► PAST EVENTS

BlueLink Australia

Customer relation Industry is currently experiencing a radical change due to technological evolutions and changes in customers’ expectations and needs.

Interview of Manuel Leistner, General Manager of BlueLink Australia, a customer service centre located in Sydney specialized in providing leading companies with high-value services.


What do customers expect from their customer service?

Customers need a perfect quality of services and an excellent level of expertise. To meet these expectations and to maintain high service standards while facing ‘the need for speed', outsourced customer service centres need to build strong relationship with their partners and offer them tailor made solutions. By doing so, the customer service raises the brands’ awareness towards the end customers and brings added value to each contact.

Instead of scripts and ready-made speeches, our strategy is to personalize the approach with each customer in order to deliver him the adapted services. The aim is to reach the best possible level of satisfaction by meeting the customer’s expectation.

A source of great added value for our business partners and their end customers is to be found by implementing multi-channel solutions. Today, we can clearly see an expansion of the communication channels with the emergence of social networks for example.

These new channels of communication give the customers the opportunity to interact with the product when, where and how they wish and choose too. This tendency facilitates the customers’ consumption. Companies prepared for this major change in consumer’s habits and having adapted their customer channels accordingly will expand their business dramatically. Read the interview

To know more about BlueLink International Australia: Directory FACCI
To know more about BlueLink Group: www.bluelinkservices.com

CORNILLEAU

Because of its ongoing commitment to innovate and offer a top quality product, Cornilleau has become the European leader while maintaining its roots and operating from the home village of its founding family, Cornilleau in Bonneuil-les-Eaux, l’Oise (France), where all tables are manufactured.

In 2011, Cornilleau launched its on-line store in Australia, and will market direct to customers to ensure the best value table tennis products. Throughout 2012 further additions will be made to the Australian product range.

Selected premium products shown on the www.cornilleau-store.com.au website can be ordered on behalf of customers subject to certain lead times.

Cornilleau offers a full range of table tennis products, for leisure and competitive use, with a presence in over 65 countries worldwide. Cornilleau is also a partner of the major table tennis events, notably contributing equipment to the 2011 World Team Cup in Magdeburg (Germany) held in November 2011.

For all enquires: www.cornilleau-store.com.au
1300 914 565

Tête-à-tête

• Could you please tell us more about your business?

Puratos is an international group providing a full range of innovative ingredients and concepts, application expertise for the bakery, patisserie and chocolate markets. Our customers include: artisans, big industries, retailers and companies in food services. We aim to be ‘reliable partners in innovation’ wherever we operate in the world, and so help our customers deliver healthy and tasty food for the communities they live in. We believe that people will attach more and more importance to the quality of their food in the future and we are committed to develop long-term professional relationships.

• Your company is present in 63 countries. What are the key of Puratos’s success?

At Puratos, we are global and we are close to customers and consumers across the world. We turn technologies and experiences from different food cultures around the world into new opportunities to ensure the success of our customers with their business operations. Our global presence provides us with a worldwide knowledge of food cultures and habits, giving us the opportunity to adapt very well to every market and customer’s needs. Our advanced technologies coupled with our knowledge of the market environment are driving our success.

• What are the specificities of the Australian market?

Do you need to adapt your products? The Australian baking and chocolate market is full of potential. The product offer is still very focused. Bakery and patisserie sectors are changing. The consumer demands more variety and higher quality standards. The chocolate sector is slightly more mature, certainly because Australian consumers are quite fond of chocolate itself. So generally speaking, from our point of view, the Australian market represents a real opportunity, with amazing development potential. Read more

To know more about Puratos Australia: www.puratos.com/en

PEUGEOT

 For more than a decade Peugeot Automobiles Australia and the French-Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry have enjoyed a close and mutually-beneficial relationship.

Both organisations boast strong and enviable histories of achievement, with Peugeot recently celebrating 120 years in automobile manufacturing and FACCI reaching the 113 year mark in supporting cooperation between French and Australian business.

The two companies have been aligned for more than a decade and both benefit strongly from the support and promotion of their businesses.

Last month, Peugeot sponsored the FACCI Golf day at Pymble Golf course which was a huge success. Peugeot has an exciting line-up of cars in Australia with the 207, 308, 508, 3008, 4007 and both commercial vehicles – the Expert and Partner vans.

This year, two all-new models will join the line-up starting with the 4008 in June this year. The 4008 is a compact SUV that takes Peugeot into a new (and extremely competitive) section of the market. In the third quarter of the year will come the all-new 208 hatch, the replacement to the current 207

With beautiful styling, a comprehensive engine line-up and the choice of both three and five-door versions the 208 is expected to be a big success when launched around October this year.

To know more about Peugeot Australia: www.peugeot.com.au

ESKER
Esker is a recognised leader in helping organisations reduce operational costs in the area of Financial Management and Customer Service by eliminating manual processes and simplifying IT environments.

Esker delivers the benefits of automated document processing as ‘Cloud’ services (SaaS) and on-premise solutions for all financial documents (invoices, statements, remittance advices, purchase orders, etc) and customer service activities.

Esker offers several integrated end-to-end solutions to automate every phase and every type of business information exchange with a strong focus on order-to-cash and procure-to-pay solutions and services.

