The Concept: What is Branch in a Box?

Branch in a Box is exactly what it says it is, when someone asks the Institute how they can set up an Institute branch in a new country then we want to be able to give them a metaphorical “box” with everything they need in it. This would include roles, responsibilities, byelaws, committee guidance, International structures, membership, and education processes and systems capability.

Why do we need Branch in a Box?

Paul Brooks, President, CILT International, laid out his five year strategy at Convention 2014 which follows the mantra of growth:

• Working with fast growth countries such as India and China to set them on the path to be the largest countries by membership numbers over the next five years
• To establish the processes that allow one new country presence per quarter in order to have over 50 territories and branches within five years
• To create a global corporate offer for those organisations that want to work with CILT in all seven global regions
• To regionalise our growth plans through supporting and developing the role of International VP’s to work closely on a regional basis with countries in order to grow all elements of their services to members 

The new vision, mission and values set a clear agenda supporting the theme of being ‘Stronger Together’. Branch in a Box will provide the tools and processes to enable the implementation of this strategy.

What are we planning to do first?

There are some elements we can put in the box to start with to act as information packs for prospective branches. At the same time we can also assist existing branches and will make this information available to all. However, the key first investment is in the processes and systems; we have already developed our new education database and we are now looking to develop a new systems capability at a global level.

The Systems Scope

A new Website front end

We are preparing plans to deliver a new International website over the next couple of months with the same address but a total new look and feel to the opening pages, a route into the existing web site of each country and a template and design that can be used by new and existing countries to build their own pages.

Improved Secretariat Systems

Currently we have all our central International data saved on various spread sheets and in different formats which makes it difficult to access and not easy to communicate to all our partners around the globe. We plan to bring this data onto one centrally accessed database and set out communication protocols for the International community.

Branch System and Process Capability

The third stage is for us to provide simple education and membership processes and systems for all new branches to use. These will be aimed at branch start ups with an optimal branch size of 50 to 500 members. For larger branches we will be seeking to work with CILT Australia and CILT UK on making available their systems on a global scale and will be testing the feasibility of this further.