As Managing Director of Righttrack, a now successful and well-established training consultancy I started from the garage of the family home in 1988, I had often thought about branching out into a foreign market. However, following the recession of 1990, I become even more determined not to have all my eggs in the ‘UK basket’. After extensive research, and a strange affinity I’d always had for the region, I decided to pursue the Middle East.
One of the first things we did was commission an Overseas Market Introduction Service from UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) which was invaluable and helped us decide that this was the right step to take. Although initially the shiny new world of Dubai was attractive, the rapidly expanding feeding frenzy meant higher competition.
In 1999, UKTI organised a Trade Mission to Kuwait. This was where I decided to go for first. I was one of 15 representatives from all sorts of UK business, from titanium manufacturers to a company selling condoms! Nonetheless, we were all exploring new opportunities together, under the wing of UKTI.
On that trip we were given some great advice from UKTI and the British Embassy Commercial Team, which included:
1. Be prepared to adapt your services and products to the market conditions
2. Don’t expect to pick up contracts on the first few visits
3. Persevere and don’t give up
Righttrack specialises in providing bespoke learning and development in management training, customer service training, sales skills development, and equality and diversity training to public and private organisations. Training is by no means the easiest ‘product’ to promote in other countries and it presents a list of challenges such as ensuring the training meets local cultural and legal expectations and requirements.
One of the first things UKTI advised was to make sure the training material we were providing was culturally relevant.
We knew immediately that certain training subjects were not right for Kuwait, so we struck those from the list. Then we started investing time in adapting programme structures in line with the local preference for longer programme duration. We wrote new scenarios into the training material to feature local names and challenges. We set up a ‘Kuwait picture library’ to make sure that all imagery was culturally appropriate and checked through activities to ensure they were suitable. We trained all our Learning & Development specialists about the do’s, don’ts, what’s and the wherefores in preparation for the striking cultural differences.
In the early noughties, British and American soft-skills training was perceived as the best in the world. High-profile clients wanted programmes delivered in English to demonstrate commitment to providing the best for their managers and employees. Yet it still took time and commitment to see results - and we soon saw that the final two pieces of advice from UKTI also rang true. We returned repeatedly to this wonderful country and worked hard to build relationships with people. Winning the trust of individuals was essential to establishing ourselves and winning business. We did persevere, we didn’t give up and we did win business - lots of it.
However, as time went on we saw a dramatic change in the market.
The Kuwaiti government launched an initiative to encourage Kuwait-based organisations to increase the number of Kuwaiti nationals in the workplace. We truly appreciated the reasons why this was happening, and in our hearts know this is the right way for things to develop, but as more and more companies increased employment of Kuwaiti-born managers and staff, fewer Training Managers sought programmes run by British or American trainers. Instead, they started asking for programmes to be delivered in Arabic and more and more began looking for local trainers.
The words of the UKTI rang in our ears again and we immediately started to explore how we could adapt to new market conditions. Our first response was to contract bilingual trainers from various parts of the world. But it wasn’t (and still isn’t) easy to find highly experienced, engaging training consultants that speak English and Arabic fluently.
Trying to recruit experienced Kuwaiti born or local trainers was also near impossible. Kuwait is a small nation with seemingly few who understood the type of experiential learning that is the hallmark of the Righttrack brand. So we decided to develop our own local, bilingual trainers.
At the end of October 2013, we carefully designed a high-engaging, bespoke Train the Trainer programme to develop the skills and training style of Kuwaiti trainers and communicate the Righttrack values and brand. Everyone who has attended so far has passed the final assessments with flying colours. We feel very proud of our new team of Kuwaiti trainers; all are now ready to facilitate learning to our clients in their own country.
For those in the early stages of exporting, we know from experience that the advice provided by UKTI and British Embassy teams is sound, and bears repeating:
1. Be prepared to adapt your services and products to the market conditions
2. Don’t expect to pick up contracts on the first few visits
3. Persevere and don’t give up!
Kasmin's company was helped by UKTI's international trade advice. If you'd like to make an appointment for a face-to-face meeting with an international trade adviser get in touch quickly and simply online