Mumbai Witnessed a Galore of Industry Leaders Under One Roof to Discuss Association’s Growth Opportunities and Concerns.

The 2nd edition of India Association Congress was successfully held on 24th-25th August 2012 at Trident, Nariman Point, Mumbai, India. The two-day program witnessed panel discussions on various subjects like the role of association in nation building, the future direction for India’s associations sector, fostering great connections with member and stakeholder engagements and role of events, opportunities and challenges for international associations, recruitment and retention for associations, etc.

Some of the eminent industry leaders including Prashant Saha, Managing Director, CIMGLobal; Dr. K R Gangadharan, President of the International Federation on Ageing; Dr. Ashok K Gupta, Padma Shri Award winner and a renowned reconstructive Plastic Surgeon, and Vibhav Kant Upadhyay, Chairman, India Center Foundation graced the occasion with their presence, among others.

Commenting on the occasion, Prasant Saha, Managing Director, CIMGlobal advised the Associations, “Communication plays a major role in building and sustaining an association. Also, it is important to realise that this is a time to move forward and clarify each doubt at the first in order to have a fruitful result. IAC advises to adapt upcoming technology as your right hand power at every step to ensure accurate result within specified time limit. For better representation bring in new blood as it has more potential and an urge to rise and catch up the sky if in case they miss to do so they will still be among the stars.”

The IAC 2012 witnessed industry veterans addressing the issues related to an association like, lack of capability to innovate in terms of program delivery roles of associations in nation building, a decline in membership, and a lack of capability to innovate in terms of program delivery, etc.
Vibhav Kant Upadhyay, Chairman, India Center Foundation, compared the old world functioning to today as he said, “Associations are pillars of democracy. The world is a confused place today. Definitions we have created are all artificial and systems we have in place have been created some 250 years ago. At that time, aspirations were very limited and natural resources were unlimited. Today, aspirations are unlimited and natural resources are limited.”

He further said, “India cannot ‘cut and paste’ the same models as is being used in other parts of the world. We have to understand the limitations and advantages of India and create a new model that maps our aspirations to resources available. The point of nation building is to address what kind of nation we want to build.”

Dr. Ashok Gupta (Padma Shri), Association of Plastic Surgeons of India cleared the myth around nation building. He said, “Many people believe nation building is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Although Tata’s and Birla’s have been emphasising about CSR since long, but CSR in India is still at a very nascent stage. Companies and Associations need to understand that a construction of healthy population leads to healthy nation.”

Martin Sirk, CEO, International Congress and Convention Association, The Netherlands said, “Twenty years ago meetings were entirely different. Like mobile phones were very expensive then and lacked complex functions. But today, people use smartphones to share information which is not being provided by meeting organisers but by third parties.”

The event was successful in creating the most important platform for decision makers of various associations and non-profit organisations to network and share best practices to identify new products and revenue streams, and incorporate them into a successful business plan.

Alfons Westgeest, Kellen Company, said, “Associations have difficulties in areas such as, maintaining a high calibre work force because of increased competition for highly competent workers. Also, an increased mobility of today’s work force along with the maintaining the pool of truly motivated, experienced and professional staff is also a big challenge.”

With the huge response garnered in the second edition of IAC 2012, this extravagant event for knowledge and enjoyment will soon come back next year on a much bigger scale!