Lars Millberg

Originally Posted by Lars Millberg

A Swedish daily magazine (IDG.se - Strst p IT, dagliga IT-nyheter, tester, forum, guider och nyhetsbrev mm) wrote the first article about the Benche in Sweden and are now doing a follow-up interview. They want to know about our experiences and how the Benche have developed since launch. In order to bring more "meat" to the interview would we really appreciate to get some direct feedback from the members. Please post your experience and/or comment in this thread.

What is good?
What is missing?
What can we do better?


With anticipation
Lars Millberg

This years SIBOS is now a memory and the reflection time have come. Below will I list a couple of non-business reflections plus some traffic report from Shanghai

1) People - there were no risk of getting lost in Hong Kong. There were people showing you the way every third meter. Especially in the lunch room. When you entered the lunch area was it like 25 people, standing in a perfect line, welcoming you and showing the direction. It was however impossible to miss since there were another guy, just three meters away, showing the direction again. And on it goes.

2) Humidity - It was very warm and humid in Hong Kong, but you could easily avoid the outside and just walk through different air conditioned malls all the time. Very good.

3) Shanghai traffic - The car drivers in Shanghai have a tough job. But in order to be prepared for a possible obstacle in front of you, you simply drive in the middle. A little bit between the lanes. In that way can you easily avoid upcoming obstacles. In theory it works. In practice it doesn't work since everyone is doing it. In a three lane highway can it in practice be a five lane traffic. But somehow they make it work. As soon as there is an obstacle (a guy who stopped his car in the middle of the highway for a break, a pile of dirt from a nearby construction area, someone selling something etc) the traffic just "flows" beside the obstacle. Its like a river that just take another route if you throw a rock in it and it works without people getting upset. I know that there are traffic fights, but I haven't seen anything. I'm just amazed that it actually works.

Getting used to travel is in my case impossible. Its now 03:45 in the morning and I can't sleep. I knew I shouldn't have taken that 45 minutes nap after dinner tonight. I make all the mistakes you can do in order to avoid jet lag and I never learn.

I could of course use the time and work a bit but connecting to Internet from the hotel here in Hong Kong is ridiculous expensive - 120 SEK/24h? What is that? I pay that per month back in Sweden. But I guess, since nobody pays the high telephone cost (remember those?) do the hotels try to get some margin back on the wireless Internet.

Nevertheless, first day done and the pace is very good. We've have met with a lot of banks today and discussed various business opportunities and also discussed around organisation and other risk related issues.

We have a Taifun here in Hong Kong tonight and the authorities sends out warnings where they recommend us to stay indoors and eat at the hotel because they were expecting winds of 41 to 62 km/h.

It didn't seem to bother the HK people that much though so we decided to take a walk in the city. Big mistake. It was like walking in a waterfall.

Tomorrow (read today) I will do a 30 minutes update of the Benche on the stage here in HK. Really looking forward to that.

Every year, somewhere in the world, do approximately 6.000-7.000 people from the financial industry meet for five consecutive days. They share ideas, exchange business opportunities, learn and develop relationships. We will discuss issues around anything that have to do with banks communicating to banks. Which means.. everything a bank do - Trade Finance, Custody, Cash Management, Clearing, Supply Chain Financing etc. It is a very cost effective way since the day normally start around 7:00 am with a breakfast meeting or a seminar and ends around 22:00 with a dinner somewhere and during a SIBOS day do you have around 14-15 meetings which of course is very efficient. This years SIBOS are in Hong Kong and at SEB are we preparing ourself rigorously as usual by numerous preparation meetings and making sure that we meet as many institutions as possible.

I will actually speak about the Benche this year. Last years SIBOS was just a month before we launched the Benche so we didn't dare to tell anyone anything. It's a bit different now.

I'm looking forward to meet friends and colleagues in order to get some feedback.

I know that some people that are members on the Benche will be there. Don't hesitate to contact me if you want to take a quick coffee together or just chat for a while.

It's the last day before we close 2008. A very strange year. Institutions that I thought would live forever has closed and we will for the first time in many years see a declining world trade with risk for protectionism. 2009 will be interesting.

The Benche has now been live in 6 weeks and the number of visitors are increasing. We have now have visits from 101 countries.
Most visitors come from Sweden but Lithuania are closing in on the gap followed closely by Germany. It's very interesting to see the statistics from the site and I keep an eye on the development every day. We now have members from almost any corner of the world. Use the knowledge that is available.

One thing worries me though. The same thing that worried me during the project. What shall we do to encourage people to post? The number of posts are too few. The idea with the Benche was to create a place where people involved in international trade could meet up and share their ideas, doubts, questions or other relevant issues that they want to have input on.

The studies we did prior to the project launch all told us the same story - more than 75% told us that they would share and discuss trade issues if there was a platform available. Now we have it, but it doesn't really fly..

The Benche offers a possibility to be anonymous. If you want to change and just show your login name and hide company name is there an option for that under "User settings". If you want to change your login name (alias) you can use the "Contact us" form.

We will during the spring perform a member survey with the objective to fine tune the Benche to fit your needs even more. Meanwhile, please give us feedback in the "Feedback" forum.

Personally don't I have any doubts for the success of the Benche, but it may take a little longer time than I expected.

Happy New Year

Lars