Knowing me, knowing you

Small firms are looking to networking groups

Small and medium-sized enterprises often find it hard to make a name for themselves and to secure new and bigger clients. Business-networking organizations, therefore, aim to help companies win new contracts and boost sales.

"It is all based on reciprocal terms. I help you, then you help me," says Grzegorz Turniak, president of BNI Polska, the Polish subsidiary of American firm Business Networking International, the world's largest business-networking organization.

BNI Polska started operating last April and has already established nine regional groups. There are five groups in Warsaw, while Bydgoszcz and Kraków both have one group each. Katowice and Łód? groups should start in May.

Each group consists of members from different segments of the economy and no two firms from the same industry can be present in the same group. Activity within each group is based on recommendations - someone looking for a specific contact can count on the other members.

"Networking is more like farming than hunting," says Tomasz Zdunek, president of Controlling, which currently holds the rotating leadership position of BNI's "Stars" group in Warsaw.

There are 200 member companies throughout the whole Polish network, most of them "medium-sized firms employing around 30 people," says Turniak. These are generally from service industries. The network also includes a number of single-person enterprises. "We also have representatives of large corporations such as Generali, Deutsche Bank, Commercial Union, as well as from WSE-listed Hyperion," Turniak boasts.

The annual cost of membership in a BNI group is zł.2,000. I think it is possible for a company to boost sales by at least zł.50,000-100,000," Turniak said.

Michał Pakulniewicz
Źródło: Warsaw Business Journal