Vice President's Greeting

This continues to be a very difficult time for BC's manufacturing and exporting sector with weak demand on a global basis but especially in the US, coupled with a very strong Canadian dollar in comparison to some other currencies but, again, especially with the US dollar. As a result, many companies have struggled financially and have had to become more productive and efficient, seek out other markets, be innovative, and much more responsive to customer requirements. The good news is that some members of the BC Division have, and continue to develop, leading edge products, technologies and services that not only serve customers here and throughout Canada, but the world over.

CME's BC Division is working hard to support the success of this sector. Our programs include:

Helping companies to focus on customer success and be more productive and efficient by becoming a Lean Enterprise;

Providing programs to help reduce energy consumption and address environmental issues in order to reduce costs;

Improved productivity/competitiveness and product innovation;

Business development, including trade missions, in the US and globally with recent emphasis on emerging markets such as China and India, as well as countries like Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand;

Human Resource development; and

Best practices benchmarking, including site visits with other companies to see first hand what successes they have achieved that others can duplicate.

In addition to these types of programs we are also focused on:

Effective advocacy; and

Market/business intelligence.

We must be doing something right because in the past two years or so, we have tripled our membership, which, presumably, can be directly attributed to the delivery of membership value.

With a very active Board, membership and partners, we offer a very full program of events, services and funded programs that really do impact the "bottom line".

Please contact us to see how we can help you!

Sincerely,

Peter Jeffrey Vice President, CME British Columbia