Shared Services. Cutting costs, Innovative Strategies.

Axiom Groupe, together with Ajuntament de Barcelona and Hotel 1898 presents its 3rd annual event in Barcelona.

‘Understanding key issues of SSC in a changing economy’
‘Innovative back office strategies to lower total business operating cost’
‘Constantly re-adjusting BPO to perform ROI and cash flow’

A two-days conference held at Hotel 1898 where you will learn and share experience with Schindler, Lafarge, BNP Paribas, Vodafone, Alcatel-Lucent, UPS or Nordea Bank, among many other real Case Studies and Round Tables.

Ajuntament de Barcelona will be offering the End of Conferece Exclusive Cocktail, with Jordi William Carnes, Deputy Mayor for the Treasury and Economic Promotion of the city.

Detailed information can be found at Axiom Groupe website.

Everything ready at Gracia

Gràcia’s 2010 Festa Major or annual local festival (14 to 22 August) will be filling the district with concerts, workshops, exhibitions, sporting events and competitions, street parades, fire, giants, food, human towers and much more. There’ll be something for everyone. Prizes will be handed out for the best decorated streets on Tuesday 17 August.

Activities such as free beer tasting, children’s jigsaw-puzzle competition, exhibitions, story telling, gastronomy, courses and workshops for everyone, karaoke and street concerts to suit all tastes in the old town, from Habaneras to pop rock and disco music, as well as Celtic music, jazz, blues and rap, among other things.

Catalan tradition will be present as well, with bonfires, correfocs, traditional dances and parades, passacaglias, giants and human towers.

Barcelona in Shanghai: 1.5 million visitors

1.5 million people have already visited Barcelona’s Pavillion at Expo 2010 Shanghai.

Visitors can send messages of late friendship, through an e-book, to Joan Antoni Samaranch, the Honorary President of the International Olympic Committee and a key figure in securing both Barcelona’s and Beijing’s bids to host the Olympic Games. Among those who have already written a message we can find FC Barcelona players. Regarded as the person who held the most sway over the Olympic movement during the 20th century, Joan Antoni Samaranch was instrumental in securing Barcelona’s bid to host the 1992 Olympic Games, an event that would mark the city’s history for ever.

The Barcelona Pavillion is located in the area dedicated best urban practices from around the world. Next to it is a small square where an exact replica of Gaudí’s Dragon is on display.

Gracia Festival: Barcelona’s biggest and most colorful street party

Probably Barcelona’s biggest and most colourful street party, the Festa de Gràcia gets underway on August 15th and, during one week, seventeen streets will be decorated for the celebrations, on another year of this historical event. The first reference of this festivity dates back to 1817, when Gràcia was a small village, and not yet absorbed as a neighbourhood by Barcelona.

Gràcia was established in 1626, in the surroundings of a convent called Nostra Senyora de Gràcia (Our Lady of Grace). Gràcia was an independent municipality until it was annexed to Barcelona in 1897 along with other villages in the plain of Barcelona. The expansion of the Eixample  district in the 19th century eventually led to the northward expansion of Barcelona, connecting Gràcia to the growing metropolis.

Given the confirmation that some two thirds of the event’s visitors will be attending its morning, afternoon and early-evening activities, it will hold its main family-interest shows and cultural events at those times.

Still, the night party may stretch out to 2 am during the week and 3.30 am during the weekend, with concerts and music.

The first event of the Festival was the poster contest. Aina Cordoncillo, local illustrator, has been selected among 268 participants, and her poster will be the Official Poster of the Festival.

Shared Services, Cutting Costs & Innovative Strategies at Hotel 1898 Barcelona

Axiom Groupe, leader in production of conferences and communication, delivering business intelligence and strategic information, continuing their partnership with Hotel 1898 in Barcelona, announces its 3rd annual event: Shared Services.

From this event, September 22nd - 23rd, you will learn:

• Shared Services: insourcing versus outsourcing
• Global Sourcing, Expected Behaviours, Team management, Leadership
• Global Service Delivery Model combining efficiency and value added
• Meeting transformation targets through outsourcing and Offshoring
• Getting your Top Management support for the Shared Services Centre
• From Efficiency to Effectiveness in Shared Services
• People and culture
• Tax and control of SSC
• Getting the internal control framework right
• Key technologies in your SSC
• Creating a winning culture of SCC
• Re-ajusting your BPO to gain cash flow
• Managing complex reorganisation projects of the planning stage

A conference specially designed for General Managers, Presidents, Vice Presidents, Directors & Managers of Finances and Outsourcing.
Further information can be found at this PDF file.

Live FIFA World Cup 2010 from Barcelona

Núñez i Navarro Hotels will offer you for free the FIFA World Cup matches on TV. We have all the matches, all the national teams, both on the Group Stage and the Rounds of 16, Quarters, Semifinals and the World Final of July 11th.

