A Planning Workshop for Accredited Practice heads and Board members in February defined priorities for 2010 for IMCA as more proactive external representation, promotion of accreditations and liaison with public procurement bodies. 

The events / CPD programme continues to be organised around support to members in today’s challenging business environment.    Events are mainly run by members and targeted both for those new to consultancy and as a refresher for experienced consultants. 

Events dealing with marketing / lead generation and the sales process were held in November and January, a Technology for Consultants event held in April and one dealing with the role of Social Media in marketing support planned for May.

The AGM will be held in June with a supporting event based around presentations by members based on recent national media articles they wrote on the topic of Ireland’s economic recovery.  A joint Medal event is being scheduled with IBC NI for Belfast this year, to be held in June also.

Events are also being run by our special interest groups – for independent consultants mainly in the Eastern region and for consultants based in Munster.
The CMC award is being promoted locally and internationally, and a number of CMCs are now set up on the ICMCI global database.  An online version of the CMC applicants’ seminar is set up on the web site.

A significant upgrade of the web site is in hand to address member requirements from a survey in 2009 and this will provide a significant improvement in functionality and flexibility in the web site as IMCA’s online presence.

A survey of the Irish consultancy market carried out in line with the annual FEACO European survey of consultancy provides useful information on the market size and trends by service line and industry sector.  This will be carried out annually in future.