CCBC expands its operations, prepares intense programming, and offers even more opportunities and services to its members. Check.
By Estela Cangerana
If 2020 was a year that took everyone by surprise and forced the world to move to a new reality, 2021 has everything to reserve rewards for those who knew how to adapt efficiently and quickly. For a chamber of commerce such as CCBC, this has meant aggressively intensifying the networking, broadening the geographic scope, efficiently transposing services to the digital environment, and supporting the transformation of its members to do business in the challenging scenario that opens the new year. Today, the proposal is to offer opportunities to accomplish all of this through events, missions, and services, that have just been announced.
As an example, there are the four business rounds already scheduled for the coming months, which will cover different economic segments. The first of them will happen in April, contemplating buyers and sellers of food and beverage, an activity that has proved extremely promising in the relations between the two countries. The event will also represent another chapter of a work that has been developed by CCBC over the years and that was not halted by the 2020 pandemic. The last round of the segment took place last November.
CCBC’s virtual B2B meeting model should be maintained as the only option until there is sanitary safety. When control of Covid-19 permits, in a next step, the Chamber plans to offer events and business meetings also in a face-to-face and hybrid manner. “We expect the realization of missions of this kind at the end of the year”, says the director of Institutional Relations of CCBC, Paulo de Castro Reis.
However, he clarifies, the possibility of the online format will not be abandoned, once it has been bringing quite positive results and has additional benefits. “The virtual model makes democratic the relationship opportunities and extends the participation of companies and professionals from different regions of the two countries. We could prove this with the experiences we had last year, with the generation of real business offers in equal conditions among participants from different locations. Presential meetings can cause geographic limitations”, explains Castro Reis.
Amplitude and expansion
The figures confirm it. The scope of CCBC’s activities and the services provided to its members grew considerably in 2020. Last year there were 40 new memberships, 25% of them in Canada. Among the Brazilians, although Sao Paulo still predominates, there was the registration of companies from other eight states.
Currently, the Chamber has important national representation in both Brazil and Canada. In Brazil, CCBC represents companies from 13 states, covering all regions of the country, a regional diversity which is also present in its memberships made in Canadian territory.
Statistics concerning the service to these members also continue to rise, proving the effectiveness of the virtual system. In 2020, the increase in the number of services provided was of 102% compared to the previous year, with nearly 1,800 services provided, within the three categories offered: internationalization and business, visibility and networking, and support to events.
In the words of Castro Reis, this is a movement that should be intensified even more this year. “Our wide network of relationships in all the regions, sizes, and segments, in both countries, allows us to offer more and more qualified services, as well as the effective approach between partners, who really complement each other and can accomplish business”, he says.
Networking
CCBC’s activities to promote this networking in 2021 include the implementation of an annual calendar of monthly meetings, comprising all of the 10 sectorial commissions, and in February, the launch, of a new weekly bulletin with the main news from relations between Brazil and Canada, news from the members, cultural information, and the holding of several events throughout the year. It is still planned an expansion of the two festivals, successfully launched last year: Canada Day LINK\/(in July), and Brazilian Week Online Festival (in September).
Additionally, CCBC will continue to offer opportunities and information through its current channels, such as the Explore Magazine, the monthly newsletter, social networking activities, special publications, podcasts and market research, information campaigns, and events with partners.
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