Centrallia, Global Business Forum - a Futurallia event by ANIM

Centrallia big for small business

Winnipeg Free Press

By: Martin Cash

Mariette Mulaire, organizer of Centrallia, stands outside her office at the old St. Boniface City Hall.

There are probably not many people more pleased with the timing of the creation of a new high-powered economic development marketing machine for Winnipeg than Mariette Mulaire.

The always-gracious St. Boniface dynamo is the CEO of ANIM (Agence nationale et internationale du Manitoba), the bilingual trade agency that promotes Manitoba trade with francophone markets in Canada and abroad on behalf of the province.

Mulaire doesn't sell widgets or any other manufactured goods but she may be your company's best international sales rep even if you don't know it yet.

That's because she's also in charge of organizing a massive international small- and medium-sized business event in Winnipeg, called Centrallia, scheduled for Oct. 20.

If Yes! Winnipeg is going to become the city's economic development sales and marketing agency, Centrallia will effectively be its first trade show.

The event is franchised from a French organization that has been holding these small business "speed-dating" experiences -- called Futurallia -- all over the world.

Last month Mulaire led a group of Manitoba businesses to a similar event in Poitiers, France.

Futurallia events are more prominent in the francophone world and this will be the first one in North America staged outside Quebec.

But whatever consternation there may have been regarding attendance no longer exists. Last week Mulaire booked the second floor of the Winnipeg Convention Centre for the three-day event because international interest has been so strong.

"We didn't know how many people or how many countries were going to be interested," she said. "We did not really have any idea.

"Now it's becoming more clear."

Mulaire is no longer concerned about the level of international interest, but now her challenge is to make sure the right mix of companies attend -- and that the home-town participants do not get disappointed by waiting too long to register.

There are already 68 delegation leaders from all over the world all but committed and they would typically bring about 10 delegates each.

One of the realities that has always made Winnipeg a challenging sell on the economic development front is that it is such a diversified economy that's not stacked with a lot of prominent head offices. But Centrallia's focus on small business is right in Winnipeg's sweet spot.

"The businesses that come to Centrallia are all small and medium sized," said Mulaire. "And that's what we are made of in Winnipeg."

The fact that so much interest has been generated internationally and across the country (there are more than a dozen delegate leaders from Ontario) should have local businesses licking their chops.

There are more than 50 local businesses confirmed to attend so far.

Westeel, the steel storage bin manufacturer, is one. Andre Granger, vice-president and general manager of Westeel, was also at the Poitiers event in France last month.

Granger has only been at Westeel for a couple of months, but the company was already committed to expanding its international network.

He came away from the Poitiers event with two great leads in Turkey and France, so significant that he will be on a plane to Turkey in a couple of weeks to meet with a potential partner that could become a major distributor for Westeel's grain bins throughout that part of the world.