Where The Perfect Firm was Born

The first question came up in my head when my company offered me the opportunity to attend JHI Conference in Brisbane, “Why should I attend this conference?”

Here is my own experience.

On the first night I came to the conference, I met many new people coming from various countries, with different culture, different profiles and experiences. Most of them were Partners or Managers, so that they could share a lot of experiences about their business growth, what they have been doing for their company, and how they build their relationship with clients. At that time, I noticed only few of their experiences could relate to mine because they were already on the top of their careers. But they still were excited to share their thoughts and experiences with a “youth” like me. I gained a lot of insights listening to their stories.

The topic of the two-day seminar held during the conference was “The Perfect Firm”. During the seminar, I had opportunities to spread out into different discussion groups. But given my personality which is not naturally outgoing, getting into discussion groups with new people I just knew was quite intimidating, but it helped me to develop my confidence. During the seminar, all of us the participants learnt together from each other’s experiences in leading and running a professional practice, so that we knew each other’ struggles, and what each other did when we faced ups and downs in business.

At the end of the seminar, I was motivated and refreshed with more knowledge and new ideas from other members of JHI. I find this as important, because it could help my company to set up new strategies to be applied in solving problems occuring internally. The conference provided me with the right access to seek professional advice from other JHI members on behalf of my company.

But I earned valuable experience not only during the conference. I was also given the opportunity to come and do a hands-on observation in a JHI member firm in Brisbane for a week, that is with Charts Partners. My main task was to observe and study their business model in order to come up with practical suggestions for my company’s management for our internal continuous improvement.

During the week, I learned about Charts’ Partner’s business practices through observation and discussion. What was interesting is that I realized that what I have learned in the seminar about “The Perfect Firm” was real. With my presence there, I could see the real process and result from what we had been discussing together in the seminar. The ideas and theories of a perfect firm we learnt a week before, they had been doing it from several years back.

It was very impressive for me to see the business processes at Charts Partners, from how their works flow, how they do client services, their work environment, their leadership style, and so on. Everything worked simultaneously, because they have built a good workflow structure, detail SOPs and and scope of work for every service they offer. With all the structures and systems being set up, just by putting them into practice basically can lead everyone in the Firm to work effectively and efficiently.

That one week with Charts Partners was filled with a lot of valuable knowledge-sharing and deep discussion that I had been looking for. I hope to apply or modify them for my company in Indonesia, to help our practice grow and continuously improve to get closer to that ideal of a perfect firm.

Now I understood why attending a JHI conference is very important and beneficial for my personal growth, which then can also lead to my company’s growth. I could say that Charts Partners is one of the real models of a perfect firm. Myself, on behalf of my company, is benefited from having the access to observe directly from Charts Partners. However, without JHI, I would never have come to know Charts Partners.