The FIFA World Cup, also called the Football World Cup or the Soccer World Cup, is the most widely viewed sporting event in the world. The championship has been awarded every four years since the first tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not contested because of World War II.

Seven nations have won the title. Brazil have won the World Cup a record five times, and they are the only team to have played in every tournament. Italy, the current champions, have won four titles, and Germany are next with three titles. The other former champions are Uruguay, winners of the inaugural tournament, and Argentina, with two titles each, and England and France, with one title each.

Stay at our nine hotels in Barcelona city center and follow your national team from your hotel room in Barcelona !!

Primavera Sound. 10 years of the best indie scene

Barcelona has been enjoying the very best on the indie scene for ten years now, with wide-ranging genres including rock, pop and even electronica. In fact, Primavera Sound has gained a reputation for avoiding labels and for hosting all and sundry artists, from the very new to the most established.

The 10th Primavera Sound festival will be held on 27, 28 and 29 May at the Parc del Fòrum but throughout the week there will be fringe concerts at the city’s clubs and other places like the metro and the parks.

With over a hundred groups playing at the festival, there will be a huge range of acts. One of this year’s main themes will be 1990s pop, with groups like The Charlatans, Bis, Pavement and Pixies.

The Athens group is one of those returning to Primavera, along with Wire, The Fall, Low, Shellac and Wilco. The latter, along with the Pet Shop Boys and Orbital, will be topping the bill at a festival where small print is very important.

For example, you need to bear in mind groups like The XX, Beach House, Wild Beasts and No Age, who are coming with some of the year’s most interesting ideas.

All that, not to mention cult figures like Gary Numan, the pioneer of electronica, Marc Almond, a real pop icon, and Hope Sandoval, who will be accompanied by The Warm Inventions.

Lo-Fi is another feature of Primavera with The Bundles, a new group made up by Kimya Dawson, a former member of The Moldy Peaches, and the singer-songwriter and comic artist Jeffrey Lewis.

More inf@: Primavera Sound website

Loop Barcelona. Videoart Festival

For eleven days, Barcelona will be the great international showcase of video art. Loop Barcelona - now in its 8th year - hosts its most extensive programme ever, featuring over one thousand videos in some hundred venues located throughout the city. 

In a restaurant, in a bookshop and even in a flat specially rented for the occasion, video art comes to the whole city for eleven days of Loop Barcelona, the most important international event in visual creation in existence.

Artists presenting works include Michael Snow, Perejaume, John Baldessari, Miquel Barceló, Isabel Coixet, Eulàlia Valldosera and Bill Viola.

Among the videoforums that have been prepared, you might find yourself inspired by a meeting with film director Hannah Collins, who has a joint project with Ferran Adrià, or by seeing what television arts presenter Jef Cornelis has to say.

You can also see Miquel Barceló’s live creation of a piece of art at the Museu de Ceràmica de Barcelona.

More inf@: Loop Barcelona

Walking with dinosaurs in Barcelona

Dinosaurs come back to life near B-Hotel and Hotel Barcelona Universal.

65 million years later, and the dinosaurs are back. The show “Walking with Dinosaurs” re-creates the era these creatures lived in.

More specifically, following the guidance of scientists, fifteen life-sized dinosaurs capable of moving and roaring have been built, including the terrifying Tyrannosaurus Rex. The staging at Palau Sant Jordi offers its audience a chance to take part in these pre-historic reptiles’ struggle for survival.

It’s a dazzling arena spectacle of unprecedented size and quality set to captivate young and old alike. Marvel at the story of their 200 million year domination of life on earth. Watch them walk. Hear the roar. Be there as they fight for survival and supremacy. From the ripple of their skin to the glint in their eye, you will know the dinosaurs really have returned! So make sure you have your seat to see the return of the dinosaurs!

Where: Palau Sant Jordi
When: Until May 9th, 2010
More info: Walking with Dinosaurs

XXXII El Corte Inglés Race - Ciutat de Barcelona

Next Sunday, May 30th 2010, El Corte Inglés Race will again bring athletes and amateurs to Barcelona streets, on which is the largest urban race in Europe.

 Registration, totally free, is already open and everyone can join the race. You can register both by internet or personally at El Corte Inglés shopping centers. Registration will finish on May 27th through internet; or May 29th on shopping centers.

All participants will receive for free a a fragment of the original tartan of the Estadi Olímpic de Montjuïc, inaugurated on the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, and recently renovated. And the first 10.000 participants will also receive a free ticket for the European Athletics Championship to be held in Barcelona during July 2010.

El Corte Inglés Race is one of the most important and better known popular races. This is greatly due to the support given by both public and private institutions and, most of all, to the massive response of the citizens of Barcelona who, through their participation, have made it possible for the celebration of this sporting event to be eagerly expected year after year. By the year 1994 the number of participants in the Cursa had grown to 109,457 athletes, a number of runners that still today holds a Guinness Record.

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