Intranet Benchmarking Forum opens the door to companies in Asia-Pacific and mainland Europe.

The Intranet Benchmarking Forum, a confidential intranet and portal benchmarking group of UK, US and global organisations, has responded to demand and launched two new membership tiers--IBF Asia-Pacific and IBF Europe.

Formed in 2002, the IBF claims to be the world's foremost intranet and portal benchmarking group and is acknowledged to have established industry standards for intranet and portal performance.

Paul Miller, IBF Chairman and CEO, said: "The mission of the IBF is to drive forward the performance of member intranets and portals through interaction, measurement and best practice and we have created these new membership tiers as a direct response to significant demand from corporates across Asia-Pacific and mainland Europe looking to join the forum." "Intranet managers in corporates across these new regions," continued Miller, "can now benefit from services that include independent benchmarking of their intranets and frequent opportunities for interaction with their peers in member-only meetings and intranet 'tours'. We also provide members with a programme of exclusive, high-quality research into best practice in intranet management."

IBF Asia-Pacific members are expected to come from Asia-Pacific Top 1000 organisations and the 'founders meeting' takes place on 11th March in Sydney, Australia.

IBF Europe's membership is expected to be drawn from the Dow Jones STOXX 600 and the inaugural meeting is scheduled for 22nd April in Zurich, Switzerland.

Organisations such as Syngenta, Novartis, BMW, Siemens, IBM and Nokia are expected to attend.

Both 'launch' meetings will include live tours of an IBF member intranet, discussions on current challenges in intranet management and an in-depth working session looking at IBF research into 'employee directory: wave three'.

www.ibforum.com