BPCC Annual General Meeting Reports, 24th June 2009

2008 began with a total refurbishment of the BPCC premises which are in the heart of Warsaw and house a number of member companies in a business centre, as well as the BPCC itself.  The aim of the conversion was to create a number of lettable business units, a more professional environment in which to work and to improve the meeting facilities.  This improvement has enabled the BPCC's "BusinessPoint" service to expand and the boardroom has been hired out on many occasions to both member and non-member companies.  The business centre was fully let when the newly refurbished offices opened in June 2008 and the rental income from this covers the BPCC's mortgage.

Internally, the BPCC has had an active year and made many changes in regards to HR and structure.  We are very proud of our staff development and in 2008 three former interns were taken on as employees with one quickly being promoted to managerial level.  Two key HR developments were the implementation of a performance management process, ensuring staff had clear objectives and were able to focus on specific targets, and the production of an Operations Manual with details of all policies and procedures to maintain the smooth running of the Chamber.  The expertise that exists within the Chamber was capitalised on with a number of training sessions being held by BPCC employees for BPCC employees - including presentation skills and English writing skills.  Finally, the BPCC extended its operations across Poland and the UK to strengthen its representation and reach; two new regional offices were opened in Poznań and in Yorkshire and Humber, a new representative was brought in to run the Krakow office with great success, representation in Gdansk was formalised and two mutually beneficial partnerships were established in Scotland and Hereford and Worcester.

Updating our Databases

One of the Chamber's key strengths is its extensive customer database which has been built up over the past 15 years.  However, the existing CRM system was not efficient and therefore an investment was made and 'ACT!' by Sage was installed. In the process of the installation, the data was de-duplicated, verified and updated.  This has been a crucial stage in the BPCC's marketing strategy as it ensures easy and efficient access to customer information by all personnel, targeted marketing campaigns, adherence to data protection laws and segmentation of information by a range of criteria.  The system offers advanced functions such as permission marketing and allows easy identification of under-involved members who can be proactively targeted.  All staff log their activity, ensuring no member receives unnecessary duplication of communications. The Chamber has also extended its contacts by buying databases from 3rd parties and this has enabled wider marketing campaigns which have proved extremely successful.

Retaining members

Membership continued to grow throughout the year from 456 at the end of 2007 to over 530 today.  Part of the success was due to early identification of under-involved members and widening participation through the development of free of charge activities.  One of these activities was the development of Policy Groups. By the end of the year seven groups had been established: Public Private Partnership, CSR, Public Procurement, HR, Healthcare, Environment and Energy, and Tax and Finance Reform.  There were some notable successes such as BPCC's participation in the "Partnership for Climate" programme related to the COP 14 conference.  As one of the official partners, the BPCC attended various governmental and non-governmental events on energy and climate and hosted the Climate Change Seminar in November 2008 - presenting best practice and the environmental policies of its biggest member companies such as Tesco, Waterman International and Atkins plus discussion on the role of the Government and private sector opportunities in the context of climate change.

In September, the BPCC conducted a membership survey with the objective of understanding the needs and wishes of its members and to improve its offering.  The survey showed many extremely positive results with improvements clearly having been made since the previous year's survey, demonstrating that the Chamber had reacted in line with its members' requirements.  The 2008 survey revealed some further areas where the Chamber could adapt and the business plan and marketing strategy for 2009 has been set according to these requirements, ensuring that the Chamber is truly customer-centric.

Improving Media and Marketing

As mentioned, the BPCC's strategy this year was largely based on building on existing strengths and maximising opportunities.  To this end, the Chamber employed a Marketing Manager to streamline promotional processes, ensure the Chamber's brand values are exemplified both internally and externally and to ensure that the Chamber's activities, communications and services are joined up.

With the new database in place, one of the Chamber's biggest assets became its reach to a targeted audience.  The BPCC offers a wide range of media including a number of newsletters, a bimonthly magazine and e-mailshots.  The database enables the BPCC to focus on specific audiences for these communications and this has opened up the promotional possibilities offered by BPCC media.  The Chamber now markets all commercial communication opportunities to both members and non-members in an integrated fashion, encouraging holistic campaigns across a range of media in order to provide a good return on investment.

The BPCC's media has also had a complete overhaul with the portal receiving a re-skin and new navigation system and the creation of the BPCC Blog as a platform to share the thoughts of the BPCC CEO and to encourage open debate. 'Contact' magazine was also redesigned with a tighter editorial focus and a fresher, more modern look. Brand guidelines were produced for e-mailshots to ensure all communications from the Chamber are immediately recognisable to members.  A great achievement for 2008 was €10,000 revenue raised by BPCC e-mailshots.

Promoting bilateral Trade

The development of the BPCC's International Trade Services was a key project in the final quarter of last year.  The Chamber has extended its offering for international companies looking to do business in Poland and Polish companies looking to do business in the UK.  The BPCC has worked in conjunction with the British Embassy in Warsaw to develop complimentary services such as partner search, translation services and market reports.  Trade Shows also performed fantastically well in 2008, showing a rise in income of 76%.  Highlights included a 171m² BPCC Pavilion, showcasing the best of Polish produce, at the International Food and Drink Expo in Birmingham's NEC.

A busy events programme

Events continued to prosper in 2008.  The decision was taken to focus on high-quality content at the Annual Conference, rather than income-generating speaker slots.  The approach paid off, with 30 notable politicians and senior business people speaking, providing BPCC members with thought-provoking debate and great value for money.  Top speakers included former premier and president and CEO of Pekao SA, Jan Krzysztof Bielecki; HM Ambassador Ric Todd; Witold Orłowski, Chief Economist, PricewaterhouseCoopers and former economic advisor to the President of Poland; and Douglas McWilliams, Chief Economist, Centre for Economics and Business Research to name but a few.  The BPCC Awards were presented to member companies at the conclusion of the conference with an improved selection of categories and a record number of nominations.

