This department also encourages and aids in every way pos sible all movements for the improvement of industry and commerce. Trade associations, educational institutions, and scientific societies are fostered, supported, and utilized by it. The organization of such a department consists of three divisions: i. A division for inspection and appraisal, consisting of ex perienced industrial engineers who visit the plants of industrial customers or prospective applicant customers and make a keen study of the plant, its management, and determining factors, reporting to the home office their findings, conclusions, and recommendations.
2. A division for auditing and accounting, which likewise studies the accounting system in vogue and devises improve ments or instals a complete system of cost accounting.
3. A clearing house division, which assembles, digests, and disburses information on cost systems, purchasing methods, production methods, traffic problems, federal and state industrial data, building design and construction, shop and office plan ning, machine design and construction, power and lighting methods, insurance problems, advertising problems, educational and betterment work, industrial civics, industrial service publicity problems, statistics, etc.
The Foreign Trade Department—The Commercial Representa tive The foreign trade department is a recent innovation, born of our expansion in foreign trade during the past decade. The chief function of this department is to assist the merchants and manufacturers of the United States who are interested in foreign trade and to cultivate and secure the good-will and confidence of foreign business houses. The ultimate object is to secure, through service, new and larger business for the bank.
To perform these services the foreign trade organization con sists of two parts: (i) the department headquarters at the parent bank, and (2) branches of the department attached to the foreign branches of the bank and consisting of a commercial representa tive, usually part of the credit department of the branch; if the bank has no foreign branches, the commercial representative abroad may be resident or traveling, native or American.
The branch or commercial representative collects the informa tion in the field and sends it to the home office, where it is further digested and synthesized and then distributed to present and prospective clients by conferences, letters, publications, etc. He
collects data for reports and discusses in these reports such commercial questions as trade-mark laws, customs, tariffs, and methods of securing government and other business of a public nature. He keeps track of the changes in general shipping and facilities, public works, etc., and gathers information regarding governmental, municipal, and other bond issues and other pro posed financing which may affect commerce or be useful to the bond department. He sends to the home office any new periodi cals and statistical books which may be of value to it or the bond department, watches for new government publications that may come out, prepares and furnishes the home office with any ma terial which may be useful and interesting for printing in the bank's publications, interviews the visiting representatives of United States merchants and manufacturers, learning wherever possible the business that they have (lone. He compiles and keeps up-to-date lists of firms or individuals who are suitable to act as agents of United States concerns and lists of the names of reliable houses, by trades, suitable for the bank's customers to deal with, and co-operates closely with the credit department in the compilation of names and all other matters relating to both departments, etc.
The commercial representative tends to become a local busi ness-getter for the local branch, and it is he who furnishes the personal touch between the manufacturer and his local clients. He must be zealous to develop his field, yet conservative in sug gesting the doing of business by other than the established channels; he must be a reliable judge of business prospects, and diplomatic in turning down undesirable proposals. He may write letters of introduction for foreign business men about to visit the United States, where the home office arranges that they meet desirable clients and assists them as much as possible. In case unusually good opportunities open for particular lines of business, the representative may cable the facts to the home office and thus give the bank's clients first opportunity to avail themselves of those opportunities.