It’s an undisputed fact that we need to have more firms exporting from the UK for the economy to grow. Our Minister, Lord Green, was in London last week with the Prime Minister to launch a national challenge to find more new exporters. Read more on how you can get involved here , and Lord Green himself has been blogging about it - see what he says here
In the North West we are following this up with our own event on December 12th in the Concorde Suite at Manchester Airport. If you’re not exporting at the moment but thinking about it you will find the day invaluable with some great speakers lined up. We’re being ably supported by the Chambers of Commerce in the region and especially by Price Waterhouse Coopers and HSBC. Experts from these organisations as well as advisors from UKTI will be on hand to offer you the specialist advice you need. I’d love to see as many of you there as possible so please get in touch with me directly and I will make sure you get a formal invitation to this very important event.
I was thinking back (in the mists of time) to when I first began exporting myself and to the sorts of issues that you will face. I suppose the first thing to say about exporting is that Harold Macmillan was absolutely right – exporting is fun. In addition to experiencing different cultures, languages and what may well appear to be completely different tastes and market demands, nothing beats the exhilaration of winning your first order from a far flung country, following it up with repeat orders and building up a successful business. But exporting does take hard work and requires resource to be successful. There are several factors you will need to consider before you begin your export journey:
- Will you need to adapt your product offer to suit overseas markets?
- Are there any regulatory requirements you need to take into account?
- How will you select the most suitable markets to begin your journey?
- What effect will different languages and culture have on your ways of working?
- Will you be able to find customers directly or will you need to have other channels or routes to market, using agents or distributors for example?
- How important will it be to have ready availability of stock in country to satisfy demand and will you need to have access to resource on the ground to provide after sales service?
- Will you need to change your promotion planning?
- How will you protect your intellectual property?
- And finally, and most importantly, how will you get paid? Always remember it’s a gift until you’re paid!
I’m going to blog on these subjects over the coming weeks and I hope you will find them useful but to get the best personal help come along to see us on December 12th. We’ll be delighted to see you.