Transcontinental - Rémi Marcoux's acceptance speech

Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends and colleagues, good evening.

Thank you Guy, for that generous introduction, particularly since it comes from one of Transcontinental’s biggest clients. A client and partner. Indeed, our Transcontinental Metropolitan plant, which has been printing La Presse since October 2003, is the result of a unique partnership between our two companies. A partnership that is based on the shared conviction that newspaper publishers will increasingly focus on producing quality content, and will entrust the printing of their papers to printers who have the expertise and state-of-the art equipment to do the job.

Guy, you were a visionary. The readers and advertisers of La Presse have benefited from your courage and determination for a year now, with excellent results. Thank you once again for your trust in us.

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Without further ado, I’d like to tell you how honoured I am to be the recipient of the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award. Being chosen the 2004 winner for lifetime achievement is an accomplishment of which I’ll always be proud, and which reflects well on the entire Transcontinental family.

First I’d like to thank the members of the jury for this honour. I am certain that the decision was not an easy one because our business community has many great leaders. At this point in my life when I am starting a second career as executive chairman of our board, I will try to continue to show that I am worthy of this recognition.

I’d just like to mention in passing that my new job is fascinating. In addition to overseeing the board, I continue to supervise the major strategic directions of the Corporation and advise the management team. And as I have always encouraged our executives to keep in touch with the shop floor, I am continuing to set a good example by visiting our news rooms, offices and printers from time to time. Believe me, when you throw in a few personal projects as well, I’ve been very busy!

I’d also like to thank Ernst & Young for creating the Entrepreneur of the Year award and supporting it for the past 11 years. I have always had great admiration for initiatives that pay tribute to our entrepreneurial achievements and bring greater attention to their authors. Entrepreneurs are a collective asset, and key players within the community. It is essential to celebrate their successes, just like we celebrate achievements in the cultural, social and sports worlds.

In fact, when we acquired the newspaper Les Affaires in 1979, when it was almost bankrupt, our goal was to provide more information about Quebec’s economic progress, about the people driving it and about the major issues of the day. Les Affaires was the first of our business publications, which now includes the magazine PME , one of the sponsors of the Entrepreneur of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award.

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An honour like the one I have received today is not earned in isolation. Many people have contributed to it. That’s why I wanted to share this evening with you all.

Share it, first of all, with the members of my family, because to me, the immediate family is the basis of any personal and professional commitment. My spouse and long-time advisor, Carmelle, and my children Nathalie, Isabelle and their respective spouses, Patrice and François, as well as my son Pierre and his spouse Caroline, have given me the balance I needed in my life to achieve my career goals and, above all, my dreams. I’d like to particularly thank Carmelle who, through her unconditional support, has allowed me to take on every challenge and exploit my talents to the full without having to worry about anything other than succeeding.

I also belong to a larger family, the family of the Beauce region, which was a veritable hotbed of entrepreneurs. With time and distance I’ve come to understand that the Beauce is much more than a geographic location. It’s a state of mind, a fierce desire to show that one can complete projects and do business. Through me you are also paying tribute to the great entrepreneurial family of the Beauce.

I learned three things growing up: one, if you want land to produce you must tend it constantly; two, that any work worthy of the name requires patience, consistency and perseverance; and three, in every enterprise we should remain modest, and our primary ambition should be to leave the heritage left to us in a better state than it was when we took over.

At this moment I have a very special thought for my father, Ulric Marcoux, who was my very first model. He sold the family farm to open a general store in Saint-Elzéar and built a thriving business. The values he taught me as a child have never ceased to inspire me and are now part of Transcontinental’s corporate culture. Among others, those values are openness, simplicity, respect for others, solidarity with our partners and communities, customer satisfaction, the importance of communication and, above all, the a passionate commitment to doing the job well.

I am also grateful to my earliest collaborators like Claude Dubois and André Kingsley, who founded Transcontinental with me, and to the managers and employees who have made it a successful operation for the past 28 years. That is why I wanted representatives of Transcontinental to be here tonight at this event.

This leads me to talk about the crucial importance of team work. Beware of executives who say they are solely responsible for the success of their companies. It’s team work and the quality of the people who work with you who are the architects of that success. That was the case right from the beginning with my two associates. Team work is also fundamental to our Horizon 2005 business project, which is aimed at adapting the values and methods that have made Transcontinental a success from the very beginning to the demands of the economic environment of the 21st century.
Team work also means respecting others. To me, no matter what your social standing is, respect for individuals is a cardinal value. In the business world, the men and women who put their hearts into making a company work deserve our respect, no matter where they are in the hierarchy.

Lastly, the raison d’être of a company is the customer, and the customer’s current and future needs. At Transcontinental, we have made that our guiding principle, and have built our business model on it as well. The inevitable corollary is that to serve customers well, you need motivated, trained and happy employees.

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Since this evening I am addressing a select group of top executives, I’d like to say a few words about our role as protectors and promoters of the integrity of our companies, internally as well as in the public eye. The people we work with and all our employees look to us to set an example, and to see how we are applying the company’s values. We need to remind ourselves about where we come from, and about the communities our employees live and work in everyday.

We also need to remind ourselves, and those around us, that the personality and conscience of a company are as important as its performance.

Ethics in business is built on many small acts. The common denominator is that we take into account the effect our actions have on others, and the expectations our partners have of us. The universities that train our future managers must demonstrate the importance of ethical conduct in business. Far from being viewed as a limitation, it should be seen as a competitive advantage for our companies.

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Let me add in closing how much I admire the dynamism and richness of the companies who are finalists in the Entrepreneur of the Year award. They are an asset to our society. I belong to the generation historians call “Quebec Inc.” There has often been a certain uncertainty expressed about what comes after Quebec Inc. I’ve always been an optimist and the quality of the companies represented here tonight confirms that the Quebec business world is in good hands, now and in the future.

The recognition you have received this evening should be seen as an incentive to continue to surpass yourselves with your teams. In business you cannot rest on your laurels. Tomorrow always presents new challenges.

For my part, over the past 28 years I have had a chance to realize a great dream. In the space of a generation, I and the people I work with have built a major corporation with a solid foundation. But my dream does not stop there. Companies should be built to last generations. Transcontinental has everything it needs to do so: excellent managers, motivated employees, shared values across the company, a business model and the desire to succeed. I will not hide my happiness and pride at the fact that members of my family work in the management and operating sectors of Transcontinental.

My wish therefore is that we continue our success in the coming decades, to the greater good of our employees, our customers, our shareholders and the communities in which we operate.

Thank you for your attention.