Special Interest Groups

Purpose for Developing Strategic Interest Groups

To serve the dynamic and growing niche-based needs of the MSNA membership, special interest groups (SIG) have been the mechanism of choice for exchanging best practices; knowledge transfer through conferences, workshops and teleconferences; development of newsletter articles; create a channel through which to seek engagement assistance and technical guidance; and build “productized” services to meet emerging market opportunities.

SIGs have focused on either industry or practice areas that prove to have critical mass. While no one quantitative metric, such as number of members who are professionally involved, can determine whether it makes sense to form a SIG. There is strong belief, however, that SIGs benefit the membership by achieving the overall organization goals, which includes enhancing the level of member participation and interest, as well as strengthening the communication between the members of each firm. SIGs, if effectively operated and managed, can achieve the following:

• Form new and strengthen existing alliances with appropriate organizations and vendors in order to enhance MSNA’s capacity to fulfill its mission.
• Develop means for formally recognizing, advocating and supporting niche practice areas (e.g. forensic, wealth management) and informing member firms about training and education and assisting staff levels in raising level of practice competence.
• Align the SIGs and SIGs committee structure to enhance decision-making processes so that productized services and other deliverables can be available for the benefit of MSNA members

Purpose Behind Forming a SIG

A SIG can be formed due to market-driven conditions. Members express an interest in connecting with other members who share a common interest in topics such as banking, wealth management and forensic services. Once the support is determined, a 5-6 person committee is formed to lead the strategic direction; potential costs of operation are calculated and incorporated in the budget.

However, before any special interest group is formalized, there are three (3) factors to consider:

1. Expertise. This considers the size of the market offering the particular service or the numbers serving a particular industry.
2. Interest. This considers whether there is a critical mass of practitioners with a shared interest, which would warrant the creation of such a SIG.
3. Economics. The administration and cost of deliverables should not be a drain on resources, while at the same time, if there is a reasonably attractive intangible return on investment, and then plans should proceed.

Key Drivers

MSNA, with the advent of a new association management system in spring 2007, will have the capability of greater and much improved communication mechanisms. Most, if not all professional associations provide their members with online and in-person forums to facilitate communication and support for specific niche or specialty practices. SIGs will provide MSNA opportunities to have is member firms communicate with one another; exchange information; ideas; solutions; resources; contacts and references, along with opportunities to establish networks with other members to achieve synergies and innovative deliverables.

Benefits of SIGs

Some of the advantages of well-run SIGs ---

• Greater understanding of every firm’s capabilities in a particular area
• Synergies created by collaborative effort of active firms
• Achievement of economies through consistent sharing of materials
• Instant database of skills and expertise
• Potential for consortiums to derive additional engagement opportunities