law, accounting, engineering, architecture, executive training and other sectors. Members of the programme are automatically enrolled in a global network in Europe and the U.S. known as the Marketing Panel of the Managing Partners' Forum, PM Forum's sister association. Members are encouraged to participate in bi-monthly surveys of hundreds of senior marketers in professional firms on issues they would like management to focus on, with findings restricted to members.

Members must be the senior-most marketing officers in their professional services firm (or a large practice/service line within the firm). Each must come with peer recommendations and two referees. Substitutes are not permitted at events.

More details are available on the Panels page of the MPF Website.

September 2006

Slovaks do more with less to win award

The Slovak office of the global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing firm Accenture has won the 2006 CEE Best Brand in Practice award. This is the first time that a firm from Slovakia has won this award. The Runner Up for the award this year was the law firm Magnusson.

The CEE Best Brand in Practice award (now in its sixth year) is given by the Professional Marketing Forum (PM Forum) in Central & Eastern Europe (PM Forum CEE).

"We are pleased to receive this internationally recognized award from a leading professional services marketing association," said Marek Geso, Accenture's marketing specialist in Slovakia and the longest serving in the region. "It is evidence that you can accomplish great things with a limited budget. It's about the ideas and not about the money," said Geso.

"It is also a great motivator for our future efforts as well as valuable support for strengthening both our internal and external reputation. This award is one of the many benefits of being part of the PM Forum community. Anyway, the reputation we have achieved locally is thanks to all of our people, as each of them is an ambassador of our brand," said Geso.

Richard Chaplin, Global Founder and Chairman of the PM Forum, as well as one of the judges for the awards said about the winner: "Graduate marketing is a huge challenge in Slovakia as the war for talent intensifies - in many ways this is more challenging for a global player given the focus of global advertising being on CEOs rather than on students.

• Many graduates either knew nothing about Accenture or saw it as an auditing firm.
• Shared responsibility between HR and marketing was determined; market analysis carried out; candidates profiled and a plan developed. This combined: advertising, brochures, campus visits, job fairs, direct mail, building links with student associations, media relations, an internal referral program, sport and social events.
• Whilst this approach is standard in the UK and US, it is novel in CEE resulting in significant increases in awareness of the firm - to the same levels that are found in other countries. Accenture now ranks in 3rd place (up from 11th in the prior year) for 'Most Desired Company' - making it clear leader amongst professional services firms - and web traffic increased by 130% from Jan to May compared with the same period in 2005. These are very tangible results."

Dan Person, Managing Partner of Magnusson commented: "We feel truly honored that the judges have chosen Magnusson as the Runner Up to the CEE Best Brand in Practice Award. Our law firm is a relatively young business organization, actively defining itself in a client-oriented and business savvy way. This prestigious award will encourage us to go even further."

The judges said of Magnusson's entry: "Magnusson is a relatively young business organization (established in 2004 as a partnership of Swedish, Polish and Danish lawyers), with offices in Warsaw, Moscow, Stockholm and Copenhagen. During 2006, the firm took significant steps in making the firm more marketing and client-oriented.

• The firm's lawyers were promoted to the media as independent and reliable legal experts, resulting in 133 press mentions - six times more than in the whole of 2005. Unlike many firms, Magnusson is not afraid of commenting publicly on controversial issues, often related to law and politics.
• The firm produced a fully professional training movie for its clients. The goal of this movie, relating to a specific area of EU and Competition law, was to reinforce messages from a "traditional" training / written materials, and give a feel for how to cope in stressful situations. No marketing agency was used resulting in dramatic cost savings. Clients were very complimentary.
• Everyone working at the firm received regular information on the firm's financial situation. Every year, a firm-wide conference is held for all employees where key topics are discussed in a less formal environment.
• Many lawyers are involved in business development and marketing activities through "Task Forces" - competence groups based on passions, including: gaming and Chinese law. Most task forces are headed by senior associates to get younger lawyers more involved in business development and marketing.

