About

MCI Group has offices in over 60 cities on 6 continents serving associations seeking to grow their business outside their home markets for education, certification, meetings, and membership. Each MCI office operates under a WOFE (wholly owned foreign enterprise) business license that is recognized by local authorities giving clients turnkey ability to open regional offices or run meetings with strong local professional staff support that can promote local customer interest, generate sales, attract endorsements and sponsorships, organize logistics and operations, reduce currency exposure, and develop more locally relevant programming. MCI meeting and conference clients can also enjoy our internationally friendly online housing, registration, and abstract management portal making it easier for customers and members to register and manage their international conference experience.

How do you go about building a sustainable business?

What would it look like?

How do we get our Board to support it?

This blog is about answering these questions. After 25+ years of success with US associations, we believe building and sustaining growth in today’s international markets requires a global strategy with regional planning and a local infrastructure for execution.

For some it might be leading with products and services while for others it’s all about membership. But regardless of your approach, if you can’t build community you won’t succeed in attracting and sustaining interest among customers, members, partners, funders, or endorsers in any market.

Covering over 62 cities in 32 countries, MCI’s 1800+ team members traverse a product practice in international association management, PCO, meetings, and Ovation DMC across six continents. We’ll share what we have learned and encourage you to contribute your own thoughts and ideas as we explore the world of international association management with you.

The GrowGlobally.org agenda covers what MCI considers to be the core drivers of establishing and sustaining a global business and are featured in “sections” on the horizontal navigation above that are visible on any area of this site.

In the coming months you can look forward to reading actual, practical approaches and solutions to real world challenges that you can use to plan your own projects. Here are some examples:

Market & Business Plan – sound market analysis with a business plan should become the foundation for a global growth strategy
Product Management – sell them what they want not what you have… by adapting product to local need
Membership – community is cultivated by enfranchising local/regional members to help build member value that is meaningful to those in the region
Member Services – regional and local infrastructure is critical to provide the right competencies and local thinking to execute repeatedly while mitigating risk
Advocacy – whether it’s regulatory issues, philanthropic outreach, or social responsibility see how others are promoting issues and building support
Channels – part of your sustainable business model must include Partners, Sponsors, Funders, and Sales Feeders
MarCom – it isn’t just translating your material but knowing that to communicate and position yourself to maximize opportunities you need to adapt yourself to local markets
Meetings – from large Congresses to small meeting… find out how to develop strategy, promotion campaigns, and secure the destination resources you need to provide quality meeting experiences anywhere