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National Secretaries met on 27th January 2023 in Lyon, France

Mr. Olivier Mazoyer, President of IUCAB, Mr. Matthew Tickle, Chairman of the SWG, and Mr. Christian Rebernig, Secretary General, welcomed the National Secretaries from 8 countries, who exchanged on current issues and discussed the situation of commercial agents worldwide.

The meeting was attended by Mr. Jacques Delétang (FNAC, France), Ms. Rachel Detain and Ms. Alexia Scotto Di Carlo (APAC, France), Mr. Eckhard Doepfer (CDH, Germany), Ms. Tintti Ikonen (FFTAF, Finland), Mr. Marco Righetti (USARCI, Italy) and Mr. Bror William Stende (VIRKE, Norway).

Mr. Tickle (The MAA, Great Britain & Ireland) opened the meeting as Chairman and handed over to the Secretary General who informed the participants on the current developments referring to the commercial agent profession. By referring to the social media activities, Mr. Rebernig underlined the importance to like, share and comment the posts. This will increase the community of IUCAB. Furthermore, the 12 key messages identified in the Study of Commercial Agents is continuously promoted on the social media channels in order to increase the visibility of the profession and to strengthen the relationship with manufacturers.

Mr. Doepfer reminded on the IUCAB B2B Platform as an important tool for commercial agents to be more visible on the internet. In particular with a public profile, which is a kind of an individual website, agents can present themselves, products and services to potential and existing customers. Once registered on the platform, they can create a public profile and also publish posts and upload pictures.

Mr. Delétang informed the participants about the IUCAB Training Survey carried out in autumn 2022 in order to evaluate the current situation and to come up with suggestions for improvement. He recommended to add to the current IUCAB Training program (3 modules) an additional module 4.
IUCAB is further interested in collaborating with universities to improve the offer of training programs for commercial agents, in particular to create an online training tool. Therefore, Mr. Righetti presented further steps in order to participate in an Erasmus project with other partners.

The 70th anniversary of IUCAB will be celebrated from 18th to 20th May 2023 in Berlin, Germany, where a Congress will take place for all interested stakeholders. Mr. Doepfer presented the preliminary program. A “save the date”-mailing for the Congress was already posted.

Regarding the George Hayward Award 2023 Mr. Rebernig reminded the Secretaries to participate in the tender and invited them to nominate their candidates until the 24th of March.

Furthermore, the Secretary General informed that the Adriatic Region Agents Association (ARAA) is currently being established and that an international business meeting is organised “Meet the Adriatic Agents” on 22nd March in Slovenia. Member Associations are kindly invited to participate in the event.

Finally, the national activities and successes of the year 2022 were presented. The participants will continue this useful exchange of experiences. The next SWG meeting will be held on 18th May 2023 during the occasion of the Delegates Meeting and the Congress in Berlin, Germany.

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