EVENTS - 8 - 9 October 2004

Growing the Business through the Asian Hub: Meeting of the Asian Offices, Bangkok

AFAQ and AFAQ ASCERT Asian country offices attended a two day meeting in Bangkok.  Delegates from Thailand, Taiwan, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Pakistan, France and the UK were present.

The meeting was jointly chaired by Alister Dalrymple, International Director of AFAQ and Dr August Tsai, Vice Chairman of BestCERT, Taiwan. Alister is also the new Managing Director of AFAQ-EAQA Ltd.

One of the themes of the meeting was to look at the opportunities to license AFAQ-ETA quality management programmes.  Bill Fenton, Director of Training, gave a presentation on how to run a training business in Asia.  This presentation can be downloaded using the link on the right-hand side of the page.  Elaine Clark, Managing Director of UK Empower Training Services Ltd, spoke about how her training business worked with AFAQ-ETA and their experience of training delivery for the power sector in Asia, the Middle East and Australia.

Dr August Tsai and Alister Dalrymple introduced delegates to the new Asian hub and how it will improve and add value to their certification businesses.

Beverly Galloway, Director of Certification from AFAQ-EAQA, spoke on accreditation, the way the hub office would work regarding certification and the overall auditor qualification process.

Carolyn Harris, AFAQ-EAQA’s Marketing Manager made presentations on standards currently offered, marketing and communications support and initiatives available to Asian offices.

Finally, workshops explored new products which were needed along with how to establish a training business.  Courses to train Asian office trainers would take place in 2005, probably in Bangkok.