The Fife Chamber team began a substantial change programme in autumn 2016 to re-engage its members and make it easier for them to understand the different ways in which we can help them to achieve their goals.
Our event programme has been revamped around four themes, each of which meets a different business need. Enhancing business performance and international trade are the focus of two of the new programmes: Fife Learn and Fife International.
Fife Learn shares business knowledge and know-how across our growing membership, brings new business thinking and ideas to the fore and develops our members’ workforce by broadening their staff business awareness and knowledge. Each Fife Learn programme focuses on a single business theme and utilizes different platforms to share knowledge and experience.
A programme typically features one or more Master Classes presented by firms who have already made it to the top by being ‘great’ at something, combined with expert workshops delivered by local Fife Chamber members.
The first programme showcased Innovation with a Master Class from the Global Head of Logistics at GSK and workshops on R&D Tax Credits, Design Thinking, Creativity and Overcoming Inertia. The second programme is examining Change Management. There have been two Master Classes and workshops are being delivered by seven different member companies.
One of the most innovative aspects of Fife Learn is the emphasis on getting the members that are presenting workshops to work collaboratively with each other and with the Chamber event team to co-ordinate the content of their individual sessions.
The third Fife Learn programme on Customer Service will start in early 2018 with a Master Class from the CEO of Schuh, one of the UK’s most successful retailers.
Fife International is less well advanced in its implementation but equally ambitious in its intent. It will address the real need of a significant proportion of the membership for practical support to realize their ambition to trade more widely than they do now, whether that is across the rest of the UK or internationally.
It will build on our existing Trade Partnership with Fife Council, Business Gateway and Scottish Development International and it will integrate into the growing international networks being formed by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) and the Scottish Chambers of Commerce to give practical support and global reach to Fife’s exporters.
Many of Fife’s most successful businesses have become members this year. We are particularly proud that Amazon has signed up to become a member: the first time this has happened anywhere in the UK. All of these new members are coming together with our existing partners to make Fife Chamber an exciting place to be and the natural home for the Kingdom’s businesses of ambition.
