Top speakers for international conference

by a staff reporter

A number of high profile speakers will be addressing an international conference – ‘The Challenges Facing Management in an Enlarged Europe’ – being organised by the Malta Institute of Management next month.
In collaboration with CECIOS – the European Council of Management – the Malta conference on Friday, 3 November, will feature nine local and foreign experts who will be discussing ‘Customer relations management’, ‘The challenges of new technologies’, ‘Realising the full potential of people’, ‘Strategy in action’ as well as ‘The human factor as the success of tomorrow’s enterprise’.
The conference has been divided into three distinct yet inter-related
sections.
This first session of the conference will revolve around freedom of choice as the new paradigm with competition and cutting edge technology being the drivers. A strong brand and aggressive marketing are no longer enough to secure future business. In a scenario where customer loyalty is fickle and new entrants are constantly changing the rules of the game, the challenge to the organisation is to stay ahead of the pack and to obtain the biggest share of customers. Customer relationship management is becoming the key strategy. The “know your customer, customise the offer and manage the relationship” culture is forcing the organisation to continuously try to re-invent itself through product development, enhanced services, and superior delivery channels. This session will tackle technology as it continues to develop at an alarming rate, probably too fast for most companies, big and small.
This momentum continues to bring us closer to the true global marketplace – one level playing field. Mobile telephony, the wireless office, management information systems, the Internet – all these are causing us to re-think our existing methods of doing business and creating new markets, new opportunities. But threats abound also. In Europe, SMEs are already showing signs of being too slow to adapt to this revolution, in comparison to their counterparts in the USA and the Far East. Those who opt not to keep up with technological advancement may not survive.
This last session will look at the way the demands placed on organisations require that they adapt to change at a very fast rate in order to maintain their competitive advantage. All elements making up the organisation need to be flexible enough to change and adapt to the needs of the environment in which they operate. In a knowledge-based society where organisations are service rather than manufacturing oriented, human resources remain the most important resources, which these organisations have. The flexibility of the workforce will be paramount for the organisation to survive and adapt in an ever-
changing environment.
Among the speakers are Dr John C. Grech, one of Malta’s leading economists, an experienced business and management consultant and an accomplished corporate leader, will be a keynote speaker.
Jan Diekmeijer spent 31 years working for IM. For the six years ending in June 1999, Mr Diekmeijer was director Human Resources of IBM Netherlands with the responsibility of restructuring the organisation. He is a visiting member of the Nyerode University and publishes regularly Dutch magazines on Human Resource Management issues.
Glyn Macken holds the post of deputy director general and director management development with the Institute of Management, United Kingdom. He is an authority on competence-based training and qualifications, with particular emphasis on the benefits that companies and organisations obtain in undertaking this form of development. He is well known as a speaker on leadership and management style.
Dr Alfred Darmanin hold degrees in mathematics, philosophy, and theology. He also graduated as a clinical
psychologist from the University of Louvain in Belgium and obtained his Ph.D. with a specialisation in managerial psychology from Berkley in
California.
He is currently senior lecturer of the Psychology Department at the University of Malta. The conference is seen as one of the many tangible services that are being provided to members of the Institute and will no doubt provide up to date topical Management Information for all participants as well as the rare opportunity to network outside the busy office environment.

For more information contact: Malta Institute of Management, Management House, 86, The Strand, Sliema, SLM 07. Tel: 322950/1/2, fax: 322953, E-mail: mim@mim-malta.org.