Strategic partnership on the horizon with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business

One plus one can equal three. Everyone in business knows this, if each of the partner organizations adds value for the benefit of their member companies. This is where the interests of the Well Made Here (WMH) program and those of the mighty Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) have intersected.

The CFIB supports 95,000 member companies across Canada, has 10 regional offices and 400 employees, and marked its 50^th anniversary with the slogan “In business for your business”. It offers political lobbying services, management consulting, online training as well as discounts and preferential rates on a dozen key expenditure items for any SME.

WMH management will soon be able to divulge to its hundred or so participating manufacturers, partner banners and associations their eligibility for substantial savings on the fees required to be a member of the CFIB, which normally break down as follows: monthly payments of $30 per company and $3 per employee.

“I can’t reveal everything yet, but I can already tell you that the costs per employee will drop to zero and the monthly payments of $30 will be significantly reduced,” proudly discloses Richard Darveau, CEO of WMH.

Therefore, at extremely affordable costs, each company that joins the WMH program will be able to benefit from the following three services:

• free management consulting advice in the fields of human resource management via 35 bilingual advisers, and in the management of SMEs, taxes, levies and regulations
• more than 50 free online training courses valued at $2,000 per employee, mainly in personnel management, customer relations, occupational health and safety, compliance and business development
• discounts and preferential rates representing savings of over $5,000 per year per company on insurance, credit card rates, accounting software, parcel shipments, and more

“We will also make the most of opportunities to link up with CFIB government relations experts to enhance our political influence,” hopes Mr. Darveau.

A pivotal step in the final negotiation, a census of WMH companies who are already members of the CFIB must be carried out systematically in order to offer them the advantages secured thanks to the new partnership between the two organizations.

Thus, as part of a call campaign, the newly hired intern will make starting next week, each WMH company will be asked to indicate if it is already a member of the CFIB.

The partnership agreement, with an initial three-year duration period, allows the CFIB to sign up companies operating in the same sector of activity en masse, which represents a financial advantage for this organization and an improvement of this political legitimacy.