As I write in mid-March 2019, many improvements have been delivered to ASM overall since 2016/2017 through our Operations Group’s focus on the four key performance initiatives under the ASM Renewal Operating Plans: Membership and Revenue Growth; Improved Financial Health; New Technology Deployments and Competencies; and Improved Foundation Support. I will continue in subsequent columns to update you on the specifics of these improvements, as I have in recent columns.
However, here I am focusing on a comment about the Renewal, which I occasionally hear from members: “What is this Renewal thing doing for the Chapters?”
As background, recall that I have previously articulated that the time-phased Renewal improvements would positively impact our satellites, namely the Affiliates and Chapters, in the later stages of the three-year Renewal arc. This timing arose because we needed to fix people, processes, and technologies inside the Dome before addressing their parallels outside the Dome.
The high-level Renewal program with respect to supporting Chapters has always been targeted at rebuilding the trading relationships between Chapters and the Operations Group. Our first step in fulfilling this direction was to license STEM Premier on behalf of all ASM, including the Chapters. Although still not widely implemented, STEM Premier remains a potentially valuable tool for Chapters to identify young people in their area who can be introduced to ASM by participating in camps, high school credentialing, college activities, and other early school/career engagements.
Earlier this month, ASM announced the release of four new Digital Short courses, with three more in progress over the next quarter or so. The creation of the Digital Short courses, which carry professional certification, is specifically targeted at helping Chapters. The dual goal of the courses is to provide Chapters with training content for either monthly meetings or online access, and deliver incremental revenues under a favorable split with the Dome.
Right now, we need to find a few Chapters willing to work with ASM Operations to test out the process and business relationships, which when finalized, would make Digital Short Course delivery a substantial benefit to the Chapters. Please let me know if you would like to participate in the roll-out testing.
William T. Mahoney, CEO, ASM International
[email protected]
This excerpt is from the April issue of Advanced Materials & Processes (AM&P).
