Special Announcement from Birches Group and Emergence Growth

Author:
Warren Heaps – Birches Group LLC

This post is a bit of a departure from our normal content, which usually focuses on the “how-to” of international human resources management.  Today we are making an exception to bring you some exciting news.

This week, my company, Birches Group LLC entered into an agreement with Emergence Growth, led by another one of our authors here, Yendor Felgate, to work together to expand our customer base in Africa.  Emergence will become the exclusive agent for our compensation and benefits surveys in Africa, focused on private sector companies that operate across multiple countries.

From their base in Johannesburg, and with affiliates in several other countries, the Emergence team will help us to ramp up our services to clients in Africa, one of the most significant growth markets in the world.  In addition to survey marketing, we will also collaborate on selected client projects in the region. You can also read the official press release.

It’s a Small, Virtual World
With apologies to Disney, there is another side to this story, however, and it’s about networking.  I “met” Yendor virtually via LinkedIn in early 2008, before this blog even began.  He had just started his company and was looking to connect with other folks in the same space.  We met in person a few months later while I was on a business trip in South Africa.  We had a lot in common, having both left long careers with major companies to start or join a small business. Then came the blog, and I invited him to be a contributor. Since then, our businesses have grown, we haven’t had so much time for writing, and we started working together on some client projects.

We live in amazing world, one where a small company in New York and Manila can connect with another small business in South Africa, on a virtual basis, and then grow the relationship into a productive business deal.  For those of you who are not working in your own business, but instead, for larger corporations, I encourage each of you to take advantage of the modern tools available for making connections in today’s world.

If you’re on LinkedIn, and we are not connected yet, send me an invitation, and mention the blog.  Join  my group, too, if you’re interested in developing markets.  If you like what you read on this blog, leave a comment, engage in a discussion, ask a question, or tell us what you really think!  If you have a topic you want  us to write about, let us know.  If you have a topic you want to write about, we’re interested in that, too. We all learn by sharing our experiences and knowledge with each other.  For me, it’s not just about building my business, but also strengthening the international HR community.  As you probably know, we have readers from over 100 countries.

Thanks for reading and supporting the International HR Forum.  I hope to hear from a lot of you very soon!

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