Helping to tap into the developing world

It enlisted the help of Cass Business School to devise a programme of one day sessions to help executives in UK firms exploit the potential of exporting to emerging markets, and last week it held its first class at Cass' City offices.

Parveen Thornhill, acting international trade director at UKTI, said: "We identified that experienced exporters faced barriers when they were between two and 10 years of exporting.

"They were success-fully exporting but, maybe beginning to look at emerging markets only at the two-year mark."

She said the difficulties came in a variety of guises.

"These firms face barriers such as different intellectual property rules and regulations in the countries they are trying to export to," said Parveen.

"They can have different customs, business etiquette and product standards. The research suggests these are all problems."

A series of one day-courses, aimed at experienced exporters, attempts to tackle these issues.

Called the Executive Development Programme (EDP), it runs alongside a year-long project called Gateway to Global Growth, which offers assistance to small and medium businesses that export goods.

The EDP aims to reach around 200 firms through the courses.

The preparatory work involved a number of debating sessions between UKTI, international trade advisers and Cass, which was the chosen provider of the courses following a tendering process in February.

The business school's associate director Dimitrios Fountas devised the final courses.
Rather than looking at exporting as a way out of trouble, Dimitrios prefers to see the project as providing "opportunities" for British SMEs.

He said: "During the last few years the international business landscape has been constantly challenged.

"This includes long established financial institutions facing the possibility of failure and tax regulations that foreign govern-ments will put to exporters.

"This is a very challenging en-vironment and in trying to help British companies look at new markets, it's UKTI's understanding that they will have to have a unique range of tools to stay ahead of the competition and make the most of these new opportunities.

"With every challenging environment there are opportunities. Those who best manage the risks in dealing with emerging markets are the ones who will succeed."

Dimitrios said he was delighted with how the first courses went.

He said: "The feedback from the first day session was off the scale. We were very happy.

"This is my baby and so I wanted to sit in on it and there was one magical moment when the professor who delivered the course was facilitating a conversation between one company that exports to the US and another that is looking at doing that. There was a real synergy between them. That's what we want."

Go to ukti.gov.uk.