Whilst the approach being adopted by Magnusson is distinctive and relevant to clients, the judges felt that it was premature to comment on the success of the approach and encourage the firm to apply again next year once clients have started to notice the difference."

Jeffrey Forbes, Founder and Regional Chairman of the PM Forum in Central & Eastern Europe and creator of the award said: "I greatly admire when local professionals in the region find the courage and work together with their colleagues to enter an award like this. To me anyone who enters is a winner, but like all contests, we have to pick one each year that stands out the most."

This award was created and sponsored by Jeffrey Forbes to recognize a client-focused and marketing-oriented professional service firm in the CEE region. More than 1,000 professionals in CEE are invited each year to compete for this award.

In addition to a certificate, Accenture Slovakia will be profiled in the winter issue of professional marketing, the worldwide journal for marketing professional services, published by the PM Forum.

July 2006

Deloitte and Andersen Business Consulting merge in Poland

The largest business consulting team in Central Europe is the result of the merger between Andersen Business Consulting and Polish branch of Deloitte - a global consulting firm. The new Polish team will count 200 consultants supported by regional Deloitte branches in 148 countries.

This is a new quality on consulting services market. Deloitte, as the only one of so-called Big Four has consistently offered integrated global consulting services to its clients. "Our goal is to provide a "one-stop" service, so that our Clients do not have to choose between the best global audit firm and the best business consulting services, just because they are not offered "under one roof". The merger will provide just the right opportunity" said Michael Barrington, Partner in Charge of Deloitte Polska.

For the Polish branch of Deloitte, the merger with Andersen Business Consulting will also mean a step towards the business model similar to that used in other countries, where nearly one third of total revenue comes from strategic and operating consulting services. Due to merger, Deloitte will strengthen its competitive advantage on the Polish and Central European market based on professional team able to realize consulting projects practically in all industries and market segments.

The merger will not result in lay offs. All Deloitte and Andersen Business Consulting consultants will keep their current positions, whereas Andersen Business Consulting Partners will join Deloitte Partners. The merger is the answer to growing market demand. The business consulting team will continue to grow. The consolidation of our teams is aimed at maximized potential and not at cost reduction.

July 2006

New hire in Prague

The Prague branch of the international law firm Clifford Chance in the position of Business Development Manager joined Karolína Stoklasová.
Karolína comes with more than ten years' experience in marketing services for companies active in various areas - such as managerial education and insurance brokerage. She received her theoretical knowledge through MBA studies at the British Open University Business School.
In her free time she bicycle rides, skis and does power yoga. Apart from her native Czech, she speaks English, French and Russian.

July 2006

First member in Ukraine!

The PM Forum is proud to announce that our first member has just joined us from Ukraine. We are pleased to welcome one of Ukraine's leading law firms Shevchenko Didkovskiy & Partners to our CEE community.

June 2006

2006 conference launched

Client care was recently voted the number one topic by Forum members. Our 2006 Conference provides an opportunity to explore this important topic in depth with contributions from a world-class global faculty.

March 2006

Online members' directory launched

Last month the PM Forum launched a new online directory of members to great interest from members and non-members alike.

It can be searched in two ways:

• Organisation search To find out which firms are members in a region or sector - this is available to non-members and members who have declined to be in the directory.
• Contact search A way of finding individual members - only available to members who have accepted to be in the directory themselves.

March 2006

Online members' directory launched

Last month the PM Forum launched a new online directory of members to great interest from members and non-members alike.

It can be searched in two ways:

• Organisation search To find out which firms are members in a region or sector - this is available to non-members and members who have declined to be in the directory.
• Contact search A way of finding individual members - only available to members who have accepted to be in the directory themselves.

September 2005

A free personal copy of pm for all Forum members

Now all employees in a member firm can receive their very own copy of pm magazine - just send your contact details to info@pmint.co.uk