Harcourts’ Business Leaders Conference sets tone for big year
The Harcourts Business Leaders Conference (BLC) 2010 was held last week and attracted more than 400 delegates from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, South Africa and China.
Harcourts is growing rapidly, with nearly 630 offices globally. To cultivate this growth, the company has a strong focus on innovation and communication in all facets of the business.
The Business Leaders Conference is designed for Business Owners and Managers throughout the Harcourts Group to analyse the year gone by and share information about what worked and what didn’t to make the year ahead an even bigger success. Included in the programme are interfirm comparisons, where individual businesses provide their financial information which is then used to compile reports which benchmark their business against the entire group and industry.
There were many other sessions spanning the three days, including business sessions on recruitment, maintaining profit post-recession, property management and leadership.
Harcourts Managing Director, Mike Green made several significant announcements, including The Harcourts Foundation’s milestone achievement – it has now raised more than $500,000 since its launch only 18 months ago.
“Our heads of departments also outlined a number of significant initiatives being undertaken this year in technology, marketing and within our training Academy,” Mr Green said.
“Among the many achievements announced, Harcourts launched its latest iPhone application, http://news.harcourts.net/news/ and the Academy announced its RTO status now across every state in Australia, including Victoria, an industry first” he said.
The conference also featured several high quality guest speakers including keynote speaker Giam Swiegers, CEO of Deloitte Australia and motivational speakers James Castrission and Justin Jones; the two young men who kayaked across the Tasman Sea in 2007 unassisted.
“Mr Swiegers addressed Harcourts Business Owners and Managers about how driving deeply into his organisation has supported business growth, recruitment and performance. What Giam has achieved with Deloitte is remarkable, so to have him share just how he went about it was a real privilege for our Group.” Mr Green said.
“Our focus on innovation and collaborative communication is critical in a rapidly changing 21st century,” he said.
“In fact we regard innovation as a responsibility not just a right for all our practitioners.”
This is the first conference for the year for Harcourts, with the national sales Conference happening in May 2010.
“The Conference in May usually attracts upward of 800 delegates from within the Harcourts family, which is a massive event that only gets bigger with each year,” Mr Green said.