B2B Forums continued to be popular. Notable events included an International Finance Forum held at the Warsaw Stock Exchange, a Healthcare Forum which was patronised by the Polish Ministry of Health and the National Health Fund (the Polish NHS) and the British Polish Real Estate Forum which attracted over 120 participants and top speakers.

In the UK the highlight of the year was the BPCC-organised visit of Lech Walesa, former president of Poland, to Durham.  There he gave a fascinating speech to a business audience and gave the BPCC a foothold in the North of England for development in 2009.  For the fifth year running, the BPCC actively promoted trade and investment opportunities to companies around the UK via the BPCC Roadshow.  In 2008, St Helens and Doncaster were the venues for the half-day seminars, which attracted around 60 British businesses from North West England and Yorkshire respectively.  Also in the UK, the BPCC and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Poland organised an historic event at the House of Commons.  The seminar was the first of its kind to be attended by representatives of the Polish government and Poles in the UK.  Following on from this, a reception was held at the Institute of Directors with key note speaker Marcin Herra, CEO of PL.2012, outlining his approach to managing the complex issues around joint-hosting Euro 2012.

At the end of the year the 16th Annual Ball sold a record number of tickets (320) and saw members and supporters enjoy a sixties-themed evening with musical entertainment by The Beatles Revival Band from Czech Republic.  The event was one of many in 2008 attended and officially supported by HM Ambassador Ric Todd.  The Chamber continues to develop an ever-stronger relationship with the British Embassy in Warsaw as demonstrated by HMA's increased participation in events.

Being a responsible organisation

Although always involved in various CSR activities, 2008 was the first year the BPCC launched an official CSR policy and vastly increased its active support and participation in a number of initiatives both internally and externally.  This was in part prompted by 'CSR - Good Company Ranking 2008' research, published in Manager Magazin and verified by PWC, in which eight of the top twenty companies were BPCC members.  Amongst its CSR activities last year was an important agreement between the BPCC and Youth Business International which will become the leading programme in Poland to support disadvantaged people in starting their business.  Details on this and other CSR initiatives undertaken by the BPCC in 2008 are detailed later in this document.

European-funded opportunities The BPCC worked in partnership with various organisations to submit 5 bids for EU-funded projects.  Two have so far been successful - one project promoting knowledge transfer and best practice between women entrepreneurs and the second focusing on workforce development in the Mazowskie region across four key sectors.

David Thomas, BPCC chairman 

Honorary Treasurer's Report for the year ended
31st December 2008

For many of us 2008 was a difficult year. This economic downturn was felt by the Memberships' response to the services offered and carried out by the BPCC.

The 2008 budget, set in Autumn of 2007, was ambitious in the services that we wanted to offer to our members in 2008. Income for services comes from several sources including membership fees, patronage, sponsorships, ticket sales, paid events and premises rental. To keep the turnover at the level required by the plan, marketing and sales staff were costed in the budget.

The efforts of the marketing drive kept Membership levels high. This partly was due to the fact that the Membership fee income is spread over time. A drop in Membership numbers really only started coming through in 2009 during renewal time. However this cannot be said about income from sponsors, tickets sales and paid events. To prevent a drop in net income significant efforts were being made to organise and promote events. No matter what staff efforts were put into promoting an event in the first months of 2008, the resultant net income tended to be lower than in the previous years. More resources were being put into making these events successful, but without the desired results.

After running at an increasing deficit in the first five months of 2008, the Board took the decision in June to redo the budget. This was possible because the Management Accounting system in place gave the Board and Management sufficient detailed information on which to base their decisions and actions. The result was immediate cost cutting and the continued concentration on the basic services. The effect was that, the cumulative deficit was turned around with several months bringing in a surplus during the latter part of the year. This was despite of the fact that the Annual Ball generated its lowest surplus for many years. It can be said that the BPCC during 2008 broke even on its services to its members.

After several years of making an overall surplus, the consolidated Income Statements for 2008 show a deficit of 22,000 GBP. This deficit can be explained by unplanned costs not related directly to Membership services. First, the costs associated in restructuring and safeguarding the operations in the UK after the sudden departure of the manager with certain BPCC assets. Second, the higher than budgeted cost of temporary accommodation during the refit of the BPCC premises.

Apart from the deficit, caused by unplanned expenditure, there were two other factors which affected the cashflow. First, the move into the temporary premises caused a disruption in the work environment leading to loss in efficiency. Second, the refurbishment cost was higher than originally contracted due to problems with the air-conditioning unit. However as Debt collection was better than planned, a smaller write-off than budgeted was necessary. After putting these factors together and taking into account the surpluses made in earlier years, the liquidity situation of the Chamber is reasonable. The Balance Sheet shows Net Current Assets at 93,000 GBP and Net Assets at 31,000 GBP. The Fair Market Asset Value is materially higher.

With relation to the first few months of 2009, the cumulative operating results are better than budget. This shows that the Board and the Management made the appropriate decisions in June 2008 going forward.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the BPCC Management and staff for their efforts during 2008 to ensure that on operating activities, the Chamber broke even. I would also like to thank Baker Tilly Poland for their outsourcing services and the Auditors for completing their work before the planned time.

Joe Smoczyński, BPCC honorary treasurer

BPCC New Memorandum and Articles 2009