Speed-dating event takes off

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DAVID LIPNOWSKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Ingibjorg Snorradottir, left, manager of Icelandic jewelry maker Uppsteyt, meets with Bijou Treasures co-owner Ashiq Katoo at one of the company's Winnipeg stores Thursday. The Icelandic jewelry company has made a deal with Bijou Treasures through Centrallia.

Katherine Devine admits she really didn't know what she was doing when she attended Centrallia two years ago.

This time she fine-tuned her approach and the president and owner of Kiysquared, a high-end Winnipeg market research firm, came away from the business speed-dating event with some successful results.

She scored six solid leads before lunch on Thursday, the first day of meetings.

There were plenty of stories on the massive third-floor meeting room of the Winnipeg Convention Centre of companies coming with a more strategic plan and more determined to get the most out of the international business-connection event.

More than 700 small- and medium-sized companies from 30 countries are taking part. It's designed to attract small businesses that wouldn't necessarily have the resources to do international market development on their own. Each company is assured of at least 14 face-to-face meetings in sessions held Thursday and today.

"We came in 2010 and ironically we really didn't understand the concept all that well even though there was good information out there," Devine said.

This time she honed her pitch, emphasizing new product development research, market assessment and concept.

With that approach, Devine made contact with three Winnipeg companies during events held prior to the speed-dating sessions and has followup meetings lined up. She also made two solid leads with firms in South Dakota coming out of Thursday morning's speed-dating sessions.

"So in the next couple of weeks I'll be taking a road trip to South Dakota," she said. "I'm really happy with how it went."

There are some detractors who discount the value of Centrallia, saying it's really just a networking event. Organizers of Centrallia emphasize the value of connections that can be made and stress followups are required to firm up the initial potential contact.

But deals do get made on the spot as well.

Ingibjorg Snorradottir, the manager of a successful Icelandic jewelry design firm called Uppsteyt, landed her first Canadian retailer this week at Centrallia. Bijou Treasures, with two stores in Winnipeg, has agreed to carry her full line and she also made a sale with the Winnipeg Art Gallery shop.

Snorradottir said there is no way she could have found a Canadian partner for her third-generation family business without the benefit of these kind of organized, face-to-face meetings.

"This was our first step. I would love to be in other cities in Canada," said Snorradottir.

And her connection with Bijou owners Leonie Coulson and Ashiq Katoo might be able to help with that as well. Coulson said she'd assist Uppsteyt in making contacts elsewhere in Canada.

It is also a whole new experience for Bijou. The company has never been on the receiving end of a pitch to carry an international line.

"We're really excited," Coulson said. "We would never order something like this from a catalogue. I feel that the style and inspiration is similar to ours. And the personal connection we made with Ingibjorg was very important."

In that deal, Coulson, Katoo and Snorradottir benefitted from pre-meetings held before Centrallia. Four companies from Iceland attending the event came a few days early and asked organizers for help in meeting some likely partners before the event. Snorradottir was put in touch with the Bijou people and hit it off.

The concentration of determined business people from as far away as Algeria and Argentina with an increasingly savvy Manitoba small-business sector that is more tuned in to opportunities in the global market has given this year's version of Centrallia a little more intensity than was the case last time.

Mariette Mulaire, one of the organizers of the event, said when it was held in 2010 there were many local businesses that registered out of a sense of responsibilty to support a worthwhile event for the Winnipeg business community.

"This time there are more local companies registered who know what to expect and have a real plan in place," she said.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca

Centrallia strategies

THE general idea of Centrallia is for small- and medium-sized businesses who don't typically have the time or resources to comb the global marketplace for partners, suppliers or customers, to all get together in one room at the same time to do deals.

But it's not just about deals. Centrallia is heralded as a place to make initial connections that then require followup for future development.

Some companies use the event as an opportunity to embark on longer-term business development projects and there's plenty of local businesses who find each other at Centrallia.

Glenn Crook, vice-president of commercial services for the Royal Bank of Canada in Manitoba, had a meeting at Centrallia in 2010 with a local company that offers translation services.

"It wasn't me the person wanted to meet but he wanted to see if I could help him get in touch with RBC officials in Toronto," Crook said. "I admired his creative approach."

As it turned out, Crook was able to help the Winnipeg translation company get in touch with other RBC people and the company was successful.

This year, two of Crook's senior account managers who specialize in manufacturing and information technology had two full days of meetings lined up.

But those meetings weren't so much to find new clients for the RBC, as they were to see if there were contacts that could be made for existing RBC clients.

"We grow if our clients grow," Cook said. "This is an opportunity for our clients to grow. That's why we want Centrallia to be successful."

-- Martin Cash

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 12, 2012 B5