On premise software solutions and ‘Cloud’ services include:
• Sales order processing
• Accounts payable automation
• Accounts receivable formatting and delivery
• Procurement formatting and delivery
• Enterprise faxing
• Enterprise mail services
• Customer invoice portal

Over 1,800 companies in Australia and New Zealand run their business with Esker. Customers achieve significant operational efficiencies, cost savings and ROI in as little as three to six months while gaining visibility and control within order-to-cash and procure-to-pay business processes ranging from sales order management and accounts receivable to purchasing and accounts payable.

Founded in 1985, Esker operates globally with more than 80,000 customers and millions of licensed users worldwide. Esker has global headquarters in France and in the USA. Esker services the Australia and New Zealand market since 1997.

www.esker.com.au

Histoires Cachées [Hidden Stories]
HOOPLA FESTIVAL, Darling Harbour, Sydney - April 6-9 2012
Have you ever wanted to listen in on the thoughts of a total stranger ?

Hidden Stories is an invisible performance, a site-specific event that blends itself into the urban landscape. Supplied with headphones, the audience is temporarily endowed with the power to hear the thoughts of certain passers-by and to follow them into the unknown.

A single rule of thumb: follow an ordinary object (an orange, a newspaper, a box of matches, or a pen) as it makes its way through the streets of the city. Like stepping into a film that mixes fiction with reality, the audience embarks upon a rare and poignant adventure.

Available in French or English
Original music : Peter G. Holmström (The Dandy Warhols, Pete International Airport...)

April 6, 7, 8 at 11:00, 15:00 and 19:00
April 9 at 11:00 and 15:00

To obtain a password and secret location details email your preferred performance day and time to begat@darlingharbour.com

Performances in Sydney, Australia are made possible with the support of INSTITUT FRANCAIS, the French Region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and the Embassy of France in Australia.

www.begat.org

Archibald, Wynne & Sulman 2012 winners
Tim Storrier wins this year’s Archibald Prize for his self portrait

This year, the 91st year of the Archibald Prize, there were 839 entries, 783 entries for the Wynne, and 654 entries for the Sulman.

The Archibald and Wynne prizes are judged by the Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The judge for the Sulman Prize was Susan Norrie.

The Archibald winner receives $75,000, the winner of the Wynne Prize for landscape painting or figure sculpture receives $35,000, the winner of the Sulman Prize for subject/genre painting and/or mural receives $30,000 and the winner of the Watercolour Prize (part of the Wynne Prize) receives $2,000.

Imants Tillers wins this year’s Wynne Prize for Waterfall (after Williams).
Nigel Milsom wins this year’s Wynne Prize for Judo House pt 4 (Golden mud).
Susan J White wins this year’s Watercolour Prize for Salamander Bay.

On view
31 Mar – 3 Jun 2012
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art Gallery Road, The Domain, Sydney

Footnote

Email contact@facci.com.au with “Footnote” in the subject line and win 1 FREE Double Pass ticket!

Director: Joseph Cedar
Cast: Lior Ashkenazi, Shlomo Bar-Aba, Yuval Scharf, Aliza Rosen
Genre: Drama
Runtime: 106 minutes
Censor's rating: TBA
Film release date: 19 Apr 2012

Footnote is the story of a great rivalry between father and son. Both eccentric professors have dedicated their lives to their work. The father seems a stubborn purist who fears the establishment. His son Uriel, appears to thrive on accolades, endlessly seeking recognition.

But one day, the tables turn. The two men switch places when the father learns he is to be awarded the most valuable honor one can receive. His desperate need for recognition is betrayed, his vanity exposed. Uriel is torn between pride and poisonous envy.

Will he sabotage his father's glory? Footnote is the story of insane competition, the admiration and envy for a role model, bringing father and son to a final, bitter confrontation.

Le Havre

Email contact@facci.com.au with “Le Havre” in the subject line and win 1 FREE Double Pass ticket!

Le Havre is a 2011 comedy-drama film written and directed by Aki Kaurismäki, starring André Wilms, Kati Outinen, Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Blondin Miguel.

It tells the story of a shoe shiner who tries to save an immigrant child in the French port city Le Havre.

Marcel Marx, a former bohemian and struggling author, has given up his literary ambitions and relocated to the port city Le Havre. He leads a simple life based around his wife Arletty, his favourite bar and his not too profitable profession as a shoeshiner.

As Arletty suddenly becomes seriously ill, Marcel's path crosses with an underage illegal immigrant from Africa.

Le Havre was produced by Kaurismäki's Finnish company Sputnik with international co-producers in France and Germany. It is Kaurismäki's second French-language film, after La Vie de Bohème from 1992.

The film premiered in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, where it received the FIPRESCI Prize.

Kaurismäki envisions it as the first installment in a trilogy about life in port cities. His ambition is to make follow-ups set in Spain and Germany, shot in the local languages.

What the critics have said:

'Finding Solace, Oceans From Home' - New York Times

Le Havre: Cannes 2011 Review - Hollywood Reporter

Finding whimsy in gritty city life - The Washington Post

► Thank you to our Patron Members for their support