Expert in Games’ tendering process tells firms to start early
Jim Jamieson
Province
Margy Osmond established the Sydney 2000 Olympic Commerce Centre to help local businesses. Photograph by : Ric Ernst, The Province
The table is set for B.C. businesses to take advantage of opportunities afforded by the Vancouver Whistler 2010 Winter Olympics, says an Australian bureaucrat familiar with her country’s experience at the Sydney Games in 2000.
But companies must mobilize right now if they are to reap the economic benefits — both in the run-up and following the Olympics, said Margy Osmond, CEO of the State Chamber of Commerce of New South Wales, and who established the Sydney 2000 Olympic Commerce Centre in 1997, which guided businesses through the games’ tendering process.
“It’s really hard to understand when you haven’t been through a Games to understand the enormous impact it has on the area,” said Osmond, in an interview with The Province yesterday. “The Olympics is probably the most impressive catalyst you can have. B.C. looked really hard at what Sydney has done and has leveraged it. From what I’ve seen so far, B.C. is way ahead of the pack.”
Osmond will deliver the first of three addresses today to the Vancouver Board of Trade to kick off a speakers series — introduced by 2010 Legacies Now — which is meant to highlight Olympic opportunities for B.C. businesses. Osmond will also speak in Kamloops tomorrow and in Prince George on Thursday.
According to a study done by consultant PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Sydney Olympics generated about $2.5 billion in business outcomes. Osmond added that about 80 per cent of the contacts related to the Games in a competitive bid went to Australian companies.
Osmond said the key advice she would give to B.C. companies is to polish up their business plans and get involved right now.
“I think the most critical thing is engagement early, as soon as possible,” she said. “We started talking to the business community probably about three to 31/2 years out. I think you are very lucky that the [B.C.] government has chosen to invest in the 2010 Legacies Now and the 2010 Commerce Centre so far out from your Games.”
Osmond said that businesses from centres outside Vancouver and Whistler should be able to benefit along with those geographically close to the games. Of the aforementioned $2.4-billion impact, about $424 million went to regional companies outside of Sydney.
Maurice Levi of University of B.C.’s Sauder School of Business said with various factors stoking the provincial economy, the Olympics are coming at an inopportune time for overheated sectors such as construction.
“Whatever numbers we get from the Olympics are smaller now than they would be in normal times because we’re having to compete for those workers rather than take them out of the slack labour pool,” he said.
Osmond said it’s a case of businesses making a choice and seeing the value.
“They will have to judge,” she said. “If they don’t, it will open the door to other companies from across the continent.”
© The Vancouver Province 2006
