Annual Strategy Meeting in Pune, India

Our Senior Business Team has just returned from a great trip to India.  The purpose for us coming together from three different countries and many U.S. states was to participate in the Affinity Express annual strategy meeting.  Every September, we hold a series of sessions in which we share plans and opportunities and come to agreement about our direction for the next year and beyond.  In addition to segment leaders, the heads of production, finance, marketing, human resources and technology all play an important role.

We start getting ready months in advance of the strategy meeting.  In partnership with CEO Ken Swanson, my role is to work on the overall themes, the structure of the sessions and the templates for each member of the team.  I interface with each member of the SBT and help them formulate their presentations and objectives for 2011, ensuring that they synchronize with the overall goals for the company.  I even get involved with the logistics, setting and managing the budget and handling details down to selecting the menus.  As you can imagine, the days before we head off to destination city are a flurry of activity.

At one of the evening events, we had the Senior Management Team of Affinity Express India attend.  Local leaders of the different services, technology, new client implementation and more got to know the Senior Business Team better and offered their perspective on our business.

As always, the meetings were very productive and more than worth the effort.  We were lucky enough to have two members of our Board of Directors join us:  Peter Maquera and Fred Ayala from LiveIt Investments, Ltd.  Thanks to all of their experience with business process outsourcing companies (BPOs), they asked insightful questions and provided reinforcement on the plans we outlined.  Now it is a matter of our prioritizing and resourcing, as there is so much this passionate group wants to accomplish!